Nothing like a word prompt to get a story started. Blame Brian at Bonnywood Manor for this light and dark offering.

Last Night.

Hugo approached the final room slowly,
His heartbeat flickering along with the one remaining candle he held aloft,
In the dark corridor his guts grumbled lowly,
His fruitless search for a hidden chamber would have flummoxed Lara Croft.

Perched high on a mist-shrouded mountain top
The old chateau had looked a delightfully romantic place to stay,
A memorable, if unplanned overnight stop,
Now within these walls ‘twould be sweet relief to see a new day.

The room he sought came to light,
Turning the dusty rusted key in the door, it groaned in its cobwebbed lock,
What should have been a welcome sight
Had the rank air of abandonment, Hugo saw with awwwww, then shock.

His nose wrinkled at the ancient stink,
The room filled him with disgust, but what made his hot blood run cold
Was in the cracked mirror above the sink;
A crazed sight no human being would- should- could wish to behold.

In his heart he felt the dread,
He held the candle to his face and felt his fine young face fill with misery,
His red-rimmed eyes, flat and dead
Strained deeply in the darkly reflected shadows, yet there was nothing to see.

His hand went to his tender throat,
He hoped to wake in the morn, put this down to a close shave,
He held to that hope, desperate, remote,
Till his hand came away, bloody and cold, cold as the bloody grave.

How he’d been welcomed by his host,
The Count had celebrated, feted his arrival like a long lost friend,
Hugo had stood for toast after toast,
He recalled swaying, and saying he hoped the night would never end.

But what kind of half-life is it to lurk
In the shadows, in the twilight till another endless day is done?
Hugo is no fan of night work
So he stands, face to the east, yearning, almost burning to see the sun.

 

©Obbverse