Short Stories

A Short Story

Kayla had fallen asleep easily that night, the pressure of her day forcing her mind to shut its thought processes off. She took her shower beforehand, washing the grime off her porcelain skin, and brushed her teeth slowly, her hand failing to stay lifted. Finally, she abandoned the idea of brushing her wet, red hair for the better thought of sleep and her bed.

She dreamed of strange things, almost as if her mind had ordered the sci-fi and fantasy overload. Dragons flew around her head, dark skies their only domain. Elves pranced around fires, holding hands and chanting in a strange language. A town flew across her vision, blurry and devoid of life; ghosts appeared after the town, also blurry and staring blankly ahead. Robots shot at her, angrily beeping at her for intruding on them. The last thing she paused on was the strangest dream she had ever seen; a never-ending road.

No light shone on the sides of this world, and dark skies prevented the dream sun from shining. This road she saw, it seemed to sketch on forever, black and unmarked, dark and lonely, however a person would describe a dark road without cars. Except, she realized, there was a car on this road, its headlights shining out a path through the darkness.

Now, being a girl from a poor place, Kayla had never seen a car’s headlights at night, but she knew now that those two lights were not headlights; for they swung up and down unnaturally. No sound reached her ears, and she was positive that cars make noises no matter where they are. A single chill ran down her spine as the abnormal lights approached; now she saw more than just two, there were nearly twenty of these lights swinging in perfect sync.

“They’re coming… the black box men are coming for you. You can’t escape, they’ll get you…” Strange voices called to her, causing even more chills to run down her spine. “Can’t run, you can’t run, they’ll catch you… the black box men will get you. They’re coming; coming for you.”

The lights approached her, and now she could see the figures’ strange forms.

They were tall, boxy men, fully black with no features on their heads. Strange circle lights were on the ends of their flat hands. She saw no fingers on their hands, and through the darkness she could make out the glow from the lights.

Kayla turned away from the gruesome creatures, and started to run from them. She dashed madly from them but her efforts were soon stalled by another thing, a car burning on the side of the road, smoke rising up in the dark sky, glowing strangely. As she approached the car, she noticed the figure of a man in the front seat.

“Hey!” She called out. “You need to get out!”

Realizing that calling to him was useless; he was probably knocked out from hitting the wheel during the crash, Kayla ran toward the car. She struggled to open his door, finally ripping it open with huge tug. Kayla pulled him from the front seat, careful not to breathe the glowing smoke. Glancing behind her Kayla’s heart skipped a beat as she saw more lights coming from the dark landscape beside the road.

A cold sweat came to her as she realized that she’d have to drag this unconscious, bleeding man along the road. She closed her eyes, and imagined a car coming up in front of them. Suddenly, a brief wind blew in her face, and she opened her to a black van with no headlights.

“Thank goodness!” She muttered as she shouldered the man and struggled towards the passenger’s side of the van. Opening the door, she heaved the man into the seat, and clicked his seat belt in. Next, she hoped into the driver’s side and turned the key that was already in the ignition.

As she drove down the endless road, Kayla thought about what had happened. “That was so strange! In all my 20 years of living and dreaming I’ve never done or seen anything like that!”