Oct 19, 2010

Goldilocks

By Ayesha Haq

It was a cold dark night and the girl with golden hair shivered as the cool winter breeze
touched her. The sounds of howling wolves echoed in the huge forest. The moon was
playing hide and seek with clouds casted an eerie shadow of the tree she sat against.
Shuddering from fear and cold, Goldilocks hugged her legs to keep herself warm. She
came to collect wood with her mother in the forest and had gone too far playing, ending
up losing her way. She was hungry since then and had given up searching for way back
home.

Just as she had convinced her brain to ignore her rumbling stomach, a wonderful aroma
of roasted beans filled her nose. The smell hit her brain so hard that, not caring about the
scary forest or wild animals, Goldilocks began following it.

Deep in the forest, hidden among the ancient trees she saw a house. She knocked on the
door hoping to meet some kind people who would give her food and help find way to her
house. She kept knocking and waited but to her absolute misfortune no one answered.
Not being able to resist any more hunger, cold and fear she ignored her morals and broke
in.

It was the strangest house Goldilocks had ever seen. Almost a dozen candles kept in
skull shaped candle stands lit the entire room. An unpleasant smell dominated the thick
air of the room. A triangular mahogany table at the centre took all her attention. The
food on the table looked fresh, hot and was surprisingly unattended. Goldilocks dashed
towards the table and dug into the biggest bowl of roasted beans she had come for. As she
munched on them, she sensed taste of blood and almost vomited. It seemed like someone
had topped the beans with thick warm blood. She tried the next bowl and couldn’ t find it
eatable either. Tempted with hope and inevitable hunger, she then tried the smallest bowl
and not finding it exactly delicious, she took it as a blessing anyway and ate it all.

Even after the cluttering of utensils and noise when no one came into view, goldilocks
concluded that she was alone in the house. The hollow eyes of the skulls pierced into
her soul and wherever she looked, they were there. Exhausted, she walked towards the
fireplace where three chairs of different sizes were kept. Goldilocks sat on the biggest
chair and felt her back burn. She shrieked and got up instantly. It felt as if someone had
set the metal of the chair on fire. She touched the second chair and pulled her hand away
as it too, was burning hot.

Goldilocks then sat on the smallest chair which to her utter surprise was warm and
comfortable. Just as she relaxed, her chair started swinging and broke, dropping her hard
on the floor with a loud thud. It seemed as if someone had deliberately pulled out every
leg off the chair. Scared, she moved back and hit the candle stand which fell on the floor
and the flame put out by hitting the plush red carpet. Goldilocks could not go back to the
forest and no matter how spooky the house was, she had to stay.

Looking around, she saw a staircase tiled with black and white checks, resembling an
enormous zigzagged chessboard. She ascended the creaking stairs. Landing at a narrow
passage, she entered a room and sighed with relief at the sight of three beds she could

sleep on. She jumped on the biggest bed but sprang up as a sudden twitch ran down her
spine. She felt as if she had been poked by a hundred needles all at once. Goldilocks was
sure of something being wrong with the house. Recalling the beans and the chairs, she
skipped the second bed and jumped on the smallest bed. As expected, it was comfortable
and in no time she drifted off to sleep.

Goldilocks had hardly been asleep when the chill from the cool wind coming in
through the window across the bed woke her up. She hadn’ t noticed it before she slept.
Wondering if there was an evil spirit in the house that kept scaring or her tired mind was
playing games with her, she shut down the window and tried to sleep again.

As she laid thinking of excuses to tell the people of house for her intruding and hoping
them to be nice enough to forgive her, the noises coming from outside the house
interrupted her thoughts. She went to the window and saw three hooded figures chanting
something in unison walking towards the house, they varied in sizes exactly as the beds,
chairs and bowls had suggested.

Walking in a demented way, she saw the biggest of three figures dragging something that
looked like a dead animal. The air smelled of blood and goldilocks felt nausea as it filled
her nose. She was now sure of them not being so nice.

The people and the house now made perfect sense to her. They were occults and would
definitely not like an intruder. She had read about them. Gripped with fear, not thinking
how high, she jumped from the window as the hooded figures disappeared in the house.
She ran in the dark forest which now looked much less spooky and kept running till the
house was out of sight. She just could not be happier at the big save of life.

3 comments:

Lamia Fahim said...

I love how you've introduced and developed the element of horror, and your descriptions are vivid. Very interesting story. :)

Marium Ibrahim said...

I liked it and all of the descriptions, but i didn't like the end. How did she jump from a high window and make it out okay? I think you should have killed her.

Maha asif said...

This is actually a very well twistedd genre storry..:P:P... loved it..:)

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