Week 1 Storytelling: The Haunted Castle

Once Upon a Time.....

Rachel decided to go on vacation one day, and decided she wanted to rent a cabin in the middle of the woods in order to get away from all of the stresses surrounding her everyday life. As she sat in front of the fire minding her own business, she heard a noise off in the distance. At first, she hesitated, but she soon looked out the window to investigate. She saw nothing, but still heard noises, so she grabbed her binoculars and looked out the window once more. She then saw the crazy axe man that she had heard about in the news coming towards her cabin!

She threw her shoes on and ran out the door as fast as she could. She ran northeast toward the closest town. She probably ran for miles before stopping to take a rest in a group of trees, where she was decently protected. She had finally caught her breath when she turned around to keep heading to town, and spotted an escaped convict about 30 feet away from her. The escaped convict hadn’t seen her until she stood up and leaves crunched underneath her feet. As soon as he saw her, he froze and stared at her for what felt like a lifetime. Suddenly, he ran towards her, like he was going to attack, but instead her ran immediately past her and continued running towards the axe man.

 Shaken, Rachel returned to her journey and began heading for the closest town. She kept walking until it was almost nightfall. Panicking, she began running to find shelter. She came upon an empty field where there was nothing except a very plain building in the center. She entered the building and sat on a bench inside. She finally had a moment to sit down and relax. She sat, breathing and listening to the silence. She sat like that for quite some time before finally leaning her head back onto the wall. However, when her head fell against the wall, she felt something next to her head. When she moved away, something fell on top of her. It was a skeleton! She realized she was in an unmarked graveyard. As soon as she realized what had happened, she fled faster than she ever had before and kept running toward town.

 It was about 20 minutes from nightfall when she finally reached a house. This house was old looking and very ornate. It had ivy framing the outside edges and gorgeous bay windows. There was a faint light coming from inside. Rachel knocked on the door, but no one answered. She peered in the windows, but the house appeared to be abandoned. She went back to the front door in hopes that it would be unlocked and pushed the door open. The inside of the house was even more beautiful, but in an eerie way. She looked around for someone in the house and even yelled asking if anyone was there. She received no answer, but felt as if she was being watched. She decided to find a bedroom to sleep in for the night, feeling assured that the axe man had not followed her this far. As she was laying down waiting to fall asleep, she heard footsteps outside of her door, but when she went to look, there was no one there. She laid back down and had almost closed her eyes when a shadow flashed past her door. Again, she saw no one outside in the hallway.

As she lay back down, she saw the glow of eyes in the corner and heard breathing…..

To be continued….

Author’s Note:

For the purposes of this story, I used the following motifs: Haunted castle, graveyard, axe man, and escaped convict. I thought this story would be fun because it is completely made up by me, rather than recreated from another story. I chose these items because they are in line with the character going northeast toward town and I felt they fit into my story really well. I chose the name Rachel because I have a long-time friend named Rachel who loves to tell stories.

Bibliography:

Map  Tom Gauld

Axe Man  Clipart

Convicts  Wikimedia

Mausoleum  Wikimedia

Haunted house  Deviant Art

Scary eyes  Flickr