Frozen Solitude

'Remember what father taught you!'

The door was wide open, all the windows were open; my safe haven appeared to have been infiltrated. It took a moment to register that I had the only key for the cabin and that there was no-one around for miles around. Who would be stupid enough to venture into the woods without a purpose in October? How would they have got in? Why would they want to? It's not like I have any possessions worth taking in there. All I harbour are the bare living essentials and my typewriter...I gasped. What if my work had been ruined by the wind? Or even worse, stolen by a shadow in the night?

I rushed back towards the cabin, praying to the Lord Christ that my work was all in one piece. I had no time to redo this. I had already wasted my time having a nap and wandering out into the snow to investigate something that was surely just a mind trick, but was it actually a mere trick of the mind? The figure was so lifelike and the way it stood, it looked like it deep in thought and carrying a hefty weight on it's mind. Something was stewing up inside it's head, eating away at it's sanity. It looked so harmless and innocent from afar but up close, I felt so insecure and cautious around it.

Maybe it was just the fact that it was a stranger in what I thought was a secluded destination? Or the clothes it was wearing? They looked so dirty and rotten; like someone had dug it up from the grave and found it wasn't as dead as when It went in the ground.

When I reached a distance of less than 5 metres from the cabin, I noticed that the door wasn't wide open anymore, it was slightly ajar instead of the state it had been in when I was standing back by the figure. I stood for a moment, hesitant to nudge the door open slightly in fright that I may unsettle whatever had managed to pick the lock of my small cabin.  

"There's nothing of worth in there, if I were you I would make my way out of there now, I've seen plenty of your kind, you petty common crook, if you leave quietly and my cabin is in tact, I will cease to harm you..." 

I paused for a brief moment to allow time for a reply...nothing was heard. Just the harsh winds blowing through the trees, creating an eerie, wispy sounding noise that was quite unsettling. It was accompanied by the fact that I was alone in the woods with no means of communication with civilization. I could just cling on to the hope that the coachman would arrive dead on time and I could make a hasty get away from this...this thing, that decided I was a satisfactory target for it's mind games.

I slapped myself, 'Pull yourself together man! Remember what father taught you!', I regretted thinking about that day. It provided me with excellent knowledge on the impossibility of an encounter with the spirit world. However, what I experienced that day and what I just saw have pushed me into the trap of questioning my father's words. Something I'm sure he's right about but one can't help but challenge these thoughts, and this has probably been accountable for the downfall of many a mad man.