The Darkness

Skeleton

Walking through the forest, I couldn't help but notice the lighting of the forest slowly dimming. Night was coming, and we had no protection. As the lighting of the world dissipated, all sound ceased. It was nerve wracking, absolute silence, it wasn't natural. Then I saw something, it was just standing there, as if all the life was sucked from it. I walked closer, it was white and see through looking, almost like a...

"Skeleton!" My sister yelled.

"Shh, maybe it won't hear us," I whispered, but the skeleton turned, walking towards us, drawing back it's bow. I stood in front of my sister.

"Please don't shoot, we mean no harm." I pleaded. The skeleton froze, like it heard me. It just stood there. Then, amazingly it lowered its bow. It then grabbed two arrows, turned and shot them up into a tree, we heard a cutting noise, and two apples fell at the skeleton's feet. The skeleton got its bow, tied five arrows and the apples to it, and put the bow on the ground. Then the skeleton kicked it over with what was left of his foot. I reached down and picked up the weapon, untied the apples and gave one to Kate. The bow had a string with a feather and a butter nugget tied to it, shimmering in the darkness.

"Thank you." I whispered. The skeleton nodded its head in reply, and motioned us to follow. Kate and I nodded and started to walk after it. As we walked, he suddenly pulled out another bow, and shot at a spider out of no where, the arrow going straight through it's head, green slime oozing from it.

"Yuck." Kate said.

"But I thought spiders and skeletons were friends," I said confused. The skeleton just stopped, turned around to shake it's head at me and kept going. After a while we reached the edge of a rain forest, light emitting from the lush greenery. We walked past the skeleton to look into the vines, and we were greeted by a lit, monster free area. I turned to say thank you, to find the skeleton gone. On the ground was a note written in scratchy handwriting:

'The decoration on your bow will show other skeletons that you mean peace so they won't attack you. Beware the darkness.

"I didn't know skeletons could write." Kate said.

"Me neither." I replied.

"Why did the skeleton help us?"

"I'm not sure, but lets be grateful for it's help." We started to make our way into the dense greenery, towards the lit area. When we pulled back the last strand of vines, we couldn't believe what we saw.