It

[WP] "If you hear me calling you from the front door before the sun has risen, enter the closet and try to not make any noise"

*****

Everything changed when my mother disappeared. One day we just woke up and she was gone. It made our little clearing in the northern woods all the more lonely. It seemed like laughter and song vanished from our home when she went. It amazed me how quiet the snow covered forest was now that there was one fewer person trying to scrape a living out of the unforgiving land.

Father left for the first time that evening at sunset when my sister and I were cleaning up from dinner. He came back inside from checking on the goats, and just... looked at us for a minute. "I am going into the forest tonight. I will be back tomorrow morning. If you hear me calling before the sun is up hide under your bed and don't make a sound."

That first night was the worst. I don't think I could have slept more than a half hour. As I lay awake next to my sister, alone for the first time in my life my mind created endless scenarios for what was happening in the woods. I thought of bears lumbering toward our cabin with wolves slinking in the darkness behind them. I saw my father ripped to pieces in my mind's eye. I felt the trees closing in around me. What if he couldn't find his way back? What if some beast attacked him? Worst of all, what if his warning came true and we heard him calling before morning?

Finally as the sun broke over the trees and the first hints of pink light filtered through the gaps in the shutters, I heard the door open. The heavy thud and drag of his boots portrayed a sense of exhaustion, and I could feel a new weight settle down on our home. That day my sister and I did most of the chores while our father slept we hoped this would be the end of it, but he left again as the sun set.

Over the next several months we fell into an odd kind of rhythm. Sometimes it was easy to forget that I had a father and that it wasn't just my sister and I on our own. We saw Father when he came home and when we ate dinner. Other than that we took care of the animals and Father did... whatever he did at night. This like all other things could not last.

Some months later I was awoken in the dark by a crash on the door followed by a blood-curdling scream. I clapped a hand over my sisters mouth before she could shriek in surprise, and rolled us both under the bed as quietly as possible. More thuds came from the door. "Let me in!!!" I heard my father's voice shriek hysteria giving his voice an edge to it that was never present before. He screamed again. I could barely breathe and I felt my sister trembling against me. The screams softened to whimpers.

"Please, its coming for me you have to let me in, please please please please please."

I held my sister tight against me to stop her from going to the door. He didn't need let in, our door didn't have a lock. We were the only ones who lived this far into the forest, so what was happening. Outside the door there was continued whimpering and begging. Then he started to shout at us he called us horrible names and cursed us saying we didn't care about him and that we were leaving him to die. He wished us slow horrible deaths and told us we would starve or freeze without him. The hours drug on the sound of our father gibbering and begging and insulting us the only noise. Until suddenly it stopped right before the first rays of light broke through the trees. We lay under the bed until late in the morning frozen with fear. In the end, thirst and hunger drove us from under the bed along with the discomfort from lying in our own urine. When we opened the door the homestead appeared as it always had. The animals weren't disturbed, the pantry wasn't disrupted. There weren't even tracks in the snow. The only sign there was anything wrong was a long deep scratch in our front door.

This was all weeks ago. Father never came home again, but after that nigh it didn't really surprise me. We have continued on with chores as best we could and at best we are surviving, but there are some things we just can't do and neither of us will go into the forest to go hunting or gather firewood. Firewood that our father collected last fall is running low, and privately I'm not sure there is enough to last us until spring. There haven't been any more late night visits either.

That doesn't mean anything though. I don't know what my mother did or what she awoke deep in the forest, but it won't stop until it has all of us. It will be back and I won't let it in. I will let us both freeze to death under the bed before I face whatever is out there. Before whatever happened to my parents happens to us.

*****

The end.

Happy New Month folks. Thankfully, this mpnts seems to be fast, although I don't know what I'm running towards. Have a great day!