Micah Sherwood

Always, forever Micah Sherwood

The monologue became everything. The sentences flowed rapidly from the presence, from a shadowland unknown. The boy knew that the words and he were one and the same. He was immobile as the apparitions studied him, appraised him, while he pulled the sheet back over his head where he remained, frozen in anticipation of some arcane judgement. The ghostly oration persisted, and Micah continued to hear the twisted verses from beneath the bedclothes. Time seemed to halt as the speech droned on-and-on through the murk without pause until morning light broke the night and the whispers stilled. Fear can enslave, but the night's visitation taught him that it could also destroy. The pranks and spectral visitors, the 'thing' with red eyes and the fetid odors - these emanations were nothing less than fear made living. Micah's essence understood this fundamental reality, an innate component of existence impossible to verbalize. It was a paradigm built upon a paradox, a sensible enigma. The boy rationalized this mentally. The weird happenings had been an exciting plaything, his private little haunting. The night's visitation, however, proved something much more than an innocent and secretive game.