story i wrote the other day

Originally intended to be a part of a larger story before I realised this single chapter's potential as a short story. Admittedly, it's not all I wanted it to be - probably in desperate need of another proofread, but I had to stop myself from changing it any further because I tend to obsess over perfecting these things to the point where I rework them to death, and I'd really rather just take the lessons I learned here and apply them to the next thing I write. Of course, all of this is probably of no real interest to the reader. 

However, there is one other thing I wish to clarify beforehand: although on the surface I have left aspects of this story vague in the hopes of crafting a better atmosphere, I have also done this in a want to create a more ambiguous theme: I wish for the reader to decide for themselves what is really going on in the scene portrayed, and to draw their own conclusions on what it means.

That being said, I was promised a fish in trade for this and I'm not one to turn down fish, so I present to whoever cares, a short story I call The Stranger & the Creature.

There before the stranger - there in the cold night, there towered the mansion. 

Its colours could hardly be discerned in the dark, yet its expanse in form was too great to ignore. Its windows in linear rows were all draped by white curtains from within, yet a warm, yellow light emanated from them, and the stranger could hear music, conversation and laughter from behind the walls.

Lowering and folding his tattered umbrella, he walked onto the building's porch, with weariness in every step. It was a terribly small and linear thing, almost more like a pathway leading directly to the door. Sandstone columns stood on either side of its two front steps, and its wooden floorboards appeared orange in the light of a small lantern situated on its low ceiling, which was surrounded by an excessive quantity of moths. As the stranger stood before the door, he noticed that a bench had been situated vertically to either side of him, and behind each a row of well tended plants. He rang the doorbell.

He sat on one of the benches and attempted to look into the surrounding landscape - at least, what little of it he could see. The night seemed almost hateful in its nature, as though it watched the stranger in envy, coveting to engulf him - yet it could never pass the barricading illuminance.

From the safety of the lantern's small circle of light, the stranger soon caught sight of an odd form in the shadows. It stood near the light's rim, an amorphous silhouette shifting and flailing, like the gentle flame in the lantern - but it lacked all its gentle grace. At one moment it rose high, before dwindling just as quickly; protrusions would grow from its sides as though reaching for something, and then they too sought upwards, before withdrawing altogether. All of these actions were performed with a horrid rapidity.

As the stranger scrutinised this bizarre thing further, his vision became further adjusted; the night gave in and gradually lifted the silhouette's veil of amorphism: its protrusions began to resemble emaciated, angular limbs, thrown haphazardly at nothing, yet held onto by a dark, twisting and turning body. This distorted performance seemed almost akin to a ridiculing mimicry of a formless, improvised dance - one the stranger found dreadful to watch, yet he dreaded even more that it should catch sight of him. He quivered. The flame in the lantern burned softly.

The creature's legs staggered, prancing heedlessly, yet moving as though they could not withhold the weight of the body; its footsteps were completely silent. The arms reached hastily outwards in all directions, then frantically receded inward and rushed over its body, before extending once again. It seemed almost panicked in this vulgar display. 

This bastardisation of performance only increased in its ferocity over the course of only moments. There it flitted in the shadows, forever separated by a mere flame, yet still it resided only steps away, seeming so fixated on its task as never take notice of the baffled stranger. As much as he feared that its focus should be averted to him, perhaps he feared even more the answer to his utmost question: what abomination could this possibly be? Yet, as he asked himself this and continued to observe the wretched oddity, his look of repulsion and horror slowly changed into one of surprise and wonder. 

The chaotic haste that had defined this creature's movements slowly ceased. The once weary and staggering legs carried its body now with seemingly effort, and its prancing had ceased into gentle leaps and steps with the utmost care and impossible precision, all accompanied by the arms that had once seemed so brittle and erratic, now waving and soaring through the dark with such alien grace that enchanted the stranger's thoughts with awe.

The stranger rose from his bench, and turned towards the creature. The cold ceased. The sounds from within the mansion reached his ears no longer, and though the flame in the lantern burned still as it had before, it seemed now so dull, its grace so terribly false, in contrast to that of the creature and the foreign wonder it conveyed that seemed now to call him forth. With the same face of awe and a thousand curiosities within him, he stepped towards the creature.

The door opened.

"Ah, there you are. I apologise for the delay."

Slowly, the stranger turned to face the speaker. There stood a well-dressed man in the open doorway. 

"Come in, come in! We've been waiting for you," the man continued as he made way for the stranger, who passed through without a word. As he entered the mansion, he looked over his shoulder into the night.

The creature stared back at him motionlessly.

The man closed the door.