Spooky Story Contest (EU) - Entry thread

[Ansetsu]

Fixed the pic link to the story

Character Name: Snowy Fox
Server: Ragnarok
Choice: Chocobo Noble Barding


Another Warring Triad another day? R.i.p Sophia we all laughed, as i kneeled down and picked up her card from the floor clutching it in my hand and slowly adding it to my deck.
You Ready Snowy? I heard my name being called in the distance from my fellow adventurer's as they started to exit Containment Bay P1T6 Ex.
Coming! i called back as i stood up staring where Sophia the Goddess once stood. A gentle breeze drifted through the air of the Containment Bay with an eerie silence,
and thats when i heard it.. "Can you bring Equilibrium" her voice.. but she was gone the fight was won, the victory was ours!
Surely i was hearing things i reassured my self grasping my Sophic Cane and running towards the exit.
Outside every one was waiting,"you ok snowy? look's like you have seen a ghost!" Ansetsu teased. "Yeh i'm fine" i replyed, as i started to cast teleport.
Felt good to be outside away from that Containment Bay!.
I zoned into my housing ward and started to head towards my house looking up at the night sky on the way, such a beautiful sky i whispered to my self as i watched a shooting star gracefully pass by. Reaching my house i was soon greeted by my chocobo with a soft "Kweh" as he stood in his stable's, patting him gently i headed towards the door of my house and said "Goodnight."
Closing the door behind me i headed towards my Orchestrion shutting it of for the night, and then headed towards the stairs kicking off my Shire Preceptor's Thighboots and slipped on my Meandering Mog Slippers.
"So tired" i yawned, walking up the stair's and towards my bed dimming the light's on the way and then face planting the nearest pillow. "Hmmm so comfy" i thought as i started to drift into a slumber state of mind. -CREAKKKKK- was that a floor board i just heard creaking? i raised my face out of the pillow and stared into the darkness.
"The unenlightened come..." her voice echoed though my home.. but how? Music from my Orchestrion started to play.. Equilibrium.
I jumped out of bed and headed towards the stairs, a coldness in the air striked fear and terror into my very soul. The floor from under me gave way as darkness
grabbed me down into the dark abyss and below me with a gaping mouth stood forth Sophia's Daughter ready to consume me whole.
"Noooooooo" i screamed in terror!
I jerked up in the bed in a cold sweat, was it just a dream? i stared down at the Sophia card i seemed to be clutching.... slowly staring up to be greeted by an Ansetsu dressed as a moogle "Rise and Shine" he said. Staring at him with my eyebrow twitching i thought, i don't know what's scarier the dream i just had or you as a life sized moogle....

[SnowyFox]

[Aedith]

Character Name: Aedith Tenbe
World Name: Shiva
Prize: Scarf of Wondrous Wit
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'In this place, there is a creature of great malice.' The Lalafell said. 'It is a being of hate and hunger and greed.' His eyes where deep in his skull. His skin was pale and thin. He seemed weak and scared. Alone.
I had come to Mor Dhona. Now, after the Calamity little more than ruins full of war, famine and strife. I just had to come.
It was a weakness. I knew this, yet I could not stand idly by as others suffered.
'Where did it come from?'
'Nobody knows. Not even the Thing itself. But that is not important. What's important is that it devours. Only ever devours.'
I could smell the damp and the mold, deep inside he cave I had met him in. My lips cracked with thirst I was so hungry and tired.
'Why?'
'Because in its core is only emptiness. It is missing warmth and satisfaction and hope. Everything that makes you alive. So it eats everything. It swallows you full. It devours everything you are. It hopes to become whole again.'
I could not see anything but the small man walking in front of me. Sometimes he held his head up high, as if sniffing for something as he lead me deeper underground.
'Can it?'
'No.'
I got nervous. Something was watching me, its eyes full of malice. My fingers were tightly around the daggers on my waist. I knew with terrifying certainty that they would not save me should I need them.
'Can it be killed?'
'Not completely. It has happened before. But it is integral to the structure of things. It is always and everywhere.'
It had gotten even darker. I realized I did not know how to reach the exit anymore.
Quiet terror rose inside of me for I had been lead astray.
'How?“ I asked.
He continued:
'It is a thing of many bodies. It makes you hollow. Creeps inside of you. Becomes you.'
The cold air was like razors on my skin, and as I breathed it filled the void inside of me with pain.
'It is a virus. It spreads. It uses and abuses the bodies it takes. They are the thousands of mouths it feeds with.'
I swallowed heavily and it hurt my throat. When had I eaten last?
'It is an epidemic of greed and hatred and all the hunger there ever was and you will be eaten. Body or soul.'
My legs burned. Muscles screamed to flee. There was something here. Something other. I could no longer sense if it was in the cave or in me and I was so very scared of it.
It did not matter. I just stood petrified, numb with terror and fear and regret as the Lalafell turned around. Tiny. All skin and bones. With dark eyes full of hunger and greed, deep, deep in its skull and so very sharp teeth.
'I have been hungry for so long now.' it said.

[InfiniteMoose]

Character: Polaris Frost
World: Sargatanas
Prize: Chocobo Noble Barding

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After All

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The body was found sitting on the smooth wooden benches of Mih Khetto's Amphitheatre.


"I'd wager he's been dead four or five bells", said the young Midlander kneeling on the wet grass. She didn't look up as she spoke, performing measurements on the victim with a small brass instrument that I didn't recognise. "Signs of a struggle, but not a drop of blood. Same aetheric disturbance as the other cases. And uh, no head. Obviously. Sir."


She sighed, touching her fingertips to the ground to steady herself as she pushed back up to her feet. I gazed down at the pale corpse dispassionately, my head abuzz with thoughts I couldn't quite grasp.


They're so white and so small, but there are so many…


"You reckon this one had bought one of those damnable hats, too?" she asked. I moved away.


They called them "Moogle Heads", and they had become wildly popular this All Saint's Wake. Whimsical, charming and perhaps a little comical, it seemed that even the merchants themselves didn't know where they came from, but they sold, and sold well.


Every last one of the victims had purchased one before their murder. "Damnable hats" indeed.


I've never seen a knife so big


There were more people now, men and women of the Twin Adders in their long yellow coats. A stern Elezen man waved his arms percussively and barked orders in the distance. There was so much noise...


My mouth fills with cotton. Breathing is hard now, but they don't stop


The girl was still talking, "...readings I took were very disturbing. Something entirely unnatural was done to these poor people. Sir, are you listening sir?"


Their hands are so white and so small at my neck, and they're cutting, cutting...


"Sir?"


"Yes, yes, I'm listening Freya..." replied the detective tiredly.


I woke from my daydream with a jolt.


I watched the man from above as he ambled his way through the mud and the grass to his colleague who was still standing over my body.


Neither of them saw me, and few would. How boring.


I fluttered away from the scene, over smooth wooden bridges, across clear, idyllic streams that lined Gridania like veins in marble. Like veins in a body.


I stopped when I heard something peculiar: a young boy calling to me, walking hand in his mother's hand, raising his free arm to point at me. He smiled to me, and I smiled back. He wore one of those wildly popular hats, one that I once wore. It seemed so long ago...


His mother wasn't wearing one, but that was alright. He would have no need for mothers soon. Not once I'd set his pretty head free.


Moogles aren't born, after all. We're made.

[InfiniteMoose]

Forgot image :>

[KittyTayuun]

oh adding on to my details

Character: KittyTayuun
World: Tonberry
Prize: Chocobo Noble Barding

[MoombaDS]

Character: Mist Niviane
World: Odin
Prize: Scarf of Wondrous Wit
_______________

An Ishgardian Tale

'No matter the reason, venture not into the cathedral on the eve of All Saint's Wake!'

For several years these words have kept inquisitive Ishgardian youths from braving the darkened halls of Halone's house of worship.

'But why?'

Always the same question, answered with no more than a stony look and pursed lips. None would speak of the horrors that had occurred on that frightful night, for none truly knew what they had entailed.

Mist grimaced each time she chanced to overhear snatches of such conversations. Though time had healed the gravest of the wounds, her memories yet remained, ever as clear as the waters of an Abalathian spring. Her thoughts wandered back to that night, to memories so vivid they might have been visions granted by the Echo.

「The darkness pressed close, eliciting a soft shudder from her stumbling form. She pulled her cloak tighter against the chill of the cavernous halls. It had grown too quiet.

'A beast', they had said, practically thrusting her through the doors that framed the depths of the cathedral's vaults. Such was their panic that the these were sealed immediately behind her. She had no recourse but to continue, seeking the source of their terror.

A sharp sound shattered the fragile silence.

Mist flinched and drew her sword, brandishing it unsteadily before her in a feeble attempt to ward off unseen nightmares. The scraping. Again the scraping; an infernal rasping of misshapen claws on stone, bubbling forth from the inky depths. A low growl followed in its wake, twisting into an unholy wail as its pitch entered the higher registers.

She breathed a string of curses as she steeled herself, railing at the misfortune that had brought her here on this ominous night. What had she to be afraid of? Fearless warrior of light, slayer of countless dreadwyrms. It didn't help.

The passage twisted onwards, its labyrinthine structure more forbidding than the binding coils had ever been. As she advanced further into the vaults, a deep rumble began to rattle the very walls around her, its volume increasing with each arduous step. The closer it grew, the more she felt her already tenuous courage ebb and wane.

And then it was gone, giving way to a clammy silence. Mist froze in her tracks.

She stifled a soft yelp as something brushed against her calf. The rumbling resumed, its intensity twofold magnified. In horror she turned her gaze downwards, towards its source.」

Her screams that night, echoing from those hallowed halls, gave rise to countless tales of the eldritch horrors that dwelt within the depths of Ishgard's majestic cathedral. Yet none but the warrior of light had set eyes upon them.

This was no mere coincidence - no simple twist of fate. Never would she reveal the truth, for imagine the derision she'd face - the proud warrior of light driven to panic at the brush of a cat.

[KittyTayuun]

Amandine was sophisticated, poised, and cultured. In retrospect, this should have made them suspicious. A lady like her should be presiding over a school in Limsa Liminsa or Gridania, not seeking a position in a small town in Vesper Bay. But at the time, they were too delighted by her application to ask any questions.
School was called into session in the church shortly after the arrival of the teacher. And soon, the children were bringing glowing reports home. “Teacher” was special. Teacher have taught them manners, reading, writing and arithmetic. All the children loved their teacher.
The parents were delighted by the progress their children were making at school. A God-send, said the preacher’s wife.
But not everyone in town was satisfied. Kitty, the local inspector had more sinister stories to tell.
“That woman ain’t natural,” Kitty told the blacksmith, waving a bottle of whisky for emphasis. “I seen her out in the woods after dark, dancing around a campfire and chanting in a strange language.”
“You’re drunk,” said the blacksmith, “Go home and sleep it off.”
Kitty left the smithy, but continued talking wildly about the Teacher in the weeks that followed. A change gradually came over the school children. The pranks that all children played lessened. Their laughter died away. Items began to disappear from houses and farms. When children talked back to their parents, there was a hard-edge to their voices, and they did not apologize for their rudeness, even when punished.
None in town suspected it was the Teacher’s doings.
Kitty, on the other hand, was sure. “That teacher ought to be burned at the stake. She is a witch,” she proclaimed up and down the streets of the town.
The pastor, heard the commotion, ordered her out of his sight. But her words rang in his mind. The children continued to behave oddly. Almost like they were possessed. The preacher decided reluctantly, have to look into it someday soon.
The next day, the merchant’s wife came bursting through his doors.
“Quick pastor, quick,” she cried. “Kitty is running through town with a torch, screaming to burn down the school. The children are still in class!”
They raced to the church with other townsfolk who followed them were met by a huge blaze. Frantic parents beat at the flames with wet sacks, or threw buckets of water from the pump into the inferno. I was cackling unrepentantly from the far side of the building.
The church burnt for several hours, and when it was finally extinguished, there was nothing left. Mourning parents salvaged for somerthing of their children to bury.
The teacher’s burnt body was buried deep in the ground, while the children’s smaller bodies were interred beneath wooden crosses. Of all the student’s in the school that fall, only the pastor’s son survived.
To this day, voices can be heard in the graveyard of at Burnt Church, chanting unintelligible words. Sometimes apparitions are seen, and dark walkers who roam the graveyard at night.

[Wyrdras]

Character Name: Wyrdras Rahl
World Name: Phoenix
Prize: Scarf of Wondrous Wit

Midnight Tales

“…and then they vanished into thin air, never to be seen again.”
“Aw, that’s rubbish, mate. My old mum could tell a better story than tha’!”, Sundhimal said, banging his empty cup on the table. Ryssfloh spluttered in indignation, pointing a challenge at him.
“Let’s see you do better then!”, he cried, swigging his ale.
“Yeah, let’s see what you’ve got,” laughed Ahldskyf.
“Alrigh’, then. I will.”
Sundhimal frowned thoughtfully for a few minutes, staring at the table infront of him as he tried to come up with a story he’d heard months ago. Baderon gave a chuckle as he listened to the pair argue, then turned to the adventurer beside him.
“Y’know, Wyrdras, I’m glad ye decided to come over fer a visit while yer here. Don’t get many heroes like yerself here tha’ often.” The tall Au’Ra smiled and nodded quietly to him, then turned back to watch the trio as Sundhimal cried out, “I’ve got it!”.
He lowered his voice so everyone else at the table had to lean in to hear what he was saying. He looked around at each face there before continuing.
“It was a night, just like tonight, as cursed an All Saint’s Wake as you can imagine. Years ago, when imps and fiends still walked among us on this night every year, causing mischief and misfortune for all who crossed them. It was dark, with the sea breeze after carrying in thick fog, so no one looked quite right when seen through it. A friend of mine, a sailor, was walking along the docks to take in the sea breeze, when a ghostly wail cut the night. He froze, looking around, but couldn’t see naught but an ilm in front of him through the mirk.”
“He started to panic, trying to convince ‘imself it was just the boards underneath him, creaking in the cold. But then he heard it again, closer this time. He’s a big guy, you understand, but hearing that cry unmanned him. He ran back the way he came, trusting his feet to know the way back through the fog. After just a few seconds, though, his mad dash stopped. There was a light just ahead of him. But it wasn’t like the soft, orange light from a hearth, no. It was a cold, green light, calling out to him, drawing him in. He heard a voice, telling him to come towards it, whispering in his ear. He closed his eyes, and started humming a hymn to the Twelve to himself. After a few minutes, he dared to look up. Just a few steps away from him, floating in the fog, was a beautiful woman. She glowed softly, and called out to him.”
“What did he do?,” asked Baderon quietly.
“What’d he do? He wet ‘imself and fell over in a faint!,” roared Sundhimal, laughing madly.
The whole table sighed, shaking their heads in disbelief.
“Typical”, muttered Baderon, as Ryssfloh and Ahldskyf lunged at Sundhimal.
The adventurer just smiled.
[IMG][/IMG]

[TolmanianDevil]

Ariel had been anticipating this day for weeks.

She was finally in the queue to have her copy of Warrior of Write signed by the heroine herself, Thea Heat. The glorious Costa del Sol beach was the host to the culmination of an eternity of anticipation. Ariel scrunched her toes in the sand as she tried to discharge her excitement into the grains.

The queue was moving slowly, and the sun seemed to be racing her to see who could finish their day first.

One thing that the sun would never have her beat on though was the radiance of her excitement.

As the sun crept lower and lower the world around her became dimmer and dimmer; Ariel crept closer and ever closer to her hero growing brighter and brighter with excitement.

The chill of the night began to consume the warmth of the day, and Ariel met it with a shiver.

As the dark crept from the sea and shifted the soothing sounds of the tide into eerie scratches against the sand, so too did Ariel’s mind switch from adoration to abhorrence.

Thea looked up from the book she had just been handed and greeted the young lady in front of her with a smile. She snuck a quick glimpse behind her and with a sigh of relief saw no one hiding in the shadows behind. This was the final fan to see.

She refocused her attention to the girl in front of her.

“Good evening” she beamed as she rose from her chair and offered her hand.

“Evening Miss Heat, I’m Ariel. I am so very pleased to meet you” the rush of words spilled from the girl’s mouth as she took Thea’s outstretched and shook it like a newly landed fish.

Thea embraced her hand firmly and smiled reassuringly, “Call me Thea. Is there a particular message you would like?”

Ariel steadied herself, and ignored the cue to release Thea’s hand and instead tightened her grip.

“Write: Ariel, you are my world, my number one fan”, Ariel matched Thea’s smile with one filled with malice instead.

Thea paused for a moment, but began writing

Ariel, you are my world

As Thea wrote the creepy sentence, the pen started to slip away from her hands whilst remaining perfectly in place. Her vision began to close in on itself, and the wind around whipped into a frenzy. Her stomach plunged and yanked the rest of her body with her, down towards and into the pages of the book.

She wrestled her neck to turn her head upwards, and saw Ariel’s menacing eyes following her whilst they became larger and the last particle of the outside world was snuffed out as Thea tumbled into the world that she had authored.

Images of her past began to flood around her, as the walls of her world met in a crescendo of crashing pages and sealed her in the beautifully bound story of her exploits in Eorzea.

Character Name: Thea Heat
Data Center: Chaos
World: Zodiark
Desired Prize: Noble Chocobo Barding