week 7 story: In The Night

dark snow

It was a dark and blustery winter night. Milo the mouse watched as the snow fell softly outside the window, blanketing their tiny house in fresh white. Milo lived in this tiny house with mama mouse and his 15 brothers and sisters. On nights like these they would all gather around the warm fire and sit and listen while mama mouse told stories.  

Tonight was a special occasion for milo, because it was his turn to pick the story, and milo loved scary stories. The kind that would frighten his brothers and sisters, but not him; Milo was never scarred. So as they all got cozy on the floor around the fire, mama began to spin her story.

“Many centuries ago, on a night much like tonight, the long night began. For on this long night the world was plunged into complete darkness for 30 days. With the darkness, came many disturbing and monstrous creatures. The creatures had huge hellish wings, burning red eyes and large fangs they used to bit and drain the blood out of all the helpless little mice in the land. Now they say that these creatures use to be just like you and me, mice, but they found themselves out in open, helplessly consumed by the darkness. They also say if you were lucky enough to survive one of these attacks and the beast bites you, you will transform into one of the bloodthirsty creatures yourself. You will soon be under their complete hypnotic control, lusting for nothing more than to attack and drink the blood of the innocent. It is also said the bitten will sprout large hellish wings and forever be a slave to the night, never again capable to walk in the light of day.”

Milo scoffed, as he watched all of his brothers and sisters tremble and grasp onto one another. One of the smallest of his sister spoke up in a broken voice, “is there anything we can do to keep the monsters away?” 

Mama laughed, “yes my sweet child, never travel alone at night but you are safe in the day for they are afraid of the light…” 

Mama droned on with her story but Milo had stopped listening. He made his way past all of the younger mice to the front door and out into the cold night to fetch some water from the well. As he made his way through the newly fallen snow he listened as it crunched under his feet, but there was another very soft noise however, off in the distance…

A faint rhythmic fluttering in the wind…

Milo looked out into the vast darkness unable to see anything, but the noise continued to grow closer. Closer and closer the noise crept through the black of night.

Milo, now trembling with anxiety, bolted for the door, the sound of wings and wind whooshing in his ears.

Milo busted through the door, panting heavily and slamming the door shout behind him. All of the excitement made his brothers and sisters jump with fear. Milo ran to the window and scanned the skies. 

“Maybe it was just my imagination?” he thought. He gazed upon the pale moon; just as he was about to look away he noticed the flapping of a pair of dark wings in the soft light of the winter moon.

Authors note: For my story this week I wanted to play around with a couple different ideas that I got while reading the story for this week. This week we covered the African unit and one of the stories I got to read was about how bats learned to fly. This is what first gave me the idea to incorporate a kind of vampire esq origin story. So I thought to myself what the vampire equivalent of a bat would be like so I played off the old saying “bats are just rats with wings” but used mice. I also got the mouse idea form the African stories in the unit because the bat was always dealing with a sly mouse. Iv always enjoyed monster stories and in high school on of my favorite books we read in class was Dracula by Bran Stroker. This is where I got many of the cliché characteristics such as the glowing eyes and fangs for my “vampire” bat. It was a very fun and creative spin on one of my favorite stories and gave me the ability to incorporate another story from the readings.

dark snow

story bib Why the Bat flies by Night