The Lullaby

[Arashi]

The Lullaby

    The stinging wind was blowing past his face as he shuffled through the desolate park. Winter had definitely made its presence known throughout the small town of Ashland. Daniel walked this same path almost every day since he moved to the never-ending woods just outside of the dull town.  Daniel loved living out there though, it was nice and quiet and he didn’t have to deal with the troubles of having neighbors. Although he still heard the howls of coyotes and other creatures that would roam the woods at night. During the days like these though the only sounds he heard was the wind whistling through the branches of the naked trees as well as the crunching of the dead leaves under his feet. Finally, he stopped at an old rusty bench and sat down, as he looked around at his surroundings he noticed an old tire swing hanging from a creaky old tree. It swayed back and forth slowly a couple feet above the ground, Daniel was intrigued by the swing and decided to go and check it out. Whenever he got closer he examined the swing, suddenly he stopped and reached into the inner part of the tire. He pulled out a tiny silver amulet in the shape of a music note that was attached to a gold chain. It was easy to tell that both of the pieces were quite old, the astonishing piece of jewelry was still intact though. It was starting to get dark outside so Daniel continued on home as he shoved the necklace into his pocket.

    Later that night while Daniel was getting ready for bed he pulled the necklace out of his pocket. He went to his bathroom and washed the dirt off of it, and then found the connector piece on the chain and undid it. After looking over it for several minutes he put it around his neck and clipped it back together. Within the next few moments he was done getting ready for bed and was now lying down. It wasn’t long before he was asleep, but only a couple of hours later he was awoken by a strange noise. As he got up and turned the light on he could clearly tell that whatever it was it was coming from outside, not only that but he was sure that it wasn’t an animal. Slowly he crept towards the window, and as he did so the noise grew louder. As it continued to increase in volume he realized that it sounded like someone singing but he couldn’t tell for sure. His hands reached out for the curtains that concealed the window, he gripped them and yanked them open. He half expected someone to be standing there right in front of him but there was nothing to see except for the woods that seemed perfectly still. Actually there was nothing to hear now either, whatever the noise was it had stopped when he pulled the curtains back. Daniel tried to get back to sleep, for the rest of that night the noise was lingering there in his head.

    The next day Daniel got up and went to work like he normally did, when it was time for him to go he left and went on his normal route through the park. It was a fairly gloomy day outside, big dark clouds, a light shower of rain, and still the cold wind rushed through the woods whipping and lashing across his skin. As Daniel approached the old bench he yet again sat down, he tilted his head back and shut his eyes. Then, it began, that noise from the night before, whatever it was it was back. At first he thought it was just in his head but the longer he entertained his mind with that thought the worse he felt. He struggled to make himself open his eyes and look around, eventually he did though and that was when he saw her. Sitting there on the tire swing was a little girl with long blonde hair, she was wearing a tattered white dress. Daniel could tell now that she was the one producing the noise, he squinted to try and get a better look at her. Although he couldn’t see her face he could make out that she was holding something in her arms. He wondered what a little girl was doing out there, he never saw anyone in that old abandoned park. It didn’t seem like she was there with someone else, he thought about going and asking her if everything was ok but instead he decided against it and said to himself “I am sure she is fine her mom probably went to the car to grab something. I’ll just go home, yeah that’s probably a good idea.” He stood up and walked at a fast pace, something didn’t feel right to him. As he continued walking away with his back turned to the girl it felt like holes were being burned into his back. He couldn’t build up the courage to look back at the girl, he knew she was still there because he could still hear her singing. The closer he got to his house the faster he went, when he finally stepped inside he felt relieved. Even though he had stopped hearing her about halfway home he somehow felt as though she would be right behind him if he were to turn around. Why he thought he didn’t know for sure but he felt it in his stomach that he just needed to get away from that place. That night when he was trying to get some rest Daniel couldn’t stop thinking about the girl at the park, not only that but all he could hear was her voice cutting through the dense night as if it were a knife going through butter. Throughout the entirety of the night he laid there listening to her singing without getting a single minute of sleep.

    The same pattern repeated for the next several days, but instead of stopping at the park he would simply walk past as the girl would calmly sit there and sing. It had been three days since Daniel had gotten an ounce of sleep because of the girls singing. He was starting to go crazy from the lack of sleep and the reoccurring song, at this point he didn’t even know whether it was all just in his head or not. He didn’t know exactly what started this all, originally he thought it had to do with the necklace but the more that song burned into his mind the less he remembered about the strange piece of jewelry. The worst part about the song was that he couldn’t decipher what the girl was saying. Her voice sounded soft and sweet but it was also cold and numbing at the same time. Today would be the day that he finally broke the chain, he couldn’t deal with it anymore. On his way home Daniel was getting closer and closer to the tire swing, he was beginning to be able to hear the girl singing all over again after a short break of silence while he was at work. He was now close enough to be able to see her, he crept slowly toward the girl until he could see her clearly. He still wasn’t in a position to catch a glimpse of her face, so he focused his attention on what she was holding in her arms. He leaned even closer and his eyes widened as he saw what it was. It was a torn up doll, it was a normal thing for a young girl to have, but this one was different. It looked like it was made out of wood rather than plastic like most dolls nowadays, it was a girl with shoulder length pitch black hair that was pulled back and tied with a piece of fine lace. The doll wore a dress similar to the little girl’s, but the part that made Daniel shudder was its face. It only had a single eye, the other one was gone and the wood surrounding the socket was chipped and cracked. As well as the fact that its fake teeth were rotted and jagged, the girl held it in her arms like it was a baby gently swinging it back and forth. He now understood that the little girl wasn’t just singing for no reason, she was singing a lullaby to her doll.

    That night was the first night that he had gotten any sleep in a while. Daniel started thinking about who she might be, or why she was there in the park all alone for days on end. Then he remembered about the necklace that he found in the tire the day that it all started. The next day when he began his walk home from work he thought that maybe the necklace was hers, just like he thought when this first started, but now after he was able to gather his thoughts again he thought she might be waiting for Daniel to return it back to her. With that thought he took the necklace off and kept it in his hand, before long he was coming up to the tire swing. Just like the days before the little girl was still there on the tire swing singing the lullaby to her doll. His legs led him over to her, when he got within about five feet of her he froze. “I found a necklace here the other day, I think it might be yours.” Then he stuck his hand out to give her the necklace but she carried on singing her lullaby as if he wasn’t even there. Daniel then said to her “uh… okay I guess I will just put it on the ground right here so you can grab it later.” So he did as he said and stepped back, for a second he listened to see if could tell what she was singing. He was able to hear a little bit as the girl sang “when the moon comes out, and you lay down just close your eyes and shut your mouth.” Even that single line of the lullaby sent Daniel into a spiral of insanity, how could an innocent little line of a lullaby do that to a person. He turned and took off in a dead sprint to his house, he felt as though he couldn’t run fast enough. He rushed into his bathroom scratching at his ears as a drop of blood trickled down the side of his face. He shut his eyes and let out a scream of agony, then he went quiet and opened his eyes. It was all gone, the blood, the lullaby, and the feeling of helplessness and sudden dread. As he stood there he couldn’t help but ask himself what was wrong with him but couldn’t provide himself with an answer to his question. As he moved slowly back into his bedroom he noticed a glimmer on his bed. He went to see what it was, but as he moved over to the side of the bed he immediately recognized what the object was. How, how did the necklace get back into his house? He pondered this weird event for the rest of the night, the next day Daniel decided to not go to work. Instead he took the necklace and headed straight for the park later that evening.

    On his arrival to the swing he said to the girl, “look I don’t know how you did it but I don’t want the necklace, whether it was yours or not you can take it.” He let the necklace fall from his hand and onto the ground in front of him, but in the very instant that it came in contact with the ground everything changed. The tone of the lullaby became completely sinister and utterly evil, the very air around him seemed to become thick and almost suffocating. His energy seemed to be draining the longer he stayed there, so he had to give it everything he had just to make it back to his home. So he did just that, when he finally reached his house he went to his room and collapsed onto his bed from pure exhaustion. As Daniel awoke he saw a silhouette of something there in front of him, as he laid on the bed looking at whatever it was the lights switched on. He should’ve known what it was, or better yet who. The girl stood there with her back towards him, that heavy feeling started coming back over him like a wave crashing over rocks. Daniel couldn’t move anything except for his head, what is going on he repeated to himself silently. Then something happened that hadn’t before, the girl spoke to him, “don’t you want to hear my lullaby?” she said in a soft but deadly voice. “No! Just leave me alone!” Daniel yelled back. Then the girls voice grew angry and bitter as she said to him “that’s the same thing she had said, and now look at her!” The girl whipped around to face him, Daniel couldn’t even breathe when he saw the girl’s face. Both her eyes and mouth were sewn shut, and her ears looked like they had been burned off. Daniel looked away but the image of the girls distorted and twisted face was engraved into his mind and soul. “Don’t worry she isn’t in pain she has been dead for a little over a week now. I made her my doll so she could listen to my lullaby, but now that she is dead I wanted to play with someone new. So I left my necklace there at the park so that you could hear me sing too.” Daniel realized that all along it wasn’t the girl singing but the doll which she was holding. He tried to scream out for help but couldn’t even speak anymore. “I think you need to hear a song.” He heard the devilish doll say. All of Daniel’s senses started fading until he was in complete darkness, and then it began again, the lullaby.

    The End…