One crisp Frostfall night, you see the glowing of red emanating from the edge of the Spectral Marsh. As you step closer, you can see the image of a black gate hovering over the edge of the waters. Though the doors are abyssal, dark and void of light, they are still projecting a glowing red light. The gates of hell.

Inside the doors, which are slightly translucent, you can see the figure of a glowing dog, but not just any dog. A hellhound, with glimmering fire along its back.

How to open the door?

Hanging from one of its top, twisted spires is a skeleton. The flesh has long rotted from its pale bones and over time it seems many of them have scattered too, perhaps chewed upon by the hound. Yet the skull remains, an obviously avian thing with large hollow sockets and a pointed, deadly mouth.

It turns to stare as you approach, red flame suddenly igniting in the dark pits of its eyes. The sharp mouth quivers in what must be a frown for the words it speaks next are dreadfully morose.

"Once I pecked on the glassy panes of a man's shelter, and he turned to look at me with eyes all helter-skelter.
I could hear a peculiar beating in the floor below, but from whence it came I'll never know.
He seized me by my neck so sore, yanking it around and shouting, nevermore!
I'd only come to warm from that december bleak, but now I straddle this iron sleek."

His tones prattled with a somber tenor that suggested a distance to his mind. It revealed a weakness in the stronghold of the hellish fortress. The bird was the secret inside, if only his senses could be restored or his favor gained.

"With quill and ink that man had wrote a tale, so tempting was I read it ere I paled.
Eyes did trudge through blood and gore and to my surprise, I found I never did soar.
Not by sky at least, that was my great unrest. So it was until that dreary day of death.

To paper, pen and fright I am drawn, but here below I'm made to yawn.
There are no tales to be had, just the real, no fun I say, without it my empty heart cannot feel!
I seek the myth, the wit, the suspense - yet how am I to have it whence..."

Share a spooky story, open the door.

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RULES
1. The story must be no more than 800 words.

2. The story must be spooky and of your own creation. It does not have to be related to the site, although in the event that you do use characters within the site, Please make sure they are okay with being incorporated first.

3. PM your story the Official admin account within 95 hours.. Do not post your stories on this board.

The Official will then repost the stories within a new thread in the OOC section, authors being kept anonymous, for members of the site to vote on their favorite. Whoever gets the most votes within 5 days of voting is the winner.


*You get cookies if you can guess the skeleton and the scene he tells about in his speech :] And by cookies I mean nothing.