A Sinister Sunset

**A Sinister Sunset** The sunset is one of the prettiest you have ever seen. The soft orange, yellow, and faint red blend together sweetly, sending a wave of calm over you as you admire it. This is one of the reasons you love biking around town in the evening, to enjoy the sunset. Out of all the places you’ve lived, you’ve never seen sunsets like the ones here in Pheonix, Arizona. That is why’ve lived here for so long. You forgot your headphones at home, but you don’t need them. The atmosphere is soothing, and there are very few cars driving along the dirt road you follow. Rocky hills surround you, but in the distance the rocks morph into a dense forest. The temperature is cold enough that the heat you generate while biking is welcome, and you are comfortable. You are miles away from your house, about to reach the point in your ride where you will turn around and head home. A Prius passes you and you nod amiably at the driver, and the middle-aged man nods back. You both continue to your respective destinations, the driver vanishing in the distance. Just as you are about to turn around, you hear another bicycle coming up behind you. You move to the side and slow down to let them pass, but what you see makes you stop in your tracks. A skeleton bikes past you, pedaling steadily. Its long arms rest on the handle bars of its bike, leaning over them. Wind whistles through its ribcage, a sound that raises the hair on your arms. There is not one flap of skin anywhere on its frame—its eye sockets, nose, and mouth completely empty. The sun’s disappearing rays shine through the gaps between its ribs and the gaping holes in its skull. Its bones and joints creak as it moves, but otherwise it seems to be very much alive. The skeleton looks at you as it bikes by, opening its mouth in what you can only guess is supposed to be a smile. You recoil, but the skeleton doesn’t notice and continues on its way, advancing with surprising speed. For a moment, you stand with one foot on the ground to prop yourself up as you stare at the shrinking skeleton. Everything in you is screaming at you to call a friend, the police, someone, anyone, and tell them what you have seen. But even as the skeleton gets farther away, you feel the urge to go after it. You can either [[follow the skeleton]] or [[go home.]]

Your entire body screams at you to turn around and go home, but instead you get back on your bike and pedal fast, following the skeleton. The rocky desert area transforms into a sea of wood. Besides your breathing and the creaking of your bike, the only sounds are the faint chirpings of birds and crickets. You can barely make out the faint form of the skeleton a few hundred feet in front of you, just close enough for you to continue following it. Eventually, you lose sight of it and after a few feet, you understand why. The road you have been following now splits into two smaller lanes, just big enough for a car, and you stand at a crossroads. Both roads continue into the forest. It looks as though the right lane may have been used recently by a cyclist—perhaps the skeleton you have been following—but it is difficult to tell. The left lane holds no indicators of any kind. Which way do you go: [[left]] or [[right?]]

You immediately turn around and start the trek home. You don’t need to follow any strange, creepy, nightmarish skeletons today, no thank you. You want to go home, take shower, read a book, and sleep off the day’s troubles. So you do exactly that. You make it home without any problems, put your bicycle in your garage, eat a quick snack, and jump in the shower. The warm water eases your tense muscles, allowing your heart to return to its normal pace. As water and soap rush down the drain, you slowly relax. You dry yourself off and dress in pajamas, the fabric soft on your skin. You go through your house closing windows and turning off lights before making your way to your bedroom to settle in for the night. When you open your closet to grab your book, a chill worms its way down your body and you look up. A rotting skeleton stares back at you, propped in the doorway of your closet and reaching for you. It looks exactly like the one you saw earlier. You slam the closet door closed and back away, the back of your knees hitting the edge of the bed and making you fall over. You watch the door intently, waiting for any sign of movement. Your heart thumps so loudly you think your neighbors can hear it. Nothing happens for five minutes. Gathering your courage, you grab a poker from your fireplace and brandish it in front of you as you prepare to open the closet door again. Your hand closes around the doorknob, and it’s cold to the touch. You wrench the door open, hefting the poker behind your head in case you need to swing it, but there is nothing there. The closet is just a closet, filled with clothes, shoes, books, and childhood memories. But no skeletons. Keeping a tight grip on your weapon, you gingerly close the door. Your heart is still beating a mile a minute as you try to think about what to do. You can either believe you imagined the skeleton and [[try to sleep,]] or you can ask to [[stay at a friend’s house]] for the night.

You choose left and continue down that path. You are still surrounded by trees on all sides, but the road starts curving left. You follow it, curious as to what you will find. You haven’t heard of any roads in this area before, not even from your friend Wanda who is always going on hikes and exploring nature. After pedaling for about five minutes, the road merges with another and you continue straight. Certain trees and rocks start to look familiar, and then you end up at the same crossroads you were at before. You have gone in a circle. You have no choice but to go [[right.->right?]]

You go down the path on the right, following the faint line in the dirt left by what you assume was the skeleton. You bike for about fifteen minutes without any sign of intelligent life. The line in the dirt does look more prominent, though, and you are almost sure this is the path the skeleton followed. You pedal for another ten minutes, and just as you are about to give up and turn around, the road opens into a clearing. Instead of trees as far as the eye can see, the road ends at the mouth of a clearly abandoned mineshaft. A single lit oil lamp hangs at the entrance, illuminating it enough for you to see the cart tracks laid into the ground that lead deep into the mine. An old cart sits just outside the entrance, a surprisingly new-looking sign leaning against it that simply reads “Enter.” As you reach the end of the road, you see the skeleton again. It disappears just as quickly into the mine. You slow to a stop and then struggle to keep from falling as your back tire bursts. A particularly sharp rock sticks out of the rubber and you mutter a few curses. Your bike is useless until you can get a new tire, and you are an hour away from any type of civilization. You drop your bike and pull out your phone and curse again when you see that it has only ten percent battery. Of course, today of all days you forgot to charge it before going out. The phone only has enough battery for one task: a [[call for help,]] or to use as a flashlight while [[exploring the mine.]]

You decide to go with the safer, smarter option, and use your phone’s remaining battery power to call your friend Honza for help. He’s a nerdy professional clarinetist who doesn’t have the best people skills, but you’ve known him for a long time and can count on him when you’re in a pinch. You explain to him that you were out on your nightly bike ride and popped a tire, but leave out the skeleton. It’s been a long day, you’ve probably been hallucinating the entire thing. You tell Honza how to find you and he promises to be there in half an hour. Just as he hangs up, your phone dies. Until Honza arrives, you have no way of contacting anyone. You sit down on a rock facing the entrance to the mine so you can keep an eye on it. You are in no mood for surprises tonight. The temperature starts to drop and you begin to shiver, and the sky darkens. As the evening turns into night, you hear strange sounds from the mineshaft. A low wailing floats through the air, broken every few minutes by a loud screech. The shuffling of footsteps puts you on edge, along with loud cracks, almost like breaks in bone. It’s been about twenty minutes since you called Honza, and the noises have made you very jittery. You hear a loud bang from the mine and jump to your feet. You grab your bike and start dragging it behind you as you walk back up the road, hoping to run into Honza. You cannot stay by the mine for another second. The noises follow you, prompting you to move faster. Despite your exhaustion, you force yourself to run, especially when you hear the thumping of feet behind you. You run for about five minutes when a new noise breaks through the woods. Tires crunch against the ground and an engine rumbles, and Honza’s SUV finally comes into view. You want to weep with relief, but you can still hear the noises behind you, urging you into action. You shove your bike into the trunk of Honza’s car and scramble into the passenger’s seat. “Drive,” you order him before he can say anything. Honza frowns, his nose wrinkled and oily. His greasy brown hair falls in his eyes, but he can still see well enough to execute a careful U-turn and start back towards the main road. You glance back, holding back a gasp when you see a cluster of skeletons racing after the car. They swerve back and forth, clumsy on their bare feet, but move with inhuman speed and keep pace with the car. A few of them run on all fours like animals, and it takes everything in you not to scream. Honza doesn’t know, and you would like to keep it that way. If he knows, he will freak out, and then you will both be doomed. You break through the tree line and are finally back on the main road where you were biking earlier. You allow yourself a small sigh of relief, a seed of hope growing in your heart. But when you crane your neck behind you, the skeletons are still there. You get closer to town and Honza asks, “Shortcut?” There are two ways back home. One is the long way that most people take since the shortcut is hard to find. There would be more chances to lose the skeletons on that route. The other option is the shortcut, unknown to many. It’s a straighter shot back to town, but most of it is in the barren desert and the skeletons could easily follow you. Which route do you take, the [[shortcut]] or the [[long way?]]

Ignoring your instincts again, you creep closer to the mine and activate your phone’s flashlight. You walk up to the cart and look inside, finding a few unrefined gems—ruby, quartz, sapphire. After checking that no one is around, you tuck a few of them into your pocket. Another sign lays in the dirt, rusted and covered in dust. It says “Danger! Do Not Enter!” painted over a skull and crossbones. You swallow your fear and step into the mine. After a moment of indecision, you grab the oil lamp at the front in case your phone dies before you leave the mine. With the two light sources stretched out in front of you, you slowly creep farther into the mine, stumbling a few times over the tracks. Almost immediately, sounds from the outside disappear, plunging you into complete silence. You can’t even hear your own footsteps or breathing. Goosebumps raise on your arms and you pull your jacket sleeves down to your wrists. The hair on the back of your neck stands up. Even with the combined light of your flashlight and the oil lamp, you can only see about two feet in front of you. You walk slowly, carefully. Your heart thumps against your chest almost painfully, and you are hyper-aware of every nerve in your body. There is no sign of the skeleton yet, and your anxiety only grows. You begin to think that this was a bad idea, but when you turn around there are three different paths behind you, and you can’t tell which one you came from. You take a moment to think and ultimately decide that the safest course of action is to continue deeper into the mine. Hopefully that way you will eventually exit from the other end of the mine. You continue in the eerie silence, holding your phone close and tightening your grip on the oil lamp in case you need to use it as a weapon. By this point, you’ve been walking for about twenty minutes. A few feet in front of you, the tunnel starts to lighten, and you sigh with relief, hoping it means you’ve reached the end of the mine. Instead, the tunnel continues but there is an opening in the wall to the right where the light is coming from. A pit forms in your stomach as you walk into the little cave, your legs trembling. The first thing you see is candlelight coming from dozens of candles sitting on the floor. The flames flicker and dance across the walls, casting strange shadows. You turn your gaze on the rest of the room and your feet become rooted to the floor. A small, rickety, wooden table sits in the middle of the cave, looking a hundred years old. A dusty teapot rests in the middle of it, surrounded by matching teacups and saucers. A plate of moldy fruitcake accompanies them, flies buzzing around it hungrily. Four chairs circle the table, and your heart skips a beat as you notice what sits in two of them. Two bony skeletons. Stringy hair drips from the skull of one of them, but otherwise they are indistinguishable from the one you saw earlier. The hairless one could be the same one you saw, but something tells you it isn’t. It holds a teacup in its skeletal hand. The other two chairs are empty, and that somehow scares you even more than the skeletons. You want to turn around. You want to run. You want to scream. But your muscles are frozen and you can only watch as the skeletons shift and look at you. They open their mouths and say in identical, raspy, gravelly voices, “Would you like some tea?” You finally force yourself to move and spin on your heels to run, but the entrance is blocked by another skeleton. You recognize without a doubt that this is the one you followed, and your entire body shakes as you look at it. Even without eyes, you can tell it is staring at you. “Join us,” the skeleton says in the same voice as the others and reaches a hand towards you. A high-pitched scream fills the air. The bony hand touches your flesh, and you know no more. [[The End]]

You pick the shortcut, wanting to end this and get back to safety as soon as possible. You tell Honza to floor it, and he obeys. The car tears down the road, but when you look back the skeletons are still hot on your tail. You pray silently to every god you can think of, hoping to make it out of this in one piece. Honza still has no idea what really has you spooked. In about ten minutes, you have reached town. You almost cry in relief at the sight of familiar stores, houses, hotels, schools. There is no sign of the skeletons anywhere. To be safe, you take up Honza’s offer to stay at his place tonight. You haven’t seen any skeletons, but you don’t mind the company, since you would be alone if you went to your house. It takes you a few hours to fall asleep, and when you do your dreams are plagued by rotting skeletons, but you wake up safe and sound on Honza’s couch. There are still no skeletons anywhere in sight. You are still very cautious for the next few weeks. For the first few days, you completely abandon your nightly bike-rides, partially because you still haven’t gotten a new tire and because you are still terrified. Eventually, you force yourself to go out again, but much earlier than before. You work your way back up to cycling at sunset, and it takes months before you do it. As the months pass, the incident falls to the back of your mind. Months turn into years, and you haven’t thought about the skeletons in a long time. You never told a soul about it. You still go on your bike rides, but you haven’t seen anything unusual since that night. And then one day, ten years later, on a nice night with a beautiful sunset, a skeleton rides past you. [[The End]]

You pick the long way, hoping to lose the skeletons before Honza or anyone else notices them. Once you get back to town, this nightmare will be over. You think. Honza turns down the road and after ten minutes the sight of houses in the distance eases your nerves. The road is rockier, but safer. You pass the first group of houses, entering an empty stretch of road. When you turn around, your heart lifts as you see that the skeletons are gone. But then your heart drops again when you hear a pop and the car wobbles. Honza curses and moves the car to the side of the road, turning on his hazard lights. Your palms start to sweat as he gets out of the car to see what happened, and your fear comes back full force when he says that the back passenger-side tire is flat. It’s dark, and there is no one around. The houses you passed are too far away now for you to push the car to, and you don’t want to walk to them in the dark. The next sign of life isn’t for another mile. Your phone is still dead, and Honza forgot his at home. You begin to regret taking the long way home. Honza looks at you from the driver’s seat. “I have a spare tire in the trunk, but . . .” You hang your head. Honza is hopeless when it comes to cars, so you have to be the one to change the tire. You glance outside, looking for any sign of the skeletons and are only slightly relieved to find none. You get out of the car, but you can’t shake the feeling that the terror isn’t over yet. The only source of light comes from the headlights and taillights of the SUV. You’ve changed tires before and have no problem this time either. You glance back every few seconds as you work, but nothing appears. Within ten minutes, the new tire is fitted onto the car and you are stuffing the damaged one in the trunk with your bike. You slam the trunk closed and wait, a sudden chill coming over your body. You can see your breath in the night air. Every nerve in your body is on high alert. Your senses scream a warning to your brain, but it comes too late. Cold, bony hands grab your shoulders and spin you around. A skeletal face presses up to yours, breathing chilly, smelly air into your face. You are locked in its embrace as the thing’s teeth knock against yours, almost kissing you. It holds you tight and you can feel yourself slipping away, every thought and memory draining from your mind. The skeleton lets go but you don’t notice, standing in a daze. Your body feels foreign and you don’t remember who you are or what you’re doing. Where are you? What is your purpose? What is this hunger you feel? Your body moves without your control, but you don’t fight it. You open the passenger side door and slide into the car. “Did you fix it?” The man behind the wheel asks. You cock your head at him. Who is this person? Why does he seem to know you? Why are you in his car? The man stares at you intently. “Are you okay?” But you don’t know the answer to his question. In fact, you don’t know anything anymore. [[The End]]

Despite your insistence that every skeleton you’ve seen tonight has only been a figment of your imagination, it still takes two sleeping pills for you to finally get some shut eye. Even then, your sleep is haunted by skeletons chasing you endlessly. When you wake up in the middle of the night and see that it is 3:34am according to your clock, it takes you a moment to realize why you are awake. But then you feel them. Icy, bony hands creep across your body, feeling like a thousand spiders crawling across your skin. You want to scream, but your body won’t obey your brain’s commands. You lie there in your bed, paralyzed with fear. A few of the hands disappear, replaced by a skeletal face staring down at you from the side of your bed. Flesh hangs from its skull and jaw, red splotches of dried blood decorating its bones. The paralytic terror eases enough for you to form coherent thoughts that resemble a plan. Do you [[run]] or do you [[speak?]]

You decide to call your friend Chelsea, an actress/waitress from Pizza Hut who dresses in nothing but black. She happily agrees to let you stay at her house for the night, so you pack a bag and head over. Chelsea greets you cheerfully when you arrive, shows you to a guest room, and prepares a snack for the two of you to enjoy. It’s almost midnight at this point, but she is still dressed in an elaborate lacy black dress matched with heavy dark eyeliner. You always joke that she took the method acting too far for a role a few years ago and never went back. Just as you’re preparing to turn in for the night again, after Chelsea has already done so, you hear a strange noise upstairs, like the static of a TV. “Chelsea?” You call out. No answer. Do you [[investigate]] or [[not?]]

A burst of adrenaline allows you to break free of the skeletons’ grasps and run out of your bedroom. You grab your phone on the way and hastily call 911, making up some story about an intruder in your house because you know they will not listen if you tell them the truth. You wait outside your house, shivering in the cold, and watch for the skeletons that are surely still there. The police arrive quickly, bursting into your house to see if the intruder is still there. An ambulance follows them, and an officer takes you to the paramedics, who give you a clean bill of health but wrap you in a blanket and urge you to get some sleep as soon as you can. Sleep will have to wait, though, because the police want to take your statement at the station as soon as possible. A few stay behind to watch the house and check for any evidence left behind while the rest go back to the station. You are escorted to the backseat of one of the last police cruisers to leave. You buckle in and pull the blanket around you tighter, but it does little to ease your nerves. For a few minutes, you sit in the backseat until nearly all the police officers have left, and finally one of them sits in the driver’s seat. He turns to check that you are ready to go, and your heart jumps to your throat. The police officer isn’t a police officer. What sits there instead is another skeleton, its mouth twisted into a creepy grin under the blue police cap. You fumble with the door handles, but they are meant to keep criminals from getting out without the driver’s consent. You are no match. You are separated from the skeleton by a window, but that provides little comfort as it starts driving away with you captive. You are not surprised when the car goes in the opposite direction of the police station, and your mind races as you try to figure out a way to survive. Surely, whatever the skeleton wants from you is nothing good. The car finally rolls to a stop after ten terror-inducing minutes, and the doors unlock. That doesn’t help you much, because when you stumble out of the car you find yourself in a graveyard, nothing familiar in sight. The skeleton gets out of the car and you see more emerge from the woods beside the graveyard. They creep towards you and your body reacts on instinct—you run. You run and run and run as fast as you can, but the graveyard feels endless. The skeletons are close behind you, and you are tiring. Your feet are bare, you’re still wearing pajamas, and the ground is covered in twigs and rocky mounds. You turn around to check on the skeleton’s progress and find one directly behind you. You scream and try to run faster, but your foot catches on a gravestone and you go tumbling to the ground—down, down, and stopping with a thump. Your entire body aches, your leg feels broken, and as you look up to try to catch your bearings, a handful of dirt showers over you. You spit soil out of your mouth and raise your head, a scream ripping through your chest as you realize that you have fallen into a grave. Dirt falls on top of you in handfuls and you can just make out the skeletons above you. The one that abducted you, the one in your closet, the one that you saw on the bicycle, is glowing. As you watch, it shimmers and begins growing skin. Clothes appear on top of the skin, and you realize that the skeleton is becoming you. You try to fight, but it is too late. You are being buried alive, and there is nothing you can do to stop the imposter about to take your place in the world. [[The End]]

You can only find the strength to speak. In a croaking voice, you ask, “What do you want?” The skeleton leans closer, sending shivers down your spine. The bed feels rough beneath you, and the smell of dirt fills your nose. The skeleton’s face is right by yours when it says in a voice like ice, “I want you to remember.” You squeeze your eyes shut in the hopes it will protect you from whatever horror the skeleton is about to bestow upon you, but nothing comes. The scent of soil grows stronger and so does the cold temperature, but the skeletal hands on your body have disappeared. You slowly open your eyes and find yourself staring at the night sky, a full moon shining down upon you. You tremble from the cold and when you look around, you notice that you are no longer safe in your bed but are instead laying in the dirt, six-foot walls surrounding you on all sides. You turn your head and see a skeleton beside you, its mouth open in a scream but unmoving. The skeleton holds your hand, and you notice that your hand is missing all of its flesh and muscle, too. And then you *do* remember. You watch the night sky progress and hold your skeletal brother’s hand in your shared grave, as you have done for the past three hundred years. [[The End]]

You’re feeling brave, and decide you will investigate. You carefully climb the stairs, listening for the noise. It hasn’t gone away, and now that you are closer you are almost certain it is TV static. You come upon a hall with three doors, and after checking the first two, discover that the sound is coming from the third. You enter the third room and immediately regret the action when the door swings closed behind you and you hear the unmistakable click of the lock. You fiddle with the doorknob. It won’t budge. You call for Chelsea, but she doesn’t seem to hear you. With no other choice, you look around the room. The only light source in the room is very faint since it comes from an old TV showing black-and-white checkered static. The sound is very loud, almost louder than comfortable. In the corner of the room there is a figure hidden by shadows. The static grows louder and you blink and plug your ears, but in that split second of darkness the figure vanishes. Your heart races. The television gets even louder, and you are suddenly aware that something is directly behind you. You don’t dare turn around, even as you begin hyperventilating. The temperature in the room drops and you can see your breath in front of you. You feel the creature lean closer. A sudden creaky laugh sounds right in your ear and you gather air to scream. As you do, skeletal hands clasp your shoulders and shake you—hard. You hear and feel a snap in your neck and when the skeleton lets go of you, you fall to the ground. The laughing and static continue, and then you are gone. [[The End]]

You’ve had enough of a horror movie for tonight and feel no urge to investigate the strange sound upstairs. You go into the guest room and close and lock the door behind you. Just as you sit down to get ready for bed, your phone rings. Wondering who might be calling, you pick it up. The number is blocked. Curious, you press answer and hold the phone to your ear. “Hello?” No one responds. Instead, hollow breathing floats through the phone. In the background, you can just make out the sound of running water. Your heart in your throat, you go into the bathroom attached to the guest room. The sink faucet is running, even though you *know* you turned it off. There is nothing else there, but the trickling of water on the phone stops when you turn off your own faucet. You are still holding the phone to your ear when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and gasp. Before your eyes, you are aging—there is no other way to describe it. Your skin darkens and wrinkles, your eyes are losing their shine, your hair grows long, limp, and white. Your teeth rot and fall out of your mouth, and you realize that this isn’t just happening in the mirror. Your body is aging, and then, disappearing. The phone drops from your hand. Your flesh sags from your bones before it rots off completely. You watch as your eyes disappear, but even when your skull is left with empty eye sockets, you can still see yourself in the mirror. You can see what you have become in the span of a few seconds. A skeleton. [[The End]]

Thanks for playing/reading! If you would like to play again from the beginning, [[click here->A Sinister Sunset]]