"Soulful Stares" ... freakish story I wrote for english

[Choedan Kal]

In english class, the teacher wanted us to write a short story modeled after Poe and his works. So being me and hating that class/teacher, I decided to go overboard and make her think I was nuts. The plan backfired :confused: , and she read it to the entire class, acting out the emotions and everything. The class...well, if you read it, you can imagine their reactions.




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Soulful Stares

Oh, how she stares at me!

My Diablo, my sweet Diablo, how I watch her as she scurries through this desolate mansion like a loosed demon. Diablo, with her lustrous white coat and red eyes, she must be privy to my notions. How can she not know of my love? For hours I am able to observe her sleek and lithe white body as it streaks across the ceiling, drool dabbling from my chin. Time is lost in my sweet Diablo’s red eyes and her snowy coat.

What friend do I have that can proudly proclaim of an affection existing as deep as mine for my Diablo. She must know of my love. Of course she’s seen my hatred for her seven siblings, but when have I ever looked at her with anything other than longing? When have I ever ignored her seductive, crimson eyes? Who can avoid a temptress as powerful as my Diablo? I can do all but stray from her.

Part of what attracts me to her is Diablo’s sense of uniqueness. Diablo is different from her family. In a litter of seven, she is the only albino squirrel. Her siblings have black coats and black eyes, lacking any differentiation or individuality. Diablo, she was born to be her own self. Her family shuns her because of the pale fur and beautiful, scintillating eyes. I know that they look at Diablo with hatred and envy. Diablo’s beauty shadows them so that they cannot even be judged for all notice is stolen by my Diablo. Even I cannot deny having fallen into her trap of desire. Mother Nature made Diablo wrong. This squirrel weaves imprisoning webs just as delicately as any spider. Diablo is so akin to a spider that I often--

There she goes, that blur of white along the floor! My breath quickens in excitement, and my heart pounds a throbbing serenade in the cage of my ribs. Giddiness steals me as I follow the trail of my beloved through my father’s mansion. Knowing that I follow, Diablo slows down for me, I know she does. This is our game, a game of temptation and love. She runs, and I follow willingly. Eventually I will fatigue and Diablo will stop to watch my massive, attractive body heave, and our passion will be tempered by the activity. When we run through the house, it’s as if I’m following my soul since it’s already in Diablo. If she wished, Diablo could control me for I’ve given her myself.

Diablo pauses in her plight. She skirts cautiously around the doorframe leading to my father’s room. I tiptoe silently beside her. We both know what Miguel would do if he caught us in our affairs. To Miguel, the relationship between me and Diablo is platonic. His dim mind and myopic empathy prevent him from seeing the truth. After months of our secret love, Diablo and I can proudly say of how well we’ve kept our secret hidden from Miguel, my father.

With a small sound of excitement, Diablo faces me with her red-eyed gaze. I lose feeling in my body and become transfixed in those pits of red beauty. The stirrings of desire deep within me swarm like a hive of hornets. My lust rages like a tempest. Diablo doesn’t know of her power over me, but surely she must see it! I feel her eyes working their mystical magic over my limbs and muscles.

Those red eyes, now they gleam like those of a demon--no, not my Diablo, she’s never a demon, but those eyes have too much power. Why do they control me so? It seems now that she is evil, manipulating me as if I were clay, gripping my soul and wrenching it to give me a blast of pain until I become complacent, using her spider-like traits although she’s a squirrel. When have I ever loved this creature? How could I ever feel love for it?

She is not as beautiful as she once was. Her claws, once small and fine like the unused fingers of a maiden, are wickedly long, curved and sharp, designed for killing. Her teeth are serrated like a saw. Oh, how she stares at me now! It’s not of love. This gaze she has, it is a hunger, an insatiable appetite for my soul. In her eyes is the gateway to the fathoms of Hell.

Diablo glances away, and a wave of calm washes over my body. A warmth spreads through me and kills the coldness that has seemed to permeate my limbs. Diablo whips her white bush of a tail, exciting me in her erotic movements. A nagging memory bites at my mind as I watch Diablo scurry away from the door of Miguel’s room, nibbling at my conscious like a tiny caterpillar chewing on a large leaf. I can’t recall the memory in whole, but it reeks of fear. What should I fear? I live in a mansion with seven squirrels. There is nothing to scare me. If there is anything to awaken any fright within me, it would have to be rejection from Diablo. I could not live if she chose a squirrel over me. What does a squirrel have that I cannot give in tenfold? I know not of any squirrel that lift as much as a human. Squirrels can flee quickly, but only cowards do not fight. Diablo would not want a cowardly husband at her side. I could never run away from her, and even if I did, she’d catch me on her swift four paws.

My thoughts pause as I see something on my Diablo that wasn’t present before. A patch of baldness exists near the nape of her neck. The snowy white fur that normally covers her body is replaced by pale, pink skin. My affection for Diablo turns now to concern. What has done this defacement? Diablo preens herself with the consistency of a feline and avoids places where her coat may be ruined, a trait that drew me to her almost instantly. This bald patch couldn’t have occurred by a scrape--Diablo would never have let it happen. And why have not seen it before? I miss nothing of my Diablo. The perpetrator couldn’t have done this deed without my knowledge of the matter.

“Follow,” words squeak from Diablo.

I jump in surprise. At last, my beloved, you speak to me! But that blemish on your skin...it disfigures you so. My original attraction to you may not have been based on personality for how could it have been? There was no conversation where I could learn your intimate feelings and thoughts toward me. I always wished to have a close relationship with you, something more than physical and primal urges. I imagined you speaking to me, but never once did a word pass your lips like this last succulent statement. My desire for you was based on your sheer beauty, but I am ashamed at the thought of this! I am not shallow. I saw more in you. What joy I take in the comfort that you cannot hear my thoughts.

“Follow me,” she squeaked.

[Choedan Kal]

Diablo looks at me again, and I feel another blast of joy. Recognition from her is able to ignite the fires of passion that lay dormant in my soul and let them burst like a giant volcano. The lava of my love spills out when I see those red eyes, those...evil, horrifying, red eyes! They probe me to my very soul, searching for something. My throat constricts under their gaze, and the air that’s sucked into my lungs feels heavier than lead. A sick dread spreads throughout me like a virus, infecting each region with paralysis and coldness. All my strength and life seems to leap off my skin and travel to those eyes, attracted like a piece of steel to a magnet. As I watch the vortex of my living essence sucked into the pits of red, I see an illusion for surely it cannot be true. Either my eyes deceive me or I’m set upon by some madness. The ears of my Diablo swell and move to the sides of her head, the fur on her face sheds and falls like a tree in winter losing its leaves, and where the fur leaves, pink skin replaces it.

As I watch the monster of my Diablo change, I can’t help but think of how much revulsion I feel. I no longer wish to stroke her bushy white tail nor do I long to caress her fur and gaze into her eyes. My only want is to flee, to run away from this abomination growing before me and hide in some cowardly lair. This is not the Diablo I cherished. This creature of pink skin like a man’s and eyes of a horror is not my Diablo!

In some woe of ecstasy, the monster closes its grotesque eyes and hisses a sigh. Without the icy grip of terror wrenching my imagination from my grasp, I see with a sense of calm that Diablo is different. The fur of her scalp is longer, falling to her naked waist like the hair of a woman. Her face is furless, and each feature resembles a human so much I have trouble identifying Diablo’s species. She appears to be more human than squirrel, and she’s become taller, a gargantuan height. She towers above me next to Miguel’s doorway.

With great sorrow, I can only wonder of what has happened to my beautiful Diablo. What has stolen her previous beauty. Now she looks like a woman, a woman of all things! All attraction I’ve held for her vanishes now, maturing as quickly as Diablo’s metamorphosis.

The monster hisses, and I feel a remnant of my previous fear spark into a cold flame. I turn my back to her and run, my two hands falling to the ground to help my plight. I discover with surprise that it is much easier for me to run on four limbs, and squeak of exhilaration escapes my throat. I do not have to look back to know that the monster is far behind.

My swiftness on my four paws is amazing. I feel such power and know I maneuver the halls with stealth rivaling that of a spy. In mere seconds I reach the kitchen and moments later the enormous dining room. In my speed, the chairs of the dining table loom over me like monoliths of wood If I were traveling slower, I might have thought the chairs were enormous, looking to fit beasts that weighed thousands of pounds.

With a flash of curiosity, I run straight for the wall. Under my request, Miguel had ordered the walls carpeted for the ease of the squirrels. Long have I watched those squirrels scampering through this mansion using their sharp claws to dig into the carpets and seemingly soar to the ceiling like great birds of prey. Never once did they offer me gratitude, but I never complained. To watch them in their liberty of movement through the mansion, that was the best thanks I ever received.

My hands grip the carpeted wall, and I feel them bear my weight. With great delight I pull my body up. Oh, what freedom! I am no longer limited to the ground. I can climb throughout the mansion! Such joy I’ve never felt before runs through me. What freedom! What freedom I have! Already the pangs of guilt I’d felt for abandoning my love of Diablo are softening. My love of her is being transferred to this joy of speed and flight.

I return to the floor and run to the kitchen, wondering how well I can maneuver up the cabinets and the counters. I want to test this body, this change from erect human to four limbs on the ground. New challenges await me with the scent of success hovering close by.

I enter the kitchen, and I freeze. Standing in the center on the white and black tile is the hideous monster, the woman who once was my Diablo. No sign of her previous body exists. Her white hair that falls to her waist is sleek and shiny. She has high cheekbones, thick red lips, and an exposed neck. She has crimson pupils with red irises, a small nose, ugly hands with five fingers, an exposed neck, walks upright on two feet...an exposed neck!

Thrice the thought has to trespass my thoughts before I am prepared to receive it. The monster displays its weakness with such impudence! It tosses its hair around its vital jugular vein, that incessant throbbing beneath the skin, perceptible to my heightened acuity of sight. I look down at my limbs, the sight of four paws instead of hands and feet failing to unnerve me. I see my little claws, the fur that covers swift muscles, and I know that in my mouth lies tiny teeth. I have the weapons to fight the creature who stole my Diablo, and the courage exists within my soul.

I cry out a battle roar, a mere squeak to the towering human, but to my ears it is chilling. I run toward the beast, knowing in my mind that I only have this one chance. My paws pound the carpet like little pistons, and I think of how efficient my new body is, how much power lies beneath the surface ready to pounce.

Only the battle between Goliath and David can compare with this fight about to commence. Pride swells in me for David was the small one, and I am the smallest fighter in this battle. Goliath fell, as will this monster with the red eyes.

I leap off the floor and sail through the air toward the creature. She gasps a word unintelligible to me, but I know it’s meaning is surprise at my well-formulated strategy of attack. Even my own cunning astonishes me at times, and it’s expected to overawe someone as pathetic as this woman.

Her neck rushes at me, and the continuous throb of the mighty vein beckons me. I open my mouth in preparation, issuing another cry of battle and exhilarated rush.

I never make my target. The monster wakes from her stupor of surprise and grabs me with her vile, five-fingered hand. She holds me, but I am not content to lose a fight so easily. Like an insane badger, I struggle against her vice-like grip, tearing and gnawing on her skin with tooth and claw. I see the gore, the ripped shreds of skin and blood oozing out, and it increases my frenzy. The monster still does not release me. Even with the amount of pain she surely feels, she holds on to my thrashing form.

I tire of the battle, but I cannot taste defeat. I push myself to the limit, exerting every ounce of strength and energy. My squirrel-like body is made for the warfare, I keep thinking. I cannot fail!

At last, the monster throws me. I squeak a victory, but then my head hits thick columns of steel. Dazed, I look up and see that the creature had possessed a plan all the time. She had not idly watched me while I tore her hand to shreds. She had carried me to the drawing room where the cages were kept.

The monster lowers her head to the cage and smiles at me.

With hatred and loathing, I throw myself repeatedly at the side of the cage nearest her face. Dulling waves of pain assail my head with each blow, but I refuse to let them influence me. She cheated! I want to scream at her the injustice of our fight. I did not have a cage to throw her in! I hit the cage one time too many, and I black out.




I awaken with blurry vision, but I see that the monster is still outside my steel prison, staring at me. As the seemingly obscuring fog clears from my eyes, I see a dollop of saliva roll down her chin. The monster sighs and smiles. She talks, her voice feminine and longing.

“Oh, how he stares at me.”