If you only want to read the story, skip to the small text. It is a new kind of writing (horror / gothic) inspired from reading Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat". Let me know if you enjoy it, or if it doesn't fit your tastes. 

During my break from this site, I was dealing with the loss of a loved one. I jokingly would say that my beagle raised me herself, as my parents were busy with work and I was usually left home alone with her. I'd play with her, wrestle with her, and when I got too rough, she'd snap at me. I had gotten bitten a couple of times, and I was young, but I understood that she was setting down her boundaries. I jokingly tell people that she's the one who taught me how to interact with dogs, and that she's the one who taught 7-year-old me that dogs are not living plushies. Eleven years later, I came home from Physics class to a nearly empty house, which would be common. I was used to coming home to a house that only had two dogs in it, as my parents are still the workaholics they always have been. But it was a Saturday, they should be home, and only one dog was present. I walked around the house, looking for the elderly beagle, calling her name as loud as I could, since the adorable old lady was hard of hearing and had vision problems. I investigated every room, but to no avail. My parents came home in tears, and the kind beagle who I would jokingly claim to have raised me was not with them.

When I left for Physics, after feeding her breakfast as usual, she had, according to my parents, bloated up like a balloon. This knee-height dog's belly swelled to the size of a basketball. She was rushed to an emergency vet, but nothing could be done. She was in pain, and couldn't walk or sit or lay down.

She left us suddenly. I cried for days in a row at the mere sight of the couch she laid on, at the sight of her food bowl, at the sound of her leash, at the mention of her name, and I couldn't help it. I cried at the animal shelter I volunteer at, because one of the dogs sounded like her. That is why I had to leave this site. Any mention of a dog during that week of mourning would have broken me. I stayed off the internet in general, too, not wanting to see anything to remind me of her. 

In my dark mood (and in celebration of the start of September), I wrote a short horror story. I had read Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" and many other horror stories and myths while I was away. One story of the Cu Sith (pronounced Koo-Shee) stuck with me, and resonated with me for some odd reason. I have written a short story focused on the Cu Sith, and have used it to expand my writing into the horror genre in preparation for Halloween. Now that I have returned to AFF, I will share this story here. It is not a one-shot, nor is it related to K-Pop in any way, however, as there are no names mentioned except for that of the Cu Sith, you can choose to imagine that it is...well, whoever you'd like it to be. Please let me know if you enjoy this sort of story (kind of horror / gothic writing), and if you'd like to see it more. Without further ado...

In rural Scotland, we were. I left the city to help my elderly parents with their farm work. Thankfully, my wife and young daughter were compliant. My wife would take up sewing and fabricwork to help my poor mother, whose joints ached and cracked and burned with each bend of her fingers. My daughter was eager to care for the farm hounds. I would take over my hunch-backed father’s duties, involving the herding of cows and sheep, but also the more gruesome tasks. I’d have to select the plumpest, healthiest animals each week and decide their fate. Would I force them to produce more offspring, or should I take them down the kilometer-long dirt and stone road to the old and broken barn? I had never killed an animal before; I had stomped on spiders and flies, but never had I taken life from anything that breathed as I did.

It was the end of the first week on the farm. The hounds had taken a liking to my daughter, and my wife was a natural at spinning yarn and thread for clothing. My parents were at ease now, able to rest their shaking and fragile bones. I had dark bruises on my arms and legs from the squealing pigs and cows. I could now see how my father’s body had become horribly disfigured. Fracture after fracture had bent his bones so that his shins now leaned inward, and each arm had an awkward bend to it. His neck and back were permanently hunched from all the work he had done, and his nose was crooked and jagged from the kicking hooves of livestock fighting for their lives. Both he and my mother were missing several teeth. If I continued my parents’ life of farming, my limbs, too, would eventually bend at odd angles, and my nose, too, would become jagged.

“My eldest child.” My father croaked. “The time has come.” He gestured to the door. I knew what he meant. It had been a week, which meant…it was time to see who was to die and who was to live. It was dark out, as we had finished our dinner and dessert, and had been sitting by the fire. My daughter played with a wooden toy we brought from the city – a toy dog – and my wife and mother spoke about the different types of stitching. I simply stared into the flames as my father stared at me. I got up to leave the warm farmhouse, to enter the chilly night air.

“I will be back in a short while, dear.” I patted my wife’s shoulder. “I have to make sure the livestock are all accounted for and locked in the barns safely. Wouldn’t want the wolves to hurt any of them.” Oh, the wolves! How I wish I had seen a ravenous pack of wolves on that damned path to the slaughterhouse!

“Do be careful. Would you bring the rifle with you?” She peered up at me through nervous brown eyes.

“There is no reason. The wolves won’t be out so early in the night.” After a forced smile made its way onto my chapped lips, I went to the first barn. The barn with the chickens and roosters. The birds all slept soundly. I picked the rope, that damned rope, off of the wall of the barn. I crept along the rows of nests, and came to the bird I had in mind since Wednesday. She was no longer producing eggs, as she was becoming elderly, but she was healthy. I woke the gentle hen with a soft voice, hiding that evil rope behind my back. The creature opened her eyes, and didn’t utter a noise as our eyes met. To her, I was the hand that fed, the protector from the wolves and badgers. I scooped her in my arms and walked out of the barn with her. With a silent apology, I tied the old, bloodied rope around her thin neck, and tied her to the outdoor post. I would pick her up after I had selected the cow and pig who’d be accompanying her in her final moments. She gave me a curious look, but sat on the ground where I tied her.

I arrived in the next barn, the cow’s barn, when I heard the howling and baying of the farm hounds. I supposed the hen’s scent drove them mad with hunger, but as I strolled up and down the barn, inbetween the cows’ tiny pens, their baying and howling only became more incessant. Overcome with a frustration so cruel as to desire the hounds’ demise in the slaughterhouse instead of that gentle hen, I stepped out of the cow barn, and saw the three hounds pulling at their own ropes, screaming at something in the distance. My gentle hen was pulling at her rope, trying to escape into her coop. Her neck was now bare of feathers, and wore a bright red, inflamed color. There was fresh blood on the rope. I untied her from the post, and brought her with me to the cow barn, so that she wouldn’t kill herself with the rope. I made my selection. A cow that was past her birth-giving age, and could no longer safely produce milk. She, too, was compliant. She paid no mind to the blood on the rope as I slipped it around her neck. Oh, what kind beasts! They’re so gentle to me, though I plan on taking their lives soon! The gentle mother cow, who had fed my parents for years, would now die by my hand! They calmly followed me to the pig barn, the last barn on the property that contained livestock. The hounds were still baying and barking loudly; I heard my father throw a rock, then a whimper, then the barking ceased.

I picked a young pig this time, one who was in her prime. However, she was a runt, and wouldn’t produce large offspring. If I didn’t choose her to die this week, she’d be chosen to die the next week, or the week after that; she’d meet the axe within a month’s time, no matter what delay I could try. So I didn’t try to delay it. I tied the rope around her neck as easily as I did to the hen and cow, and led the three animals out of the pigs’ barn, and onto the dirt road. I had no candle with which to light my way, but I could see the slaughterhouse’s lanterns glowing in the night. The dirt-road path was a straight one; there was no way I could get lost.

The hounds began baying again, although we were now far away. I assumed there was a badger trying to raid the chicken coop; my wife would go to investigate with the rifle if that were true. The animals followed me close, as if they were scared of the dark and needed my comfort. Oh, if only they knew that the comfort they sought intended to kill them just as a wolf would! I’d never kill these gentle animals, no, it didn’t matter what I intended. They’d die all the same. The hounds suddenly went quiet. The gentle cow stopped in her tracks. Whether it was the stench of death that only she could smell with an expert nose, or whether it was something in the darkness, I didn’t know. I tugged harshly on her rope, forcing her to come along behind me.

Another creature sounded its unholy howl of a call. It was similar to the hounds’ baying, but it held dissonance and a sour tone. It sounded like a scream, but it wasn’t fearful.

Worst of all, it sounded close.

I had never heard a wolf up close before, and although I feared it then, I’d welcome it now. I’d welcome a wolf with open arms! I’d welcome a whole pack of rabid wolves, foaming at the mouth! Fate was too cruel to me!

I pulled my knife from my back pocket to fight off whatever creature that fearsome cry belonged to. I dropped it upon seeing a dark green hound, the size of a bull calf, stalk into view. Its yellow eyes burned with a intensity I had never seen before. Its braided tail curved over its back like a scorpion’s tail, and its long claws scratched the stones with a horrendous sound. I was frozen. The animals behind me pulled and screamed, and, in my shock and despair, I let the ropes go. It bounded past me. I heard the final squeals of the pig, then the terrified and pained howls of the cow, then the chicken screeched, begging for mercy, until all was silent. I remained frozen in my spot, not willing to turn around. I didn’t want to see the mess. I didn’t want to see the bloodshed, and I didn’t want to see that…monster. It growled deeply behind me, and I fell forward, curling into myself. It stepped on me as it walked away, bored and full of meat from my animals. I shakily crawled back to the farmhouse to safety. Every few meters I managed, the beast’s dreadful howl would come, following me.

I opened the door of my farmhouse with a shaky hand. No one was present. The fire was out. My daughter’s toy was set neatly in the toy box, and my wife’s soon-to-be-finished dress was folded on her chair. They must have gone to bed. I can’t fathom how long I was out, anyway. I laid in my bed, and wrapped my arms around my wife. I caressed my wife’s braided hair – my wife never wore braids to bed.