[Gift] Drawlloween [Short story 1] - Haunted Hideaway

As I stretch and shake, I slowly open my eyes and a sudden shock rolls through me- where am I?? This place doesn't look nor smell like my home. I see old furniture and antique paintings on the walls. Over my head dangles a chandelier and under my hooves lies a dusty rug. In fact, everything seems to be very dusty in here....

I turn and then I see it- the worse part.... He's here too.

As if the situation isn't bad enough yet- somehow Charles is here too. Great. I sigh and try to ignore him. As I look out of the window, I see nothing else but trees. Trees and trees as far as I can see out of those dirty windows. This doesn't help with orientation of where we are, but maybe there's something else on the other side of the house? "The sun is going down; let's look around as long as it's not too dark yet....and spit that out, please." I say to Charles that seems to have something in his mouth. Whatever that is....and wherever he found it...its most probably not edible. I know it's not worth finding out, so I just move past him and peek out of the door.

A long, in evening sun dipped, hallway leads to a seemingly bigger room. We carefully walk towards it, but the floorboards creak under our hooves anyway. It's a big saloon with a huge painting of a guy, an even bigger table and lots and lots of other old stuff around. It smells weird suddenly....kinda moldy...or...well dead somehow. I side-eye Charles for a split second and decide to check out the big painting instead. It looks like something from the baroque period- the man is painted in dull, dark colors and looks rather unwell proportioned. His eyes are staring right back at me and I feel uncomfortable.

Suddenly, behind me; the rummaging of something metal- "Stop that!" I shout as quietly as possible at Charles, who messes around with a knight's armor. "I didn't do anything!" "Yeah sure, that helmet fell down by itself, huh? Normal helmet behavior, I guess." I give him a stern look and walk towards the next door as he mumbles something to the armor. Then he comes waddling over and almost bumps into me as I stop to slowly press down the door handle. She creaks open while I turn and want to give him another annoyed look, but Charles eyes widen so much and stare right past me that I immediately whip my head back. Something is running right at us from the darkness down the hall. We can't see anything else but glowing eyes, but I can clearly hear the heaviness in those fast steps. I turn, grab Charles by the ear and pull him with me.

We speed through another door and just run for our lives. After crossing many hallways and rooms, I don't know where we are anymore, but I just want to be as far as possible away from those glowing eyes. I don't hear it anymore and try to orient myself. We must be on the other side of the house, and the sun is almost not reaching the windows anymore. Also on this side there's just trees all around. "This place is completely hidden in a forest," I say while turning towards Charles "....and it's fucking haunted."

He does his thinking face, but I don't even want to know what's brewing in his head.