Always Smiling

Just barely, but surely, he can hear it, his cat was making some growls and moans from the other side of the house.

“What is it, Fudge? It’s like, two in the morning!” Ryan complained to his cat as he rolled out of bed. Fudge kept on moaning and making aggressive noises. The fluffy tabby cat was staring at something in the back yard, which was completely shrouded in darkness, but Ryan knew that something, or someone was there.

“Yo, fluffy, would it make you feel better if I checked it out?” Ryan asked, addressing the cat by one of his many given nicknames. Fudge turned his head to Ryan, and hissed at him, being startled by his owner’s sudden appearance.

“Chill out, dude. I’m sure it’s just a raccoon or something.” Ryan replied, sounding smug. Fudge made a low growl as his owner made his way to the back door, which was all made from glass, and was one of those doors that slides open. Ryan put on his boots, grabbed a flashlight, and headed outside. He began making his way down the porch when—

*CRUNCH!*

Ryan looked down and shined his flashlight at the source of the sound. His foot went right through one of the wooden stairs. Ryan chuckled sheepishly as he cautiously pulled his foot out of the hole.

“Whoops... M-Must have stepped on a weak spot.” He mumbled. His boots were pretty big, and he has unintentionally stepped on and broke things before. One time, he stepped on someone’s watch and was guilty for the rest of the day.

“Hello?”

Ryan asked as he shined his flashlight across the yard, not seeing anything unusual. He walked up to a tree that was in the yard, where he suddenly saw two big golden eyes staring back at him. Ryan however, was not even startled in the slightest, shining his flashlight on the eyes. It turned out to be a barred owl, who was curiously tilting it’s head at Ryan, who chuckled at it and waved before walking off. A bush suddenly rustled across from Ryan, who immediately went to investigate.

“Hello? I know I look intimidating, but I mean no harm.”

Ryan said gently as he bent down to the bush. The rustling stopped for a second, before a pair of glowing eyes looked back at him. “Can’t believe my cat was giving a hard time to a small woodland animal.”

The source of the two eyes made a weak moaning noise, causing Ryan to pity it.

“You hungry, fella? My friend left some celery in the fridge yesterday.” Ryan told the creature with sympathy in his calm, gravelly voice.

The creature made another weird noise, almost sounding muffled, and like it was in pain from trying to speak.

“Are you ok? Should I get help?” Ryan asked, growing more concerned. The creature made a noise as if it was scared, but unable to speak. Ryan stood up and turned to walk back to the house. “I’ll be right back, alright?”

The creature made a painful noise as if it was desperate, and jumped out of the bush, grabbing Ryan by the arm.

“Hey, relax, I’m not gonna leave you b—“

Ryan stopped himself when he looked at his arm. A large, grey hand, with unnaturally long claws was holding onto almost his entire arm.

The eyes glared back at Ryan, before growling as another large hand quickly reached for Ryan’s face as it’s grip on his arm tightened.

Ryan smacked the incoming hand away, causing the other to free his arm. Ryan was a big animal lover, but this was no animal. The creature started walking towards Ryan, causing him to slowly back away. The creature suddenly broke into a run, making Ryan almost trip when he started running as well. This thing was fast, whatever it was, it was seemingly catching up to Ryan no matter how fast he ran. The yard wasn’t very big, but neither one broke any fences. They were just running around the yard. While running by the porch, Ryan caught a glimpse of Fudge watching everything from inside. The cat seemed content from seeing his owner getting chased around the yard.

Ryan decided to run around the yard in circles in an attempt to make the creature dizzy or lose focus of him, but since he wasn’t looking when he turned to see if the creature was getting affected by his plan, he crashed right into a tree.

The owl from earlier flew from the tree when Ryan made impact with it. With the wind knocked out of him, Ryan fell to the ground.

Ryan looked up, seeing the two eyes of the creature looming over him. He jumped up and backed right into the tree. He only saw the eyes, but he knew that the creature was just inches from his face since he can feel the hot breath hitting his cheeks. Out of panic, Ryan swiftly took out his flashlight, but before he could turn it on, the creature made a muffled shriek and it’s eyes disappeared, but it didn’t go anywhere.

Ryan felt like something was very wrong, something was up with this thing. He turned on the flashlight, seeing the rest of the creature, who appeared to be cowering on the spot. It’s whole body was light grey just like it’s hands, which were covering it’s face. The creature was horribly skinny, and it was missing a leg, which had looked like it was ripped off. The creature had cuts and bruises all over it’s body, some that looked too painful and deep for a human to survive if they had it. Ryan still felt scared, but he was more scared for the creature than he was afraid of it.

“Hey... I have no clue what you are, but I’m not gonna harm you, as long as you don’t hurt me... ok...?” Ryan spoke calmly, but there was still a hint of fear in his voice.

The creature slowly removed it’s hands from it’s face, as if it were hesitant to do so. Ryan froze at what he saw, not in fear, but in shock and disbelief. The creature’s mouth was sewn shut in a smile, making it look happy at first glance, but the look in it’s eyes were nothing but pain and fear. Ryan could only stare at the thick thread preventing the creature from speaking. He began to feel nauseous just by looking at it, the creature’s missing leg was nothing compared to the thought of unimaginable pain that thing would go through every time it tried to speak or even make noise.

“W-Who did this?” Those words were the only thing Ryan could let out without getting the urge to vomit. The creature reached over and gently grabbed Ryan’s free hand, and began tracing it’s finger on it, it felt ticklish. Ryan realized that the creature was tracing letters on his hand. He said each letter out loud when it was completed.

“M-O-N-S-T-E-R-S-D-I-D-T-H-I-S-T-O-M-E.”

“Monsters...? W-What did they look like?” Ryan muttered, feeling the acid in his throat.

The creature squinted it’s eyes as it scanned Ryan’s appearance, from his black hair, to the  large boots he was wearing. The creature then traced on Ryan’s hand again, what it wrote, made Ryan feel a burning pain that slowly grew to anger and even more disbelief.

“T-H-E-Y-L-O-O-K-E-D-L-I-K-E-Y-O-U.”