Tony's own reflection stared him down in the mirror.
"How can a thirteen year old have so many wrinkles and blood shot eyes?"
The reflection itself was evidence that he was not a vampire, but that ringing would not stop. The clock thundered with every tick. He looked down at his hands. Why would that stain not come out even when he had washed it with hydrogen peroxide?
He had just rested his head on the pillow moments ago but already he could hear the Robbins and Finches singing their early morning cacophony. The muscles in his arms and legs ached as if he had completed a hundred reps at the gym.
He needed to lay down and get some rest but these thoughts kept rushing through his head.
What makes the wind blow the way it does through the cracks? What do the birds say? Why am I in the bathroom? Why is the house so empty? Why is it so difficult to remove the spot?
The curtains Tony drew shut last night began to dance with a glimmering fire. Even with that ugly stain his hands glowed like an angel. Surely the early morning sunlight was judge that he was not the evil creature he perceived himself to be.
The light
He watched as the dust of the room danced in the golden gleam. He followed the ray of light until it rested gently on the doorknob of his room. Tony so much wanted to feel that light rest on him. He slowly turned the doorknob and steeped into the corridor. The light guided him to another door. Tony followed that light until he was outside and down the steps.
The thunder of the clock was replaced with the sounding birds above him in the bright morning sky. He laughed at the thought of a vampire enjoying sunlight and fresh smells of Spring. He was alive and just as healthy as any other fifteen year old boy in this universe. It seemed that the lilies agreed with him as they bowed down and drops of dew splashed into the already wet soil.
His neck bent to examine the ground. Sure enough there were four prints almost human. It was as if a monkey had decided to jump onto his front porch. Tony followed these footprints to the origin. With each set of tracks the bushes grew thicker around him. The first three sets of prints were like a monkey or even a human hand, but in the bushes he found tacks that look like a dog's print.
He wondered what strange creature could have been here and if that dog had chased the creature up onto the porch. The tracks were fresh in the mud and he wondered if that dog was still out there. He wondered where this mysterious dog had come from.
The dog
He followed the tracks until the thorns were too much too bear. It was there that Tony found the cage the neighbor had built to keep his rabbits. The top of the cage was torn open as if it were a piece of paper ripped up by a child. The rabbits had all gotten out, but what caught Tony's attention was what he saw inside the cage. His stomach turned over at the remnants of what laid inside. Whatever kind of dog that was, it had itself some feast last night. There were footprints everywhere. Some were that crazy dog footprints and some were the footprints of the rabbits. Nowhere in sight did he find the monkey footprints.
Tony found one set of foot prints leaving the area and then going back to a clearing in the woods. The whole prairie shook as a gust of wind hit him in the face followed by a long honking sound. This was the way back to the highway in front of his house. The prints went along side the highway.
He followed the prints about 200 meters until they veered off to a path he knew very well. This was the path he sometimes used to get from the high way to his house. He followed the footprints to get to their origin, but now as he walked along the path the foot prints began to change. He could see four prints at a time but they were different. The front prints had longer appendages and did not look like dog paws. The back prints began to look larger. It was just like the monkey prints he had seen earlier. Where had the dog gone to?
The monkey?
As he followed the trail nearer to the house he noticed that the front prints of the monkey were gone. In it's place were two large footprints. He measured them against his own shoes. They were just a little shorter than his shoes, but that was pretty large considering that he wore a pair 13 sneakers.
He kept following the footprints until he got to the house. They disappeared at his porch. Those footprints must have been there before but he didn't notice then because he was already following the monkey print trail.
Now it all made sense Tony thought:
"That monkey thing must have come out of nowhere and chased after the crazy dog until it jumped onto the dog's back."
"They got to the rabbit's cage and tore it apart and then came back to house when that monkey thing was tired out."
"But where is the monkey thing now?"
"It must be somewhere in the house."
The prompt for this story was provided by the inkwell here in the weekly challenge announcement post. This week's challenge as you may have guessed was "Footprint". The skill point was a little more subtle. I hope you caught my efforts to show and don't tell.
All pictures here were provided from Pixabay except the GIF I got from the Peakd frontend.
