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Author's Comments:
At some point over the course of September I pondered on how long it's been since I've written a short story JUST for me. Not for school, not for magazines, not for any websites. And the answer I came up with was too long. So I opened up open office and I wrote. And then I stopped. And then later I wrote some more. And then I stopped again. And then I finished it. And I think I wrote a good story. Good atmosphere. And, quite unlike my previous habits, there's no fulfilled backstory, no story of what happens after, no death or any such things of my usual writing. It has a sudden beginning and a sudden end and that is it. I figure I may like to write more stories in this fashion in the future, where they're nice and short and compact. It's 1,500 words long, but the style feels very much like a sudden/flash fiction piece. But if I choose to write more stories like this, I've got time before this story, and time after this story, the potential to string together a mini-series. Who knows?
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Winterbliss

The bridge in to town broke apart last night. I watched it happen. I had been cooped up in my home for most of the season, and last night I just couldn't take it any longer. I needed to go out, to view the outside world once more. Wearing my warmest Winter coat drawn tight, I left through the front door into the bitter cold wind. Whereabouts I was heading, I didn't know. I think the process of wandering aimlessly had its soothing qualities, and that was enough for me.

I walked down the cobbled street with the winds attempting to push me off course. I had my face mask wrapped neatly around my head and my goggles strapped tight. I took the back roads, the isolation soothed me, it gave me a feeling of calm reassurance. So with my gloves slipped snugly over my cold hands and with my boots tied three quarters up my calf, I made my way towards the town boundaries, to the bridge.

At this point the bridge was still quite wholesome, by which I mean both ends successfully merged in the middle, over the river that runs past the town and into the great lake. The river was frozen; as was the lake. I crossed the bridge then, over to the forest and farmland side of the river. I looked down at my reflection as I crossed, and rather than the rippling reflection of the running river, the sleek surface of the frozen water reflected only the linear, proportionate image of my face. It was cold, and the wind just kept on getting colder.

On the other side of the bank I walked down along the river towards the lake, and towards the abandoned mill. For reasons I'm not quite sure about, that structurally questionable and weather-worn windmill appealed to me. It was tucked neatly away from the town, and I felt like I could trust it. I knew it was silly, but when you've got gossiping neighbours on your left, and you've got gossiping neighbours on your right, chances are that you wouldn't mind the solitude of the old mill too.

I walked up to it like I would an old friend, and I eagerly anticipated its shelter over that of my own home. It was just so twisted and unusual, and interesting, whereas my house looked like every other house about town, and it was just so dull and drab. They don't make shades of grey dull enough to express my home.

I moved several branches that were blocking the door and stepped into the large, wide room. Upwards into the darkness, I gazed through the many timber trusses and supports that had weakened over time. I had come to learn that bats lived in amongst the topmost timber beams, the type of bats that won't bother you if you don't bother them. I walked up the staircase, through the crude architectural nightmare, towards a small window, the only one in the mill, up there with the bats near the ceiling.

From my seat in amongst the bats I could see clearly out into the night sky, the pearly white glow of the moon shedding light through the window. The wind was still quite turbulent, and the clouds overhead were whipped into thin vapour trails all across the sky. From my seat, I could also see the edge of the town, and the bridge. I could see the warm orange glow of house-lights and the sooty black smoke billowing from most chimney tops. It was there, as I dwelt in the rafters of the windmill that I saw the bridge's demise.

There approached three hooded figures, torches in hand. The twinkling firelight over by the bridge was what caught my attention, and as if I was sucked out of the peace and tranquillity of my own isolation, I became fascinated with these three men. What matter of business could possibly bring them out and about in this weather, and at this time of night? They appeared to have more on their minds than a mere late night wandering such as I. They had their own matters to attend to, and I had guessed that these matters weren't very pleasant or appealing to the greater community. They were about to cross the bridge into town when I was startled by an entirely unexpected, heavy handed knock on the battered door of the windmill. I looked down towards the door, but I could barely see anything. Why would someone come knocking on the door of this abandoned mill of all places? I remained silent, and I gripped the beam upon which I sat, as I tried to suppress my childish fear of the unknown, the lurker in the dark. After some moments of controlled breathing, I looked back through the window towards the bridge. I didn't quite realise how enthralled I had become towards these strangers at merely a few minutes' shadowed stalking.

They each had, stuffed, bulging from within their coats, what I interpreted at the time to be mere fireworks. As they crossed the bridge, I saw one of the men pull out a long thin cracker with a fuse on the end and wave it in front of his friends, miming what I guess you'd call a spectacular explosion of some sort. From what I gathered, they had scolded his juvenile musings as he quickly tucked the rocket back into his pocket and held himself in a bitter posture.

Knock, knock, knock. Knock. The thick, heavy knock on the wooden door reached my ears. I took my eyes off the party of three and glanced back downwards again. The floor was too low to see anything. It could just be the wind had caught open the door and was slamming it against a rock that was causing the racket. It could have been, but it wasn't, as I heard, for the first time since I entered the windmill, the unmistakable rusted squeal of the hinges on the door rubbing up against each other as someone-or something- very real entered the mill. I swallowed, my ears tuned in to every little sound that ought not be there. I climbed backwards through the trusses, out of the light of the window and away from the reach from the mill's topmost landing. I felt something brush up against my arms as I crawled back. The bats. They scarcely moved. I'm sure they heard everything I did. Everything and more. Footsteps across the ground floor. Step, step, step. Step. The beating of my heart inside its anxious chest. Thump, thump, thump. Thump. In the darkness I couldn't see a thing save for the window. Out there, the party had paused, one of the men held his hand over his mouth, and I'd say the bats would have heard him coughing. Their crunching footsteps upon the coarse ground. The shuffling as they slid out onto the ice under the bridge and packed their pyrotechnics tight beneath the bridge.

Footsteps up the stairs. Steady, heavy. Step. Step. Step. I couldn't see, save for through the window. I was blind to the inside of the windmill. I had become one with my bat-friends, blinded as I am surely blind to others in the darkness. I hear every footfall with a piercing clarity, and I feel the pump pump pumping of the blood through my veins and the thump thump thumping of my heart in my ribcage, and I lick my lips, and I swallow, and I let thin pearls of sweat run slowly down to my chin, and through the window... through the window I'm sure the bats hear the striking of a match, as I see the phosphorescent glow, through the window I am not blind.

Step, step, step, step. Stop. He's here, he's at the top of the stairs. He's at the window. Looking. For me. He's blind to me in the darkness of the trusses and the beams in the roof. Blind to the bats as they are to him, but as he stands by the window, his silhouette is framed in the pale illumine of the nightly-glow. All there is to hear is the rib-breaking explosions of my heavy hammer-heart. I gulp. I stink of cold sweat and bat shit. I hear the pump pump pumping and the thump thump thumping and in the darkness I convince myself that he can hear it too. He looks about the room, he hears it, he just needs to find it. Any moment now he'll see me and he'll kill me for I see a madness in his eye.

And there it is; I know he's seen me. In the darkness with the bats that can't be seen. He sees in the roof beams, two cold, piercing eyes reflecting an unnatural green. Watching, staring, waiting for the kill.

And then and there, as we both grow cold with fear, the night was interrupted by a violent explosion. The bridge was torn to pieces as rubble, shrapnel and fire burst out in all directions. We both looked out the window. Three figures were seen running, running towards the forest, and of that I know no more.

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