My story is in response to
Three Things Challenge, 02 August 2018
https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/08/02/three-things-challenge-02-august-2018/
Today’s things are: basket, xylophone, scream
and
Thursday photo prompt: Track #writephoto
Thursday photo prompt: Track #writephoto
SECRETS OF THE DARK
By Neel Anil Panicker
At first she didn’t hear it, plausibly because she was too tired, also ‘coz she was desperately trying to hack her way forward, her thinly legs battling to remain steady, her frail self half dying of sheer exhaustion.
As she willed herself forward, forging herself through the blinding darkness__hemmed in on all sides by an ever thickening blanket tall leafy tress, their branches towering over like darkish bats’ wings___she found herself increasingly assaulted by the eerie sound, ever rising in a crescendo.
At first she thought it to be that coming from a xylophone. Back in school, she’d heard it played__ the sound__a hard, wooden, rattling sound that had a certain drop-like quality to it that was further accentuated by its absolute lack of resonance.
‘Who would be playing a xylophone in the middle of a forest?’ she wondered, her heart beats on a tailspin.
The answer came seconds later as she neared a sudden turn.
The sound, now no longer musical, had turned into a shrill shriek a.k.a. a hyena’s laughter.
Fear write large on her face as she turned right and peered into the void ahead. There, from behind the wooded trunks of trees, from some place deep inside the forest, she heard it__the strangest, scariest, most blood curdling sound she’d ever heard in her entire decade and half years of existence on Planet Earth.
At that instant, her mind in limbo, her heart beating maddeningly faster than ever before, she let out a scream__ an agony filled, pain dripping wail that bounced off the trees and soon echoed off the high peaks that lorded in the distance.
Not knowing what came over her, she dropped her basket of fruits and ran through the wilderness, the strange sound pursuing her in a hot chase.
#ThursdayPhotoPrompt #ThreeThingsChallenge #Writephoto #shoprtstory #flash #shortstory #fiction #basket #xylophone #scream
neelwritesblog 
A tale nicely poised. 😊
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