Fighting a Monster

Fighting a Monster(Nushirvan Naseer) FIGHTING A MONSTER
By Nushirvan Naseer

If you happened to see a monster, what would you do? Run crying monster in the street? Or go hide in a public bathroom? Yes? Well, if I were you I would have behaved more sensibly and I have behaved sensibly before too. Here is all that I can recall about that night.

It was a unusually cold and icy night in the month of December. An eerie silence filled the streets of Alastor Town. I had been there for a midnight stroll as I couldn’t sleep. I was miles away from my home. I myself still don’t know how I got there so fast by foot but the return journey seemed to take ages. And then 'tick tock, tick tock'. I shuddered. This tick tock sound felt as if it came from the cuckoo clock of doom. I remembered the cover page of Goosebumps, ‘tick tock you're dead’. I shuddered again and I thought that any moment and I'm over. I snapped back at my thoughts, “SHUT UP! Who do you think you're fooling. Be brave”.
And just then, I felt as if clammy icy cold hands grabbed my neck. I was trying to utter some sound but it looked as if a great octopus was in my throat. I hardly uttered those meaningless words "Tuh, ha”.
At last, just before I was about to faint, I said, “Let-go-of-me!”. At once the clammy hands holding my neck for continuously five minutes loosened grip just as it came to know I was gasping for air.
Those clammy hands turned out to be - - - 'JOHN! WHY YOU LITTLE WEASEL. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?' I shouted at him.

John was my friend, in-fact, my best friend. He had tried to play a dirty joke on me. Actually, he saw me through his home's windows and decided to have a little ‘midnight fun’. He had used ice to make his hands cold and clammy.

“Hahahahahahaha, December fool”, laughed John.

I could feel blood rushing in my face. I wanted to squash him into weasel powder. “Wanna get squashed into weasel powder, that would feel good for a change”, said I. He stopped laughing and stared at me intently as if I were somewhat of a geography question about Mars. (He hated geography). He looked at me puzzled. I said, “Good night. Nice practical joke to play”.
He didn’t say anything but continued to stare and just then, I realized that he wasn’t looking fixedly at me, but at the full moon. I watched at him petrified as he slowly changed into a werewolf. I didn’t know what to do as werewolves cannot distinguish between friend or foe. Werewolf bites can make you also a werewolf. Now, most of you would think that's great, but once you are you regret it.

I couldn’t run from a full grown werewolf and I didn’t even want to be one. So, I determined myself and looked straight into it's eyes. I was ready that I would rather die fighting than leading my whole life and family into misery. I made my first move and the werewolf threw me feet away from him. I thought I was dead meat but continued the effort to get up.

Just then I felt something drop to my side out of thin air. It was a sword. I glanced above and caught a glimpse of a big bird. I took up the sword and charged towards the werewolf. Just then as I was running, I stopped dead in mud tracks when I realized that the werewolf was John. I couldn’t kill him. I decided to do it the hard way. I rocketed toward the house of John's but found no one there. In-fact, I saw that John had lied to me. He was an orphan and this town was not inhabited. He had lied that he went to vacation with his parents. It was me and a deadly werewolf.
I was an inch away from death and miles away from life. I decided to choose the nearest but I had determined myself that I would fight for my dear life. I gave the werewolf some scars and it howled a piercing howl. I in-return had received the double of the number of scars than the werewolf. I was bleeding. I wanted to hold him off till morning when he would return to normal but as I glanced at my watch, I nearly fainted as it was still 1:00 o'clock and I had to wait till about 6:00 o'clock until sunlight. I started losing hope. Just then, I scolded myself for being a coward and rocketed towards the werewolf and knocked it out with the wooden part of the sword. The werewolf let out a shriek of pain and lay motionless on the ground.

Then I dashed along the path to my home which seemed to take hours. I glanced backwards almost a hundred times as if expecting a werewolf to be following me. I at last reached my home at 3 o'clock and laid down in my dare bed. There I was expecting to die any minute and now fought a werewolf and managed to get away.

My parents had gone for a business trip for a month, so, I did as much as I could to heal those cuts. I did succeed but after getting up, after escaping from the werewolf, I told everyone and forced John who was now normal, to admit that he was a werewolf and I had faced him. He admitted it and showed them that he had the mark as a wolf's head on his foot that meant a werewolf mark. I became very famous and people liked me for my bravery as they still do.


By Nushirvan Naseer
Class : 8C
Cathedral High School, Lahore
E-mail: nasfeesanaseer@ymail.com