| abstract
| - Man, this is just what I needed, a week away from everything. Well, let me introduce myself. My name is Marcus, I'm 27 years old, I have a wife, two kids, and another on the way. Ever since I was a child I've wanted to be a writer. I guess I'm good at it, I've had two books published, but that's beside the point. I recently suffered from writers block. No matter what I did, I couldn't get back in the rhythm. I decided to see a therapist about it, and he told me I needed to get away from the stress of daily life. I, of course, had no objection to that, considering I hadn't taken a vacation in several years. I confronted my wife about it, and invited her to tag along. The kids could stay at her parents home, it would be a romantic weekend for the two of us, but, to my surprise, she declined and said she'd rather stay with the kids, but encouraged me to go alone. I was disappointed, but I didn't argue. I packed my suitcase, kissed my wife and children, then headed out. There was a beautiful cabin beside a river that my therapist told me about. It was a long drive on a curvy, dirt road, but well worth it. When I arrived at the cabin, I was astonished by the massive trees secluding me from the rest of the world. The cabin, as I stated before, was beautiful. I opened the door, but lost my breathe. The air was stale, cobwebs lined the corners of the ceiling, and I'm pretty sure I saw a mouse run across the floor. No one had lived here in a very long time. Anyway, I went to the bedroom and unpacked. It was starting to get dark, so I decided to go to bed and further inspect the area in the morning. As I undressed, I heard a sound coming from outside, it sounded like someone rustling through a patch of dead leaves. I opened the window to see if anyone was outside. Nothing. I was about to close it, but I noticed a peculiar sight. An owl sitting on a branch, looking at me. It was a bright white color with pitch black eyes, and it was staring right at me. I slammed the window shut, the noise made the owl fly away. I laid down in the bed and fell asleep. It was seven a.m. when I awoke the next morning. The sun was piercing through the windows, creating beautiful gleams of light in the dark cabin as I yawned and sat up. A beautiful day. I wondered what I should do, maybe I should try and work on my book, no, I'll go for a swim in the river. A brilliant idea! I put on my bathing suit and went outside, it was surprisingly chilly for the middle of summer, though. When I reached the river, I stuck one foot in it, but yanked it out. The water was ice cold; much too cold to swim in. On my way back to the cabin, I saw the owl from last night. Weird, I thought they only came out at night. It was watching me as I walked back. "Get out of here!" I yelled as I threw up my arms. The owl didn't budge, I shivered a little and went inside. What a strange encounter. I went to get my camera to take a picture of the owl, but when I returned, it was nowhere to be found. I took the rest of the day to take pictures of my surroundings. My wife was a photographer, so I thought she'd like the photos. I got some pretty good ones, too. One of a bright red centipede crawling across a root, even a fox chasing a rabbit, I'm really proud of that one. Night came, so I retreated to the cabin to sleep. When I went into the bedroom, I felt something, like someone was staring at me. I looked around the entire room, the whole cabin! It was really bothering me. I couldn't find anything, so I decided too shake it off. I went back too the bedroom and fell asleep. I didn't normally have dreams, but that night I did. There were too black eyes staring at me from the foot of the bed. I tried to kick, but I couldn't move... Something had me pinned down. The eyes began too move closer. "NO! GO AWAY!" I pleaded. The eyes were close now, reveling an entire face. Two black eyes, with no mouth, or any other facial features, just gray skin, and those damn eyes. I woke up and fell out of the bed. I felt the stare on me. I looked outside and saw the owl. "Get the fuck out of here!" I screamed as I opened the window and threw a shoe at it. The shoe missed and the owl just sat on the tree branch, gazing at me through the window. This was way too creepy. I got my stuff together and went to my car. The owl had moved now. It was on top of the cabin looking down at me as I was opening my car door. I pulled out my camera and took a picture of it. It screamed loudly, making me cover my ears, then flew away into the woods. By the next morning, I was home. My kids greeted me with hugs and my wife kissed me. "Why are you back so early?" She asked. I smiled, "Eh, that wasn't really the place for me." I gave her the camera and told her about the pictures I'd taken, especially about the one of the owl. She said she'd get them developed for me. I got to rest easy that night, and in the morning, my wife handed me the pictures. I looked at them one by one. "Not bad, right?" She said as she displayed a pair of earrings to me. "Yeah, they're pretty good, hun." "Did you see the one of the owl?" "No, I only saw a few." I flipped to the picture to show her, but it was only a picture of the corner of the cabin's roof. The owl was gone, though I knew I got him in that one. My wife hugged me from behind. "I'm going to work, see you at six." She shut the front door, leaving me to wonder about that fucking owl. I stood to go in the living room when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw two black eyes staring at me from the window in the kitchen.
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