What Lies Beneath Awaits

In the darkness he whispers your doom.

“It won’t be long now,” he said.

The moon peeled back her silver skin,
dripping light across the crooked floorboards,
where something wet crawled from the drain
and whispered with teeth in the dark.

The clocks were laughing in the attic,
hands spinning backward, ticking in tongues,
as the shadows pressed their nails into the walls,
etching warnings no one would read in time.

The wind brought the scent of iron and rot,
and the cellar door began to tremble,
rattling with each heartbeat you dared to take,
while your breath fogged the glass like ghostly fingers.

Outside, the trees leaned close to the windows,
their branches scratching prayers in the dark,
as you listened to footsteps that were not your own
creeping closer from beneath the bed.

The night swallowed your screams softly,
like a mother tucking in her child,
while cold hands closed around your ankles
and pulled you under the floorboards, gently.

“It won’t be long now,” he said.

Line Count: 28
Prompt

BEGIN AND END your story or poem with the following line, exactly as it appears below, bolded.
"It won't be long now," he said.

Written For: "The Writer's Cramp"