Is It Real? by Ruth Rivas
The assignment: FAIRY TALES RECONSIDERED.
Ruth’s twist on Goldilocks might just keep you awake tonight.
I wake up and open my eyes. Normally, I would see darkness, feel my comfortable bed, and hear my loud air conditioner…but not this time.
I woke up in an uncomfortable place and position. Instead of hearing my AC, I hear birds chirping and I see trees above me. I sit up and look at my surroundings. Where am I?
I decide to take a look around and, as I’m walking, I see a massive house made out of wood. It seemed familiar, but I just couldn’t pinpoint it because I mean, I simply didn’t know where I was. I take a few steps closer to the odd-looking house and peek through a window. There was nobody inside so I walked around the outside of the house to inspect it. I don’t see any suspicious items, but when I go up to the porch to open the door to the house, I hear voices. I quickly hide behind a large couch on the porch and hear footsteps getting louder and louder with the voices also getting louder and closer.
After a while, people appear and open the door to “their” house (I assume). My eyes widen. There are three different-sized bears with one little girl standing behind them. She has shiny, dirty, blonde hair in two messy buns and seems to be half the size of the smallest bear, and just like an ant compared to the other two bears in front of her. I see them walk into the house and I notice something that feels odd. They all had a small silver item in the back of their necks.
I then realized that I was in the story of Goldi and the Three Bears. I couldn’t make out what it was, but I felt uneasy. I waited a while before going to the window to look into the house. I watched their every move for what felt like an hour. The whole time everything felt suspicious and creepy. There’s tension in the air. Suddenly, my eyes widen. The silver item I saw earlier on the back of everyone’s neck is sliding down their backs.
My face is filled with horror as one human steps out of each bear costume. I thought it was impossible for my eyes to widen further but I was wrong. My eyes feel like they’re about to fall out when I see a bear crawl out of the little girl’s costume. This story was a lie!
I look again and instantly regret my decision. There are three brown-haired
humans; one tall man with dark brown eyes and hair, a less, tall woman with black hair and hazel eyes, and a young ten year old looking boy with brown hair and hazel eyes. But what really pushed me over the edge was the bear standing on its hind legs. It had blonde colored hair with white eyes. They all creeply grinned at me and started running towards me.
As I feel myself scream, I see black. I instantly open my eyes and wake up in my room and on my comfortable, soft bed. I realized that what I had seen was just a nightmare! I take a deep breath as I turn on my television and wonder about who the people in my nightmare were and why they were there. That breath of air was soon taken out of me as I saw news of a family that had been slaughtered years ago and whose bodies were just recently found in an abandoned house in the middle of the woods.
Shock and terror fill my body once more as I realize that the family that had been found, is the family that had been in my nightmare.
Ruth Rivas
October 6, 2023