Capricornus
I grew up on a small farm in the middle of nowhere, raised by Christian parents in the middle of the Bible Belt. Needless to say, my upbringing was…strict. Every Sunday we would be the first people at the church. My father was a layperson and my mother worked with the youth and nursery groups. I was even involved for some time with the music program. We prayed before every meal, were baptized as a family, and attended every Wednesday service we could. The only time we ever really skipped was when my mother would fall ill. For a while, this routine felt safe and correct. This is because it got me out of the house and away from my mother, whose demeanor would change when we were out of the public eye. Or when my father would leave the country for work. To the outsider looking in we were a happy family with strong bonds. But on the inside, it was a different story. You see, I believe that every family has a dark secret to hide. Murders, crimes, betrayals. Ours was our mother. She was an aggressive woman with violent tendencies. I remember a bad grade used to get me a few whacks to the side of the head, an F and it was game over. She was a perfectionist with a god complex and expected absolute perfection from everyone around her. Especially me. For a while, I tried to reach her unobtainable standards but after failing every time, I threw my life to the wind and started gambling with the stakes. It started off small. A C in English. A few missed dishes. Forgetting to make my bed. It went on for a while like this, with her anger and frustration growing by the day. Eventually, I got up the nerve to take my experiment to the public. I wanted to see how long she could contain herself. I would mess up on speeches. Sing too quietly at church. Or wear too much black in front of the church crowd. All of these were tipping points at the end of the day. Though none compared to that night. To preface this let me start by saying my family did not have just one dirty little secret. They had two. And I was the other. You see I have a history of violence towards myself. Cutting, pills, and even a few suicide attempts. Many that should have worked. When I couldn’t take much more, I started looking for alternatives. And boy did I find one. Witchcraft. I know how it sounds but when you are put in a dangerous situation that nobody will help you out of, you end up finding the strangest of solutions. But what about my religion, you may ask? Well, I had given up faith a while ago. Surly any god who allows their children to be treated like this is not one worth following, especially when they claim to be all-loving. So, I turned to more drastic measures. It started small, with a few protection spells here and there to keep her out of my room at night. A charm to slip in and out of rooms unnoticed. And a curse that I was keeping in my back pocket. I did not know how well I could trust these things as I had gotten them all from claimed witches on the internet but so far, the spells and the charm seemed to be working and my life quieted down just a bit. It was not anything crazy, but it was enough to let me breathe a little easier. Unfortunately, my peace was short-lived when somebody told my mother they suspected me of harming myself. It started like any other fight regarding my mental health. My problems were not real. I only wanted attention. An endless stream of accusations flowed from her as she slowly walked towards me. Rage flashed behind her eyes. Going on about how I was an embarrassment to the family and how I did not deserve to be a part of it. That’s when she took her first swing. At the same moment, something in my gut told me to duck. She missed my face by inches. Of course, not landing her punch only infuriated her more and she rushed me. Grabbing me by my neck and slamming me into the wall, cutting off my air supply. I grabbed onto her arm and kicked at her with everything I had, landing a solid blow to her knee. She yanked me from the wall and slammed her fist into the center of my back, sending me gasping to the floor. I lay there for a moment. My vision is fuzzy. I could hear my mother screaming at me to get up. After what felt like hours, I was finally able to stand up, as I did, I made eye contact with the woman standing in front of me. She shouted at me saying if I ever embarrassed her like that again she would kill me. I could feel the heat of my anger and hatred start to rise as I stepped forward to fight back. When I did, she threw a bowl at my face, laughing like a maniac. My heartbeat was so rapid I could feel it in my fingertips. Before I knew what was happening, I was making a mad dash to the back door and out into the darkness. Outside a storm was brewing, the thunder crashing overhead as I sprinted into the field behind my house. The wind whipped at my face and the rain pelted my back, but I did not care. By now the rage inside of me was boiling over and I could feel it taking over. My pulsing fingertips began to grow hot as I remembered the curse. It was a simple one made to avenge any wrongdoings done to the castor. It just so happened; I had many. I wracked my brain for the words… In tenebris dormit, nigrior adhuc Non patitur lumen ad voluntatem meam Expergiscimini ex altissimo somno tuo Expergiscimini et vindicate me The words raced through my mind and poured out of my mouth before I even knew what was happening. I shouted them into the wind. Over and over as if I were beating it into her physical body, putting more rage, more hatred behind each line until the words were unintelligible. After one last round of shouting into the thunder and darkness, I let out a terrifying scream. Loud and shrill and filled with malice. This was my revenge. The air around me grew cold and the storm raged with such ferocity that the trees bowed to the wind. The warm, pulsating feeling in my fingers grew stone cold and spread across my body. My chest tightened and my mouth twisted into a gruesome smile. It felt as if something dark was taking over and I did not want to stop it. I opened my heart to the darkness and welcomed the sleeping beast in, willing it to awaken. I wanted justice. I wanted revenge. I wanted death. For either her or I it did not matter. I demanded vengeance. After a few minutes, the world grew eerily quiet, and my body temperature returned to normal. My knees began to shake, and my eyes grew heavy. I felt the world spin as I blacked out. When I came to all the lights in the house were off. Nobody waited up. And why should they? I’m not one of them anyway. I was an abomination to human nature to them now. No longer part of the sweet Christian family that was all too good at acting. I made my way back to the house and to my room, falling into bed and quickly finding sleep. In my dream, I was back in the field looking up at the cloud-covered sky. Only this time it was looking back at me with two fierce golden eyes. It bellowed out in a voice like thunder, asking what I wished for. For me, there were two very simple things that I wanted. Justice and protection. The clouds began to swirl into a funnel, creating a spindly, slow-moving tornado. It slowly made its way to the ground and a creature made of mist stepped out. It slowly began to take the form of a tall person. I managed to get a glimpse of red before I was jolted awake. I could hear my sister crying in the kitchen. The house felt heavier than usual this morning. I stepped out of my room and into the hallway, making my way to the kitchen. My sister sat at the table, hands shaking. My mother stood quietly in the corner. In the night somebody had crept into our barn and slaughtered my sister’s goat. They had slit its throat and belly, piling its guts on top of it. A sinister feeling crept into my chest as I remembered hearing about a nearby, small-time cult. It was suggested that they were behind it. To make matters worse, its severed ear was left at our back doorstep. Like some form of warning. This rocked the whole neighborhood, what few we had anyway. The death of a goat in such a manner in a place like this was seen as a bad omen. The devil’s work. We did not have gangs or unruly rebels in the area. And my sister did not have it in her to do something so gruesome. A dark cloud had settled over the household, heavier than ever. Something was happening. Something that was now out of my control. Was this a result of my curse? Or was it a cult? If it was…why us? It’s not like we were the only farm with goats. What were we the target of? The rest of the week went by without incident. Things were unsettlingly quiet around the house. My sister was looking for a new goat, my father was away, and my mother spent most of her time sleeping, her illness worsening in no time. I still crept quietly around, completely unnoticed, just in case she got a burst of energy. The only difference was my mother complaining about the darkness in the house that came and went with me. This is not the first time she’s said something like that, but she had never worded it like that before. Now that it has been said aloud, I have noticed a strange new presence that I can never seem to shake. Almost like a heavy blanket had been placed on my shoulders. One night I was lying in bed, my dog resting peacefully in the corner. I closed my eyes for a moment and felt the world immediately fall away as the air grew cold around me. I turned to look in the direction that would have been where my door was and saw a tall, pale figure with empty eyes and four sharp horns, staring directly at me. A crooked grin spread across its face. It shuffled in place for a moment before making a mad launch toward me. I fell backward and tried to let out a scream, but the air felt so thick in my lungs nothing came out. The figure was about to jump on me when I was finally able to let out a scream. The next thing I knew I was jumping out of bed and running towards the light switch. My dog was standing in the corner with his back arched slightly and all his hair was sticking up on his neck. I could see the light in the hallway turn on just before my door swung open. It was my mother. Her frame blocked the entire doorway. She demanded to know what all the noise was about. I desperately tried to play it off as a bad dream, thankfully she bought it, this time. As she exited my room, I could feel my heart begin to pound. It was as if it had been standing still that entire time. The next day I decided to ward my room using salt and oils that I stole from the kitchen. I made a solid line of salt on the inside of my door so it could not be seen, and I put one on my windowsill, spreading the oil along the frame. When I was sure it was safe, I left the house for the day. Throughout the day I was finding it harder and harder to focus. My mind wandered back to the thing in my room, its empty eyes boring into mine. My hands never stopped trembling. But oddly enough not from fear, but anticipation. Like something big was going to happen. Something big and terrible. When I finally made it home, I went straight to my room and locked myself in. My mother wasn’t due home until later in the night so I knew it would be fine, at least for a little while. I could hear my sister watching television in the living room, laughing at some show she recently got into. I tried to stay calm as I thought about the weekend ahead. My sister would be out of town, leaving me alone with my mother. It’s nothing I couldn’t handle but it was still a less than appealing situation. My thoughts continued uninterrupted for a while until I started to hear footsteps coming down the hall. I focused my attention on the sound and realized I no longer heard the television. Just this strange, uneven footstep. This couldn’t possibly be my sister, was it? The footsteps continued to thump down the hall until they came to an abrupt stop. Right at my bedroom door. I called my sister but received no answer. I called my mother and the results were the same. I felt a chill go down my spine as I looked between my door and the floor. To my shock and horror, I saw not my sister’s feet, not my mother’s, but a pair of black, fur-covered hooves. They paced back and forth in front of my door for what seemed like an eternity, but all I could do was sit, frozen in shock or fear. I couldn’t really tell you. Then, mid-step, the hooves vanished, and an uneasiness washed over me. I got up and walked to my door, reaching for the handle. But something deep in me made me stop short. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest, my breath catching on every other inhale. Everything in me was telling me not to open that door. That’s when I heard it. My sister let out a blood-curdling scream that echoed through the house. She threw open her bedroom door, causing it to slam against the wall. She crossed the hall to my door and began pounding frantically on it. When I heard her voice coming from the other side, I felt every muscle in my body relax. When I finally opened the door for her, she rushed in and immediately began telling me about the shadow outside of her bedroom window. It stood about seven feet tall and was completely black. But what she said next is what sent my mind spinning. She told me that the shadow looked like a man with a goat’s head. And from its head grew four sharp-looking horns. It was only slightly different from the man I saw in my room. The one with the empty eyes. Had it changed its form to scare my sister? Or had it appeared more human to make me feel less afraid of it? We heard a loud slam coming from the living room. My mother was home. She stormed down the hall and immediately began screaming about embarrassing her yet again. She pushed me to the ground and grabbed me by my hair. Yanking me to my knees she warned that if I ever embarrassed her in a public setting again, it would be the last thing I ever did. I couldn’t tell you what I did this time. I’ve been so out of it these last few days I probably couldn’t even tell you where I was. hot tears streamed down my face, and I felt my blood start to boil. I pleaded at that moment for my torture to finally be over. All of the pressure, the physical abuse, the inappropriate comments and behavior, everything. Either I die or she does. She released the wad of my hair she held and shoved me back down. I stood up in front of her, trying my best to seem unafraid. The air around me took on a now familiar chill and my eyes locked onto hers. We stayed, stuck in a staring contest for what seemed like hours. After what was probably only a couple of minutes, I saw her eyes start to roll back into her head as she lost steady footing for a moment. I took the opportunity to suggest she go lie down, it was late after all. Without a word my mother turned and left the room, shutting herself into her own. My sister turned to look at me in disbelief before leaving herself. The chill in my room remained, that’s when I realized the salt line had been broken. I stayed up that night, watching the door. Once again, the hooves came back but rather than pacing, they stood still outside of my door, facing the hallway. Almost as if it was standing guard. What was I going to do about this weekend? Was there even anything I COULD do? And what about this thing waiting outside my door? The award was no longer up so why was it just standing there? These thoughts raced through my mind at breakneck speeds. The thoughts were moving so quickly, around and around in an endless loop, I thought I might get sick. I felt my heart rate spike as a wave of panic took over. Once again, I felt tears stream down my face as voices screamed in my head, telling me I would never make it out of there with my life. I felt myself start to hyperventilate as the panic increased. Just as it peaked and I fell into a fit of uncontrollable shaking, I felt my eyes get heavy and the corners of my vision started to blur, I was blacking out. It was still dark when I came too. I could hear my sister moving about the house, getting ready to leave for her weekend trip to San Antonio. That means it was somewhere between four and five in the morning. To confirm my suspicions a bright set of headlights turned into our driveway, casting shadows into my room. The long, spindly arms of the tree in front of my house stretched across my wall, twisting eerily in silence. I heard the front door open and close twice. Once for my mother and again for my sister. That’s when the sound of uneven footsteps came down the hall once more. Only this time my door crept open, revealing the same goat man my sister had seen at her window. His head was covered in black fur and nearly reflected the light coming in from outside. It would swap back and forth between the goat head and the human one, always keeping its horns. His eyes, however, remained as empty as ever. I saw him raise a single hoof, which was the same color as his head, a strange, reflective black, and slam it onto the floor. As soon as it made contact the branches on my wall shot out and grabbed me, twisting tightly around me. My body struggled against the pressure, but they only squeezed tighter. He raised his foot to stomp again and this time when his hoof hit the hardwood, I fell unconscious. I woke up in a cold sweat the next morning, surrounded by sunlight. The birds outside sang their usual song. Only today things seemed almost, brighter. My mother was going to be home with me all day today but truthfully, I was hardly worried. I pulled myself out of bed and quietly crept to the kitchen for some water. My mother was already waiting for me. She had made breakfast, pancakes. I sat down at the table, never taking my eyes off her. I sat with my back straight and my feet were pointed up onto my toes, ready to run at any moment. She slowly walked up to me, pulling out the chair next to me. She lowered herself slowly into her chair and looked into my eyes, sizing me up. Her eyes were sunken in and bloodshot as if she hadn’t slept for days. She took a deep breath and began talking about last night, and how she stepped in something funny coming through my doorway. She quickly stretched her hand across the table, causing me to flinch, and grabbed the salt. She shook some into her hand and slowly poured it onto the table in front of me. Before I knew what I was doing I slid back in my chair and moved to stand up, but she was too quick. She grabbed hold of my wrist and pulled me back down into my chair. She began to explain how she received regular online history reports from my personal devices. She had seen all of my research on protection spells. Her talking quickly turned to yelling as she went on about how disgraceful I was. Lost from God. When I gave no reaction to her saying that she flew into a rage. Throwing her chair back she grabbed the salt shaker and hit me over the head, over and over as many times as she could before I was able to push her away. As I scurried away from her, she began speaking again. She had read the dark things I had written in my journal. She reached down and grabbed my ankle, pulling me back. My mind was going, I was possessed by a demon or was in fact a demon that needed cleansing. As she said this, she pressed her foot into my back, putting all of her body weight into it until my spine cracked. This time I couldn’t help but let out a scream. This only excited her more. Reaching down she grabbed my shoulder and flipped me around, sitting down across my waist. I brought my hands up to cover my face, but she grabbed them again, twisting them out of the way, causing tears to form in my eyes. I couldn’t let her see me cry. She bent down and sunk her teeth into my eyebrow. I could feel a small trickle of blood drip down as she pressed even harder, laughing as I squirmed under her. I cried out in pain, knowing nobody could hear me, or even cared for that matter. She slammed my wrists into the floor above my head, shifting her weight to one side she dug her knee into my stomach. Causing me to cough. She called me a disgusting disease and spit in my face, telling me I deserved to be put down like the animal I was. She pressed harder into my stomach, restricting my breathing to a large degree. I struggled underneath her, desperate to free myself. I looked to the side of me desperate for anything that may save me. There was nothing. As my vision started to blur, I couldn’t help but think that this was where my life was going to end. On my living room floor. Who really knows how she would do it, I just hoped it would be fast. I could feel myself getting lightheaded as she let go of one wrist to grab my throat. Strangulation. She explained that I was such a high suicide risk, nobody would have trouble believing I had taken my own life. Thankfully she was so distracted by my throat she forgot about my free hand. With every ounce of strength left in me, I reached up and grabbed a fistful of her hair, and yanked it above my head as far as I could reach. This caused her knee to ease up just enough for me to wiggle free. She screamed in pain and anger, not used to having somebody fight back. I pulled her head closer to me and smashed mine into hers with everything I had. Her eyes rolled and she loosened her grip around my neck for just a moment. But it was long enough for me to break free. I wiped the blood from my eyelid and stood up as much as I possibly could, gasping for air as I did. Before I could make it out of the house, she was standing up again, her head tilted back, looking blankly at the ceiling. I took a few steps back as she picked up a belt she had stored away and slowly walked towards me, her breathing heavy and uneven. She took a couple more paces and lunged, swinging the belt like a madman, striking me across the chest and face. I reached behind me but found only pancakes on paper plates. She was prepared from the moment I woke up. She was waiting until my sister was out of the house. No witnesses. No crime. Just a grieving mother and a broken family. A perfect sob story. It was supposed to be a clean job but once again I’ve made a mess of things. Now she would have to find a high cliff to explain the cuts and bruises. I swung my arms wildly as she came at me with another attack, managing to munch her once in the temple and again in the jaw. The shock of this sent her stumbling back and without thinking I made a mad dash to my room. Why? Because something deep in my gut was screaming for me to get there as soon as I could. I slammed the door behind me and locked it. I ran to the window and slid it open. I was working on the screws in the screen when I heard a banging on my door. Again, I had the feeling that I should stay far away from my door. That’s when I heard it. A single loud thud followed by a shrill scream that must’ve come from my mother. Then, everything was quiet. Ever so slowly, my door unlocked and opened with a moan. The sight that awaited me was horrific. My mother was there, hardly standing on her own, with a gaping hole in her stomach. And there, holding her up by the roots of her hair, blood dripping off one of its gruesome horns and down its too-tall body. The goat man from my sister’s window. The one from my hallucination. It stamped its hoof at me, staring me down. it was as if it was waiting for something. I let out a small cry, mostly in disbelief rather than fear. it stomped again, growing impatient. My mother sat there limply, whimpering and begging for mercy. I mustered every bit of courage I had and stepped forward toward her. How could she possibly speak of mercy after trying to kill me? I stood at the center of my room, not daring to get any closer. This thing, it was real. Actually real, standing in my doorway, holding my mother up. It watched me closely, turning its head slightly to look me in the eyes. It felt as though this thing was reading my inner thoughts. Reaching places in my subconscious I wasn’t even aware of. Then its head morphed, and it appeared more…human. It gave me that same crooked grin as last time, only now there was a more sinister meaning behind it. I felt my stomach sink as it raised its free hand and placed it on her shoulder. She let out a frightened whimper once more and again pleaded for her life. What was happening? It seemed to stabilize her body on the ground before pulling up with what looked like no force at all. There was a horrifying ripping noise followed by a loud pop. Blood splattered along my bedroom walls as this creature swiftly decapitated my mother and dropped her lifeless body on the ground. The moment her corpse touched the ground it burst into flames. Was this really justice? I sat in horror, my knees buckling underneath me as I watched her body charr. The fire started to spread down the hall and up my bedroom walls. The creature still stood there, engulfed in the flames, its head once again that of a goat. Smoke filled the room causing my eyes to sting and my vision get all blurry. I had to get out. The fire roared toward the ceiling, and I knew it would come down at any moment. Smoke started to fill my lungs as it all tried to escape from the window. I followed the smoke and felt around the wall until I found the window screen. My body must have entered fight or flight mode because I was able to kick the screen out after three tries. I fell through the window and looked back, seeing the creature still standing there over my dead mother. And I watched as it dematerialized right in front of me. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t actually gone. I stood up and ran to take cover in the woods. It wouldn’t be long before fire rescue showed up and when they find my mother’s body, the authorities. I took cover in the woods, having grown up in them I took comfort in my knowledge of traversing this particular area. I could hear the sounds of sirens in the distance as I made my way down the near-invisible game trail, knowing it would lead me to water and then possibly a road somewhere if I followed it deep enough. But this was one trip I was willing to take. I needed to disappear. Maybe hitchhike to someplace in the north. Anywhere but here. Years later The papers would go on to call it the tragedy that rocked that entire town to its core. A mother decapitated and burnt to nearly nothing in her own home and a daughter gone missing. Nobody would ever discover where she went. Some say she died of starvation. Others believe she is still alive somewhere being held as a slave, the victim of a kidnapping gone wrong. But the truth is I’ve never been freer in my life. Though every now and again Out of the corner of my eyes I see it Waiting for next time. And a chill will cut through the air, Causing me to shiver. Credit: E.S Blackett Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.