A runoff: The Shortest Horror Story

The last person on Earth sat alone in a room then there was a knock on the door.

She stared at the door in fear. It was impossible! It had been weeks, months or years even since she had last seen a human being. She had stopped counting the days. She had given up hope. It was futile.

Human. Even the word itself was foreign now. It was like a distant dream. A fantasy that once, there were actually kinds like her that roamed the lands.

Knock, knock, knock. There it went again. It knocked her out of her stupor. She was not imagining it at all! There was actually someone knocking or… something.

Like the movies she used to watch, the door creaked eerily. She mustered up her courage and opened it all the way. What has she got to lose anyway? She has already lost it all.

Humans. Aliens. Monsters. Zombies. – Of all the things that she imagined that knocked on her door, never did it came to her that it could be a deer. Deer! A deer for God’s sake in the middle of an abandoned city! And out of all the houses out there, it just had to be hers. Was this a sign?

She stared at it. It stared back at her. She smiled and the deer grunted in recognition. Slowly, she reached out her hand. When she touched its head, it wheezed, stomped its foot and walked the opposite direction but before it was totally out of sight, it turned back to look at her once more.

‘Weird’, she thought.

Every day since that, the deer would repeat the same pattern. Before long, it became a companion, a friend then a best friend. She talked to it and crazily, laughed at its antics. They would often walk downtown - exploring and gathering supplies. Most of the times though, they would travel to the countryside where they’d get berries and fruits.

One day, the girl became sick. She was sick but still, she spent her days with the deer. She cherished her moments with it. She talked like it was like every other day. She laughed like it was norm. She acted like she was okay; she couldn’t muster up her courage to tell the deer.

Days passed and seasons changed. The last person on Earth was no more but every day, there was a knock on the door.

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circa 2013. Made this for our Humanities subject...