Four-Eyed Monster

An eerie tale for brave kids, best read with the lights on…

Don’t Look Back

Josh had only meant to run away for a little while.

His house was loud. Always loud. His parents yelled until the walls trembled, and tonight, it felt worse than usual. He’d tried to plug his ears. Tried to hide in the laundry room. But when the plates started smashing, when he heard the word “divorce” like a bomb in a movie, something inside him broke.

So he ran.

Out the back door. Through the tall grass. Toward the woods behind the neighbourhood.

The sun had already dipped low, turning the sky orange and strange. But Josh didn’t care. He didn’t even stop to grab a torch.

The forest was the only place where no one yelled.

He ran until his lungs burned. Then he walked. Then he stopped.

And that’s when he realised…

He was no longer in the forest he knew.

The Wrong Woods

At first, he thought it was just getting darker. But something was different.

The trees were taller. Much taller. Their trunks were wide and rough, covered in peeling, gray bark like ancient scabs. Their branches were bare, even though it was the middle of summer, and they twitched as if blown by a wind Josh couldn’t feel.

The air was damp and heavy, like breathing inside a cave.

There was no birdsong. No bugs. No life.

Josh turned back the way he came.

But the path was gone.

Just more trees. More darkness.

And when he looked behind him again…

The shadows had changed.

They were watching him.

Something Out There

He walked for what felt like hours, trying to find the edge of the woods. But they only got deeper. Thicker. Like they were folding in around him.

Then came the noise.

Crunch.

Drag.

Something huge was moving in the distance.

Josh dropped to the ground, heart hammering, hiding behind a log.

He could feel it before he saw it—a cold pressure, like a storm was coming.

Then it stepped into view.

The Four-Eyed Thing

It was the tallest thing Josh had ever seen.

It looked like a man at first—but only for a second.

It stood nearly 20 feet high, hunched and crooked, its upper body leaning at a weird diagonal angle, like its spine had been snapped in half and never fixed. Its arms were too long. They scraped the dirt behind it as it walked.

And its face…

Josh nearly screamed.

The creature had four eyes. Two where a normal person’s would be, and two more above them, deeper in the skull. All four glowed a deep, burning red, like hot coals. Blood—or something thicker—dripped from all of them, soaking its chest.

Its skin was pale gray and saggy, stretched over sharp bones that moved like they were trying to escape its body.

It didn’t walk so much as drag itself forward, joints popping, head tilting too far to the side.

Josh held his breath as it moved past.

But then… it stopped.

Its eyes twitched. One eye turned, slowly.

It had seen him.

A Game You Can’t Quit

Josh ran.

Branches whipped his face. Roots caught his feet. But he didn’t stop.

He didn’t even notice when he looped right back to the same clearing.

A huge, flat stone sat in the middle of it—an altar, cracked and stained with something dark. Around it were bones. Small ones.

Child-sized.

He turned in circles, trying to find a way out. But no matter which direction he took, he always came back.

The clearing.

The altar.

The bones.

And the monster.

It never left for long.

The Realisation

Josh stopped sleeping.

He tried building a shelter in the trees. Tried yelling for help.

But he was trapped. Somewhere between places. A forest that didn’t follow rules. A place that felt like it didn’t want him to leave.

And every night, the thing came back.

It would stand over the altar. Lower its twisted body. And open its four eyes, one at a time:

Top right.

Top left.

Bottom right.

Bottom left.

The last one stayed open longer than the others.

That’s when Josh realized something.

The eyes were its weakness.

The Bone Knife

He found it near a half-buried skull: a long, jagged bone, sharpened at one end. He tested it on bark. It sliced clean.

It was a weapon.

He didn’t want to fight.

But the forest wasn’t giving him a choice.

The only way out… was through the monster.

One Eye Down

He waited until nightfall.

The thing returned, slow and groaning, eyes starting to glow.

Josh stepped from the trees, clutching the bone knife tight.

The first eye opened.

He ran.

Jumped.

And stabbed.

The top right eye burst like a rotten tomato. The creature howled—loud enough to shake the trees.

Josh was thrown backward, hitting the ground hard.

But he was alive.

And one eye was gone.

Three to Go

He struck again the next night. Then again. It got harder. The thing was faster now. Angrier. Bleeding more.

The forest shook when he got the third one.

And then came the final night.

One eye left.

The bottom left.

The one that lingered.

The Final Blow

Josh stood in the clearing, staring at the monster as it approached.

He was limping. Bleeding. Exhausted.

But his eyes were steady.

“No more,” he whispered.

The final eye opened.

The thing roared, lurching forward.

Josh ducked beneath its swing, leapt off the altar, and drove the bone blade deep into the last glowing eye.

The creature froze.

Its body twitched.

And then it collapsed—limbs jerking, eyes bubbling into black smoke.

The ground cracked.

Light poured in from the sky above like a rip in the air.

Josh shielded his face…

And the forest disappeared.

Back Home

He woke up in the grass behind his house.

Birds chirped. Cars passed. The world felt normal again.

But the bone knife was still in his hand.

And when he looked at the trees, he thought—just for a second—that he saw four red dots glowing between the trunks.

Watching.

Waiting.

The End?

Josh never spoke of the thing.

But he knew something.

The forest still existed. Somewhere. Maybe in his dreams. Maybe in the shadows between this world and the next.

And he knew this, too:

Monsters can bleed.

But they don’t always stay dead.

THE END

(…or maybe not.)