Tainted Sanctuary - Flash Fiction

Ooo, my first ever Campaigner Challenge. What fun! I do like writing challenges.

Today, the goal is to write a story in 200 words or less, not including the title. It must begin with "Shadows crept across the wall".

Optional challenge points include:

• end with the words "everything faded"
• use the word "orange" (check!)
  
• write in the same genre you normally write (check!)
  
• hit 200 words exactly! (check!)
  

Hoho, guys. My mind comes up with crazy things, I'm sure a couple of you will label this as 'creepy' again.

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Shadows crept across the wall of his sanctuary. No one was supposed to be here but him, it was his hiding place, his. It was where he could escape the screaming and yelling, the insults and pain. No one else was supposed to be here.

And yet the shadows still crept across the wall. They wiggled, moved, so that every time he retreated to this safe place in his mind, more of the sunset orange walls were swallowed by the inky shadows.

The fact that they moved kept Allen away from them, but playing in the opposite corner, he could still hear them. They hissed like snakes, grunted like wild boars, and crackled like fire. They scared him. But they didn't harm him, unlike those he lived with.

Devil-child, his mother called him. His father never said anything against it, just hit him. And as the shadows crept closer to him day by day, as they moved like flames and began to give off heat, Allen wonders if she is right.

Tentatively, he reached to touch a shadow, they are so close now he didn't have to leave his corner. The room disappeared, swallowed by shadows, and so was Allen.

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Now, I really should go study for my Calc test that's in a hour, but I'll read other entries soon. Promise!