The snail

      Once upon a time, there was a snail. His life was boring. Each morning, he would crawl up a tree and eat birds. He was a very big snail.
     
      His name was Eric. Eric the snail. Unlike most snails, his shell wasn’t hard; it was made of a jelly-like substance that wobbles when poked. Eric was also faster than most snails, because his mother attached a turbo-jet-pack to his jelly shell when he was born. So, Eric could run almost as fast as the turtles.
     
      Eric’s life was boring. He did not know what to do. One day, he was so sick of boredom that he decided to venture into the deep forest. His mother had told him countless times not to go into the forest, because it was very dangerous. However, that night, Eric was feeling very rebellious. And so he crawled into the forest, leaving a trail of rainbow-colored slime behind.

      Eric crawled past a huge tree. Upon a first glance, the tree looked as ordinary as any other tree. Then he heard a strange squishing sound, like a squid being strangled. Eric turned towards the tree questioningly, and decided to investigate. He struggled up the trunk of the huge tree, until he drew nearer to the sound. Now it sounded more like someone squeezing oranges into a bowl.

      Eric saw a huge hole on the side of the tree, and poked his brown head inside. What he saw was an unforgettable sight. There, sitting on a hairy stool, was a very white and very round thing. It had seven whiskers on each side, and large bulging eyes that looked comical. It was apparently trying to milk a fly, but failing miserably; the poor fly looked suffocated and tired, his legs twitching in a very disturbing manner, as the large white creature panted in exhaustion.
Eric parted his slimy lips, about to introduce himself. However, there was a sudden horrible squeak coming from the fly. He was suffocating. The white creature panicked, and began giving him The Kiss Of Life, tears streaming down his large hairy face. The fly lay motionless, his wings and thread-like limbs hanging from his body like the strings of an inanimate puppet. His eyes were unfocused.
       
      The fly must have been a really important figure in the white creature’s life, Eric thought, judging from his reaction. The white creature sobbed and sobbed, trembling all over, while trying futilely to bring the fly back to life again.
Eric knew that it was inappropriate, but the bizarre situation struck him as comical. He began to shake uncontrollably with laughter. He laughed until tears and mucus poured down his face like water gushing from a dam. The round white creature bawled even harder at the sight of Eric’s hysterical laughter, which in turn made Eric laugh so hard that his shell wobbled obscenely.

      The white creature suddenly pushed poor struggling fly to the side, lumbered over to the laughing Eric, caught him by the neck, and wrung him out of the tree. Before Eric knew it, he was on the floor of the forest again. He saw a thousand stars from the fall.
     
      He gave the strange hole in the tree one last look before moving on. There was bound to be more adventure.
Eric trudged on, as the moon climbed higher and higher in the dark sky. The position of the stars told him that it was already midnight, way past his curfew. Eric felt slightly tired and thirsty. He tried to find a river.

    He used his snail instincts to lead him to the nearest source of water. Eric’s shell wobbled in anticipation as he heard the refreshing sound of water trickling in the proximity. Eric made his way through a few bushes, and there, right in front of him, was a sparkling pond. The moon was reflected in the clear liquid like a huge slice of cheese patiently waiting to be eaten beneath the surface of the water. This made Eric so hungry that he almost forgot about his thirst. In his sleep deprived and slightly dehydrated state, Eric believed in the illusion right before him. He galloped towards the moon reflected in the pond, convinced that it was a slice of cheese.

      As Eric was about to stick his head into the pond to gobble up the cheese, the perfect image right before his very eyes became blurry; the cheese wobbled, disintegrated into a thousand tiny pieces, and disappeared altogether. Astonished, Eric looked up, and saw a very black figure hanging upside-down from a tree branch, holding the perfect slice of cheese in his claws. He gave Eric a very cheeky wink, and took a bite out of the yellow cheese in his hands. Eric cried in despair, but before he could protest, darkness seemed to befall the previously moonlit forest. Eric immediately looked up at the sky, and saw with amazement the empty space where the moon used to be. He looked towards the black figure again. He took another defiant bite, and the night grew significantly darker.

      “Don’t! You can’t eat the moon!” Eric yelled.

      The figure gave a laughed that seemed to echo forever in Eric’s ears. He took yet another bite. Eric screamed in horror, gripped by fear that he along with the whole forest would cease to exist once the moon was wholly eaten.
The figure laughed even louder at Eric’s apparent fear, licking the edges of what was left of the moon somewhat seductively. Eric pleaded and pleaded, but the black figure chortled at Eric as if he were the most comical sight.

      “Who are you?” Eric finally asked, feeling weaker and weaker as the figure continued to slowly, mockingly lick the moon, nibbling at it once in a while.

The figure answered with a silent cackle, and said,

    “I am Darkness,”

At that, he gobbled up the rest of the moon, engulfing the whole forest in an absolute, piercing darkness.