Clay

A brief thud and a high-pitched crack shot though the cabin. He stood there, befuddled, looking at the broken pieces of what have been a clay plate just seconds ago.

"I have no idea how I dropped it", - the man mumbled to himself, looking at his hands in surprise, as though expecting someone else to start talking and apologize for his clumsiness.

It was an early morning hour, the time he usually keep finding himself in after staying up late, working restlessly in pursuit for a masterpiece. This day and now he was a clay master, a potter worker, an artist of shaping slimy sludge into a solid figure and burning it in a cleansing fire. But all the artist made so far was worthless, as perfection wasn't good enough.

The man stood there, listening to his own heartbeat hammering into his temples. Then, finally, he lowered himself to the floor and started picking up larger chunks of the broken plate and discarding them in the trashcan.

"There was no other sound besides the plate shattering, I must be imagining things", - he said out loud reasoning with himself, while trying to throw the pieces in the garbage as loud as possible, as to not hear anything else.

But he knew it wasn't true, it hasn't been true for a while now.

The cabin stood quiet, lit by a single lamp under the ceiling that was basking the room in a soft yellow light. As the man finished cleaning up the kitchen he returned to the clay table, sat down on the stool and buried his face in his hands. They felt rough and scratchy from all the dried up earth stuck to his fingers and palms.

He then collected himself and suddenly stood up. The man felt dizzy, but with a confident stride moved himself to the cabins window and, after a deep breath, looked out.

Nothing.

The sparse forest around his cabin was ringing with silence. In this early hour of the morning it was impossible to discern anything but the tops of the trees lightly colored with an upcoming sunrise.

He looked around once more, then moved to the hut's exit and started to put on his jacket. Opening the door in the frigid morning air he drew a deep breath and turned on the flashlight in his hand. The bright orange beam swept over a small shed half full of firewood, an old tree stump doubling as a chopping block and an outhouse in the distance. The man froze still on the porch, listening hard for any sound not masked by gusts of wind rattling old cabin's wood. The forest stood silent, not willing to share any secrets.

He slowly walked around his abode, shining flashlight's beam onto the walls, the ground covered in patchy grass, the roof and the distant trees. He returned to the hut a few minutes later, undressed himself and lay onto bed, thinking.

It was weeks since this first started to happen. One day as he was working at his clay table he heard a loud thumping sound, as if someone hammered on his door. Puzzled, he stood up and opened the door to see only a sunlit porch and nothing else. Thinking to himself, that he should take a break and stretch his muscles the artist went out for a hike back to the village for provisions.

Returning home the same day he felt somewhat uneasy. The sun just started to go down, covering the quiet cabin in the fiery rays. His sharp eye caught a shadow flicker in the hut's window.

Startled, thinking someone broke in while he was away, he strode to the front door and swung it open. The was no one inside, but the house felt like it was vacated only recently. Ducking by the fireplace the man picked up a half burned log, that definitely wasn't there when he put out the fire to leave.

Putting this occasion behind he started working again, shaping some new pottery to be put in an oven this night. After a short dinner the sculptor found himself so enthralled by his work that he barely noticed the time. As he put his newly sculpted work - a pot and a jar - into the oven he looked out the window. It was early time of the morning, he didn't sleep the whole night, shaping and reshaping, discarding the untamable chunks in the trash and finally making something he thought was good enough.

After washing his hands and putting the fire out he got to bed and immediately drifted off to sleep.

He started his next morning by burning his last night's creations and collecting new clay on the riverbank. Returning home the man felt the chill run down his spine. The door to the cabin was half open and briefly moving back and forth in the wind's breeze.

Inside, he found his work out of the oven, the pieces of half-dried clay shattered on the floor.

The man pushed the door back out and yelled into the forest clearing: "Hey, keep the hell out of my cabin, you hear?"

On other days he would sometimes hear sounds outside of the cabin, as if a tree was being violently bent down to the ground, or a distant cry that sounded nothing like an animal's howl. Every time he went out to investigate the sound stopped as suddenly as it came, leaving an chilly air of dread to crawl down the man's spine.

As he woke up the next morning he felt refreshed. The claymaker wanted to make something simple today, something to show himself the progress he's made in the last few weeks. Sitting down at the clay tray the artist lovingly formed a shape and pressed down on the blob of earth that immediately flattened itself.

"Shaping out nicely", - he thought to himself, evening out the edges and making a perfectly round disc with slightly raised edges. It was so simple, yet so perfect.

Letting the clay dry out the man fired up the clay oven. Heat was filling the cabin, making the cold evening outside seem distant. By the time the range was ready to take in his work the night fell, enclosing the cabin in the thick darkness.

The claymaker transferred the dried shape into an oven, when he heard a loud metal thud outside, so close it felt right by his cabin. He grabbed the flashlight and, opening the door, shone it around. The cold early air was still and quiet, only interrupted with shimmer of tree's leaves in the wind. He then saw a shadow move right beside the firewood chopping block. Fixing his gaze on that spot the man removed the jacket from the coat hanger with one hand and put it on.

Moving outside the cabin he asked loudly: "I know you're there, you've been playing pranks on me for too long, the hell do you want from me?"

There was no answer.

The man stepped on the porch and closed the cabin's door. He was ready to confront whoever that was.

"Did you hear me? I know you're there, show yourself!" - he yelled.

Wind rustled the leaves again and the tree creaked to his left. Moving his flashlight in the direction of the sound he has seen a figure slip past the beam. He turned around and started chasing it, following it towards the outhouse in the distance.

He gave chase jumping over the wooden fence and running as fast as he could, following what seemed like a human sized figure in the darkness. And then the shape disappeared.

The man stopped and listened hard. The air was quiet, not even the wind made any sound. There was no creaking of the trees, no rustling leaves.

"And don't come back!" - the man cried in the darkness. His voice crackled.

Turning around he saw the cabin's lights in the distance and started his hike back at a fast pace, feeling sweat run down his back.

As he made final steps to the porch of his hut he turned around. The rising sun started to color the sky in the pale pink color. He was sure that whoever that was wasn't coming back.

The man moved to open the cabin's door, but it wouldn't budge.

He slammed his fist on the door and heard a shattering sound come from inside of the cabin.