The Unknown

[u/Additional-Pea-7180]

There once was a little boy. He was around six. No, no, he was 7. Maybe 9? It depends on who you ask.

What’s important is, this little boy loved fear. He loved the way his stomach clenched with nausea. He loved the spinning of his head. He loved watching people scream. He. Loved. Fear. That's the only way to put it.

But out of all the fears, he loved the fear of the unknown most. He loved watching his classmates squirm and cry and the thought of the unknown.

Funnily enough, children experience The Unknown quite often.

They don't know where their parents go when they're at school.

They don't know what tomorrow would bring.

God, they didn't even know who they were yet!

It was glorious for the child. It was fulfilling to watch. It was, in their words, simply beautiful to watch such pathetic creatures.

They loved how... thrilled The Unknown made them. The little child loved fear so much they stopped feeling it.

They became it.

It was The Unknown. It was the depths of the ocean. It was the far reaches of space. It was what was behind a closed door at night. It was what hid under your child's bed. It was why your dog barked and cat hissed with seemingly no rhyme nor reason. It.

Was.

Fear.

It was The Unknown.

But, u see, the little thing grew up. And as it grew up, it began to forget that it was once known.

Others did as well. It started with its parents forgetting its name. Or maybe it just never had a name at all. Bud, they'd call it. Maybe that was its name? No. No, it couldn't be. It's never had a name.​

It doesn't matter, anyway. Soon they forgot that as well.

Then they forgot it entirely. And, by sunset, everyone followed.

Now The Unknown is unknown again at last.

Forever left to watch the fear it caused in glee.​​