The Prized Possession

As he would lay his ink-pen to rest everyday, at dusk, he would watch them all with great amusement. 

 

Nowadays, the old man would often grumble about his tail which was slowly growing and which, he was finding increasingly difficult to hide from his wife. The old woman, on the other hand, was getting mysteriously younger by the day, as though she'd acquired the 'magic potion of youth' from some forbidden place. And their son, who once possessed princely handsomeness, would remain locked-up in his room all day, since the past few weeks. He couldn't bear what was happening to him -- rapidly growing sharp claws, devilish canines, dense growth of thick, pointed scales all over his body and an overwhelming desire to feel the texture of raw flesh, freshly torn apart.

The pen was his prized possession and though his pedantic writing didn't amuse many, yet he wrote. It brought him a kind of solace that he couldn't find elsewhere, for reasons best known to him. 

Today, however, was different.

He woke up with a startle in the middle of the night. Close to his feet, he saw the old couple's son, sitting with face buried in his hands. He froze at this sight. His pulse started racing, and suddenly he felt as if there was too much blood for his chest to hold. His mouth parched, voice choked in his own larynx and a paralyzing surge of weakness rapidly incapacitated him, totally. The eerie numbness creeping up his legs, arms and sadly, his brain, prevented him from breaking into a sprint.

The monster jolted towards him like a thunderbolt just as he recollected some words he'd forgotten to pay heed to.

'Be careful of what you write, for this ink shall bring every creation of your mind to life'.

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This post is in response to the Trifecta Writing Challenge - Week Seventy-Eight. The challenge is to write a 33-333 word piece that includes the word pedantic in its third definition i.e. unimaginative.