This is my entry for the Halloween writer's competition thingy. Enjoy! XD

I woke up suddenly, as though someone had just thrown a bucket of water over me, and sat up panting and gasping for air. Looking round, I saw it was quite light already, and flung my covers off before standing up. I wandered over to my window slowly, and opened the curtains. Outside, the sky was a deep indigo, streaked with violet and pink due to the rising sun. The grass was twinkling with dew in a way that was almost magical. And over the back garden, the trees in the dense forest stood deadly still, as though waiting for something.

Today was Halloween. The day the witches rode their broomsticks, the day the ghosts began their hauntings, the day the devil came up from hell. I loved Halloween, ever since I was a kid – my older brother and sister had made it an exciting day every year, with scary stories and campfires and old horror movies. But this year, I was organising something myself, for a bunch of friends. We were going to creep down to the old woods and sit in the famous clearing to see who could last the longest.

That clearing was the stuff of spooky stories. The trees leaned in above, closing it off and shutting off the sky. That made it pitch black there permanently. There was an old, gnarled, twisted tree stump that had been hollowed out, and supposedly acted as a cauldron for witches every year. The owls gathered there every night, crying out with their signature call, frightening small children. And best of all, it was always silent, but for the sounds of the owls.

I had told all my friends to find the scariest costumes they could, and find out a spooky story each. We were going to light a campfire and sit around it with sweets and chocolates and see who got scared the quickest. I had ordered a gothic lolita dress from the internet and it was hanging on my wardrobe door now. Looking at it, I felt a shiver of excitement about tonight.

People started arriving at around five thirty that evening, wearing all sorts of costumes, ranging from creepy to clichéd to just plain strange. There were witches and fairies and pirates; ghosts and vampires and mummies; even a frog. By six o’clock everyone had assembled, and we set off for our clearing. The sky was inky and dark now, but there was a full moon shining brightly above us, unobstructed and clear. We were chattering happily, but my mind was elsewhere, thinking about tonight and wondering how it would go.