Grendel's Arrival

The room was eerily silent, almost deafening. The moon offered the only source of light in an otherwise ink-dark hall.

Outside, a vast fog swallowed the entire horizon, moving slowly from tree to tree.

Peace. Quiet. The perfect illusion.

Drip. Drip. Drip.  The sounds of the moisture of the leaves rustling crackled through the night. Something is in the fog. The sounds started off soft and low, but quickly grew louder and clearer. 

It was getting closer.

Then, a faint shadow appeared within the fog, growing larger and larger by the second. The fog parted, splitting evenly around the shadow.

Who was this? WHAT was this?

The sound of the Thing as it slowly dragged its feet in the damp grass resembled that of a wild animal, prowling for its prey, hoping to go unnoticed.

It came closer and closer. The sounds of his footsteps grew louder and louder. 

Then, silence. The most sinister of silences. 

Rumble. Rumble. The door shook erratically.

It was here.

(Grendel's Arrival. Source: A. R. Skelton)

Author's Note: This short microfiction was derived from the story of Beowulf, where the creature named Grendel approaches the mead hall where Beowulf and his compatriots were lying asleep. In the story, the creature casted a spell on the people inside the building, rendering them paralyzed and locked within their dreams, if they weren't already deep in their slumber. I especially enjoyed the author's initial conjuring of the dramatic sequence between the introduction of Grendel as a shadow in the mist to an actual threat when he reached the doors of the building. In my story, I tried to recreate the same effect, but with more concise wording, and numerous uses of onomatopoeia to build up the suspense.

Story Source: Grendel Attacks -- The Story of Beowulf by Strafford Riggs