31 Days of Horror 2025: Analog

​Neri clambered up over the strange pile of rocks with a delighted giggle. The young girl was determined to get to the top before her brother and threw caution to the wind with each precarious step. Feet wedged into two identical sockets carved into the top rock ornamenting the pile, she smacked her hand down triumphantly.

"I'm the queen of the rock!" Neri's voice squealed though the clearing. She turned towards her mother with a beaming smile. From a bench at the edge of the clearing, she received an amused wave for her glory over the rock pile. 

"No fair! You got a head start!" Taren's nasally voice squalled beneath her. He stuffed his foot into another open divot in the stone beneath her to steady himself. Big globby tears started to wet his cheeks at the inflicted slight upon his young pride. 

Neri rolled her eyes in mock frustration and reached out her hand to help him up. Taren took it without a second thought and let out a sniffling giggle as she hauled him up onto the flattened stone. "There. Now we are the royals of the rock!" She announced with vigor, raising a hand with an imaginary sword pointed toward the sky. 

The stone lurched beneath them which sent Neri's feet from the footholds she was standing on. She fell with a painful thump against the large boulder base directly beneath Taren. Her hands scrambled for a hold as a deafening whir of mechanical clanks and grinding stone assaulted their ears. She flinched and lurched to protect her brother as white flame erupted from a crack in the stone below them, turning their pale skin pink from the heat. 

"Mama!" The pair howled in unison as the stone pile beneath them lurched again, the wet clay ground shucking away from it's sides. In jarring sways, they were lifted into the air further from the ground. Beneath them, the silt crumbled away as the gargantuan stone came to life and crawled from the earth.

Their mother flitted to her feet in horror, hands over her mouth as she watched the stone turn into a monstrous golem. "Hold on babies!" She cried out as she turned in a panic, fleeing to the town for help.

Neri and Taren held on to each other and the stone, whispering pleading prayers to the wings as the creature's joints scraped against each other. With slow lumbering movements it began to trudge forward out of the hole, continuing on with a path it had programmed eons ago. Each step left craters in the earth, cracked trees in its wake, and screaming. 

"Directive clear. Continuing march to Corethin." A grinding voice whirred from somewhere within the rock. 

Neri took in a sucking breath as her body trembled against her brother. The creature was going the opposite direction of town. Despite its slow movements, the gait upon it was quickly covering the clearing towards the thicker woods. "Taren. Hold on to me and trust me. Wh-when I say jump. Jump."

Taren buried his face into her chest with sobs shaking his entire form. Yet when she said jump, they leapt from the beast down onto the hard ground below. The war machine made no notice, continuing its rampage into the woods with thundering cracks of trees giving way.