Week Two: Setting is a Character

"The writing assignment is to write your own setting that has strong character traits, reflecting the understanding that environment, the setting of the story is another character, and sometimes the most important character in the story. Focus on making the language of your description deliver the character of the environment."

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It's surreal how a simple change in lighting can transport you from a mundane, if not a little unkempt, city park to a threatening forest of shadowed claws and unsettling crunching noises. I had never been to the park, not even in the daylight, until tonight, but I could see it clearly from my apartment window. From the sixth floor you can look down and see from one side of the park to the other. It's a small affair, only one full block in length, but that's from the 6th floor balcony. Down on the ground floor, one block seems to stretch out for an eternity.

I had been confident, overly so, that I knew the park because I had looked down on it for an entire year. Much like when you look down on a person, however, things can surprise you when they confront you face to face. I was standing there now, in the middle of the park, regretting my decision to not wait until morning to look for the stray cat that had unceremoniously fallen into my possession. I had intended to take the poor mongrel to the shelter the first thing in the morning, because the cat had been thrust upon me at a rather inconvenient hour. My apartment didn't allow animals, but I had assumed it would be alright for one night. I had woken up, however, at 3:26 AM to find the door open a hair and the cat long vanished. I had foolishly thought to start looking immediately, even though I had no clue what time the unfortunate soul had escaped (and hadn't I locked the front door? I always did.)

The park was the most logical place for the cat to end up. It was right across from the apartment complex and I'm sure had some small game fit for a hungry stray. It hadn't looked quite so menacing from across the street. But now I was in the thick of it. No light shone from the thin sliver of the moon overhead and I was too great a distance from the sidewalks to see the yellow-fluorescent glow of the city streetlights. The only light was the sickly pale-blue that came from my phone light as I held it out and moved it around, as if the light from a cell phone was a good alternative to a searchlight. So it was dark, suffice to say, and in the dark it is always hard to know what is just a trick of the eye and what is truly a threat to your person.

The trees that surrounded me slowly seemed to grow taller and closer with each passing moment. Their branches slowly turned from random branching patterns to gnarled hands and claws. The rustling leaves sounded more and more like threatening whispers and rattling bones. The grass at my feet clawed at the soles of my boots as if trying to climb up my leg and pull me straight through the ground. I kept trying to use large rocks as landmarks for my search but I could swear that the mischievous little things kept changing location, so that I would definitely get lost.

I started to panic, and I realized very quickly this had been a bad idea. I decided that leaving would be the best course of action, I could come back in the morning when the park decided to be less sinister. I started to turn back the way I came when I heard the piercing yowl of a cat. I jumped and faced the direction the sound had come.

"Kitty!" I called, but I didn't get another yowl in response. I booked it the direction of the yowl, trying to ignored the way the trees grew denser, the grass grew taller, and the rocks moved closer and closer.