The Moss Creatures Runners-up Story - Emergent Writers (Age 11-14): The Creature of Moss by Kelsy Wills

The Creature of Moss

By Kelsy Wills, 14
Young, NSW

“Oh, not now, Rocky,” said the man. Rocky whined at his predictable answer. He missed the old man. The man who’d brought him home, who played with him and took him for walks in the park. This wasn’t that man. They looked the same sure, but this wasn’t him. 

Rocky tried yet again to engage the man. He grabbed his yellow ball by his teeth, waddled over to where the man sat with a slouched back and dropped it. The ball rolled til it laid against the New Man’s leg. 

The New Man cried at the sudden wetness. “Eugh, yuck!”

He stood holding the slobbery ball with two fingers. He used his free hand to smack Rocky on the back and wagged his finger at him. “Don’t disrupt me when I’m working!”

Rocky glanced over at the man’s glowing book, making a mental note that when it had moving pictures that spoke and yelled he was to leave the man alone.

Rocky grumbled as the man sat back down in his chair. He slumped down on his dog bed and gazed sadly out the sliding glass door. 

Rocky was still laying down in his grey bed thinking about how had his friend still been around instead of his clone they’d be walking through the park when he heard it. A strange noise, somewhere between a knock and a scratch. Rocky thought it was simply someone at the door, the man would see to it. However the man didn’t move from his glowing rectangle. In fact he showed no sign he’d heard a thing. But the knocking continued. Rocky barked at the man, trying to get his attention. 

The man sighed, obviously annoyed. “That’s it! You’re distracting me from my work. Out you go,” he pushed Rocky outside still not showing any sign he heard the strange noise.

Rocky wasn’t mad about being forced out, he liked it much better outside than in, but he was confused. Why didn't the man care about the noise?

He didn’t spend too much time thinking about it. He had much better ears than the man, and was probably just hearing something from the flat next door. 

He decided to find a nice sunny spot to take a nap, but that was much easier said than done. The yard was small and a big bush on the fence left most of it in darkness. Luckily there was a small area in the right corner where the bush had failed to claim the land. He’d pretty much forgotten about the noise, letting the warm sun drown out most coherent thoughts. He was about to fall asleep when he heard it. The knocking. 

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

It sounded a little different now that he was outside, less faint and more certain. The more he heard the more he realised it wasn’t knocking. It sounded more…chirpy. Rocky tried to ignore it but…

Chirp

Chirp

Chirp

His head whipped up at the first one. He couldn’t handle it anymore. He had to know where the noise was coming from. Napping, having been forgotten, Rocky set out to look all through his pathetically small yard to find the source.

He looked in the gap between the house and the fence

He scrounged through the garden beds.

He even managed to climb a decent way up into the bush, but all he found there was a magpie building its nest.

He was starting to lose hope, when he saw it. Sitting just outside the glass sliding door looking into the cluttered one-room apartment was…actually Rocky didn’t know what it was. It was different to all the other animals Rocky was used to. It was a small ferret-like creature with pure black antlers. Its fur was the same colour green as grass bathed in shadows. The fur on its belly was unusually white for an outside creature.

Rocky cautiously stepped towards the strange creature. As he drew nearer a strong scent of moss and rain tickled his noise. Rocky was planning to sneak up behind the creature and capture it. Unfortunately when he bent down to pounce he stood on a dried up leaf. The moss creature turned to him with large pure black eyes. 

Although Rocky was bigger than the strange creature, he cowered and whimpered under its calm gaze.

The creature spoke in a leafy language. Rocky didn’t speak leaf, and therefore shouldn’t have understood what the creature was saying. But he did. He didn’t hear it in words, but jumbled up feelings and thoughts. It was a conversation deeper than those done at midnight with loved ones, and after it Rocky felt as though he’d known this strange creature his whole life. 

For a moment it seemed like everything had stopped, but that moment was quickly destroyed with a clattering sound. The man had come out to feed Rocky, saw the strange antlered creature and dropped Rocky's food bowl in surprise. As the creature stared at the man’s unshaved face and tried eyes, a sad pained expression was painted across its face. Rocky saw the creature’s nose twitch slightly at the smell of a man who hadn’t had a proper shower in at least a month.

 The man, far too stunned to use coherent words, laughed hysterically and made noises that sounded plain crazy. Once he’d finally gotten a hold of himself he stage whispered, “ Rocky! Over here, NOW!”

Rocky, both stunned and frightened of the telepathic conversation, reluctantly obeyed. 

“What are you?” the man asked in awe. 

The creature, unsurprisingly, did not answer. Instead it grew. It grew until it was the same size as the fence. It scooped both the man and Rocky in its large fluffy tail. Rocky knew he should have been terrified, but it was kinda hard for him to be scared for his life when he was surrounded by something that felt like a cloud. The creature, ignoring the cries of help from its new captives, stomped its foot. Rocky heard the ground give way. A sinkhole had appeared where the creature had stomped its foot and swallowed them whole.

Both Rocky and the man screamed loudly. The creature made a gruff purring noise, as if laughing at their combined terror. It didn’t seem to care that they were traveling at a hundred miles per hour straight toward the Earth’s core. 

Luckily, they never met the core as the sinkhole pivoted to a hard right and spat them out in… a grove that looked to be right out of a fairy tale.

Huge oak trees that scraped across the sky and whose leaves worked with the sun to bathe the ground in a beautiful green light. Rocky struggled not to laugh as the soft grass and colourful flowers tickled his paws. A mini waterfall that led into a small creek paired with the flowers gave the air a flowery-rain scent. Tropical birds sang songs of good times in nature and sugar gliders danced between the trees.

The moss creature shrank to a more respectable size, the same height as rocky. It stared at the man. Its night sky eyes studying him from every angle. The man paid the creature no attention. He seemed to be truly awestruck by the magic of the real world that lay around him. His blue eyes were wide behind his glasses which had cracked from being shot out of the ground.

The moss creature purred and spoke in a language that you could only describe as earthy, and when it spoke everything stopped to listen to what it had to say. The waterfall and birds' duet came to a halt. The sugar gliders stopped hopping from branch to branch. Everything stopped until it was unnervingly silent. 

It spoke again, in its strange mind-reading way. It didn’t use words but somehow they both knew exactly what it was saying.

It told a story of a man who was lonely. He adopted a puppy and it started off great. They went on a walk every day, and played whenever the man had time off. They grew to be best friends. But then something changed. The man stopped playing with the puppy as much. It got worse and worse, until they simply were no longer friends. They were just strangers who lived together. It was a story of loss, sadness and abandonment. As Rocky listened to the story, he felt it was familiar. Perhaps he’d had a dream similar. Then it clicked. This was the story of Rocky and the man.

Rocky looked at the man, who looked back at him, and for the first time in a while, he looked like he might just be Rocky’s friend again.

The moss creature didn’t stay after it dropped them back home, but Rocky didn’t care. 

The man was finally gone, and Rocky’s friend was back.  

About the young writer

“My story is about forgetting to spend as much time with your pets as you should. I love English and it's my dream to one day be a published author of my very own novel.”

A word from our judges

The Creature of Moss is a beautiful, heartfelt story told from the point of view of a dog. There is a depth of understanding that we found incredibly powerful – seeing the world through a dog's eyes is something we should all try to do now and then. The character of Rocky is just as real and multi-layered as any human. We loved being introduced to the Moss Creature, seeing it through Rocky's eyes, and you, as the author, took such a creative approach to it. We were surprised when it grew and then even more surprised when it dug a hole! The concepts you used in this story were unique and clever. Additionally, your ending is truly beautiful.

Thank you, Kelsy! We hope to read more of your stories in the future!

The Moss Creatures Short Story Competition for Young Writers was hosted by Words of a Feather, inspired by and with the support of French artiste Marianne Broggi. This free-to-enter competition was open to young writers aged 7 - 14, anywhere in the world.

The Moss Creatures - Stories from the Forêt, an anthology of prize-winning and highly commended stories, will be published in 2025. Stay tuned!

Congratulations on your story, Kelsy!