An Alternate Ending To Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Charlotte cowered beneath the worn sheet, she heard an inhuman sound near the chamber door,—the sudden silence of darkness had rendered it more audible than it had been before. The thing, came nearer and nearer; it grew clearer and clearer. For a time it was still,—and during that time Charlotte doubt if she even drew her breath. She began to move the sheet, slowly-- very, very slowly, so that it might not draw the attention of the beast. She realized the horror in her mistake of trying to glace at the creature. She'd been caught. The monster left her no moment alone; and, in the latter, she started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon her face, and its vast weight - an incarnate Night-Mare that …show more content…
Then, whether she was dead or living, she said to herself that this could be nothing human, - nothing fashioned in God's image could wear such a shape as that. Although her eyesight began to fail from dim lighting, this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous creature filled her with Mortal terror. The creature let out one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman - a howl - a wailing shriek, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation. As sounds came from it in a kind of screech, the lantern went out, and the place was all in darkness, and Charlotte knew, so that the knowledge filled her with a sense of fear that with her, in the room, was the evil presence of the nights before. Two bright specks gleamed in front of her; the thing was coming towards her across the floor. It came slowly on, and on, and on. Charlotte stood still, speechless in the sickness of her horror. Until, it touched her with its slimy feelers, and her terror lent her voice, and she fell shrieking like a soul in …show more content…
There was not a stick of furniture to be seen. Bare walls and creaky floors surrounded at her. Everything, she felt, resented her intrusion, watching her, as it were, with veiled eyes; whispers followed her; shadows flitted noiselessly to right and left; the monster seemed ever at her back, watching, waiting an opportunity to do her injury again. Inside the house the silence became awful; awful, Charlotte thought, because any minute now it might be broken by sounds portending terror. The influences against her, whatever these might be, were slowly robbing her of self-confidence, and the power of decisive action; her forces were on the wane, and the possibility of real fear took on a new and terrible meaning. But the thought of that retched creature rid the feeling and so with trembling hands Charlotte opened the front door, and ran out into the snow. Charlotte Sophia, so thin, worn, and wasted, that the dress which her mother picked out hung upon her as on a scarecrow and now almost blind, ran into the street. The crisis --The danger, is past, and the lingering illness, is over at last --, and the fever called Living is conquered at