Little Red Riding Hood: A Rewrite

 

Me: Rewrite the story of Little Red Riding Hood into a horror story with a scary ending

Once, in a village on the edge of a dark forest, a girl named Red Riding Hood set off to visit her sick grandmother. Her mother warned her to stay on the path and avoid talking to strangers, for strange things happened in those woods. But as she ventured deeper into the forest, the trees seemed to whisper her name, and a thick fog began to creep through the air. Before long, Red encountered a figure lurking in the shadows—a man with unnaturally pale skin and eyes that glimmered like a predator's. He smiled, his teeth unnervingly sharp, and asked where she was going. Against her better judgment, Red told him.

The stranger vanished into the fog as quickly as he had appeared, and Red, unsettled, hurried on to her grandmother’s cottage. When she arrived, she found the door slightly ajar, and the house cold and silent. Red stepped inside, calling out, but only a strange, wet breathing answered from the bedroom. Trembling, she approached the bed and saw her grandmother lying under the covers, her face hidden in the gloom. "Grandmother, what big eyes you have..." Red whispered, but before she could finish, the figure in the bed lunged at her, revealing not her grandmother, but the stranger from the woods. His face stretched grotesquely, a twisted mockery of a wolf’s snarl, and his hands, clawed and bloody, reached for her throat.

Red tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed by the thick fog outside as the creature pinned her down, grinning. "All the better to see you with," he hissed, his voice now guttural and inhuman. Red’s heart raced as she realized her grandmother had never been sick—the monster had gotten there first. In a flash, his teeth sank into her neck, and her world went black.

When the villagers came looking for Red the next day, all they found was her crimson cloak, soaked in blood and draped over her grandmother's bed. No trace of her or her grandmother was ever found, but at night, under the full moon, they say a low growl can be heard echoing from the forest, followed by the distant sound of footsteps. Some swear that Red’s voice calls out from the woods, warning anyone who dares enter, but few who hear it ever return.