It Came At Night - Electric Dreams Entry

The wind wuthered around him, tugging at his thick padded jacket. He tensed his fingers, buried in the fleece pockets, forcing the feeling back into the stiff joints. The tree tops whipped and bent, cowering in the face of the icy gale of the night. The distant bright lamplight from the house trickled down the hill, fading into the fields, calling him home. He had to get back before it was too late. The snow was beginning to loosen and tumble, billowing from above, shortening the range of his feeble headlamp. Pushing his hands deeper into his jacket, hunching his shoulders forwards against the brunt of it, he strode on as fast as he could.

He didn’t know how long he had been out today, it was too cold to pull back his sleeve and squint at his fractured watch. The fading sun had taken him off guard, and when it did, he had found himself further out than he would have liked. He pushed on, he was exhausted, but he had to make it back in time. The wind was rising, branches cracked as his feet found their way along the familiar overgrown forest path. It was nearly pitch black now, he was running out of time. The towering trees blocked the faint sliver of moon drifting across the sky. He shuddered, the dark pushing against the beam of his lamp did not bother him as much as it should. Nor did the biting cold, nor the gale whipping and wailing into life as he trudged on, a deeper uneasy feeling was rising within him.

He suddenly realised the light stretching down the hill, calling him home, had gone.

They never turned the light off. That was the one rule, no matter what, never turn the light off.

---

He was barely aware of his increase in pace, he was running, stumbling through the soft falling snow that was drifting through the trees. The branches seemed to reach out, snagging him, clawing at his face as he pushed his way through. He was stone cold, despite his frantic pace, the sweat ribboning down his neck, icy and sickening. He couldn’t think, he didn’t want to. His insides twisted and dropped as he emerged from the treeline, he felt bile rising in his throat. The house stood, halfway up the hill, in complete darkness.

No bright lamp burnt at the door, casting her welcome rays into the night. No figures flitted through the windows, no face peering out of the door. No child, hands outstretched, ran out to greet him. No soft lamplight danced inside, no warm glow spilt out to flicker through the shimmying snow. The house stood before him, an empty shell. Darkness engulfed the silence as the snow smothered all.

He slogged up the steep incline, not aware of the grasping in his chest, the tightening of his lungs, adrenaline coursed through him, and he ran as fast as he could up the open ground. He thought he heard something, a faint cry, a distant shout, a voice he knew from long ago. The blood pounded heavy in his ears, deafening the world, distorting the barely audible sound beyond recognition as he broke into a run.

Then it was gone, it was all gone. The white of the snow swallowed him in dark. His feet hit hard into the brightness of nothing, reverberating through his legs, jarring with each ill judged step into the abyss. He barely had time to process the colours swirling back into view. The bright sunlight was blinding as he found himself stumbling up to his front door. He glanced behind him, darkness receding back to the woods below.

Then he felt it, the little hand grasping his, the not quite little enough hand… he turned around to look at the child. This was not his child, not the little girl he had been coming home to. The soft sunny locks, the cheery smile, the grubby cheeks, something began to swirl in his mind. His oldest son had disappeared as a toddler, taken by the storm swept night, yet here before him, years too old, stood that same boy. His hair did not flick and curl around the small of his neck like it used to, his cheeks has lost a little of their roundness, and his tiny button nose was starting to gain shape, but it was the same boy.

He fell to his knees, they had lost a lot of children over the years, everyone had, he had never thought he would see any of them again. Once they were gone, there was nothing that could be done, there were no tracks to follow, no hidden paths through the thick undergrowth. The darkness crept in, and they were gone. Not a sound, or moment of warning, they simply vanished in an instant. Taken by the darkness to a place beyond the reach of the lamps of man, never to be seen again. Anyone who tried, who ran into the night after them, disappeared as well.

A bubble rose inside him, a nausea of swirling uncertainty. This looked like his house, it had the same bright lamp to fight the darkness. It stood on the same hill, that dropped down to the same forest. Yet it was day here, merry chirping birds hopped and flurried between the branches in the sunlit trees. It was lush and verdant, the foliage heavy, the berries swollen and juicy. This may look like the same place, but this was not the endless winter he knew, this was not his version of home.

The little boy laughed, tugging at his hand, drawing him inside the house. He could hear the soft hiss and crackle of a wood fire, voices laughing and chattering in an unknown tongue. The warm scent of smoke mingling with the inviting smell of cooking beckoning him within.

---

She stood just inside the threshold. He should be back by now, the storm was approaching, the heavy sweep of downy flake beginning to catch in the lamplight. The guiding lamp, the one that held back the darkness, burned brightly outside the front door. The sun was beginning to turn hazy shades of red and purple, brushing the underside of clouds stretching out across the horizon. The storm was here.

He should have been back by now, the dark was encroaching, pushing its way out of its cracks and crevices, seeping and seething from between the hollows and tree roots, forcing back the sun. Then she saw him, a faint glow, bobbing and glancing between the tree branches, weaving its way towards the forest's edge.

Like a distant firefly, his light grew nearer, she stood in the doorway, her toes curled over the threshold, her fingers splintering the wood of the frame. He should have been back by now, this was too late, he wasn’t going to make it. The lamplight began to slowly creep in, the ocean of swirling flakes becoming an ever tighten ring around the doorway. Yet still his light bobbed there in the darkness, nearing the edge of the forest.

Then it was gone, lost to her in the dark. She thought she caught a flash, a glimpse of light for a split second. She couldn't tell if it was just memory of the glow, burnt into her straining eyes or if it was him breaking through the tree line. A small hand tugged at her leg from behind, the darkness was pushing further and further in. The lamp had faded from a brilliant beacon to a soft glow engulfed in the black. She couldn't wait any longer. She hadn't noticed how tightly she had been gripping the door frame, her nails were cracked and spotting with blood as she forced herself to let go. The darkness had reached the threshold, she couldn't wait a moment longer. She stepped back with a start, sending the worried little girl tumbling over as she slammed the door shut.

It had been too late. He hadn't made it.

---

She dropped to the floor, sobbing. It was just the two of them now. The night that smothered and engulfed had taken everyone else from her. The little girl, barely three, wrapped her arms around her mum.

“Mummy don't cry, daddy’s gone to better place with everyone else" she said.

It was a lie. A sweet, beautiful lie she had told her daughter, her very last child. The better place, where the world twisted and the endless winter gave way to sun and life. She knew the dark consumed those it took. She knew that, but she hadn't been able to tell her little girl all her brothers, her uncle, her best friend, her grandparents, were all dead. Eaten by the dark energy. She told her daughter that they had left, that the darkness was not death, but just somewhere else. Her little girl feared the dark already, like so many young children. So she had lied.

Everyone knew the darkness was death, they did this. They broke the very fabric of the universe open, realities had pooled and merged, the dark energy from beyond time flooded them all and people drowned in it. Life was a battle against the coming night that swallowed the world, consuming all who it engulfed.

“Come on then,” she said, standing up and taking her daughter's hand, “lets go and join them in the better place”

She opened the door, and the darkness flooded in.

---

This is my entry to @tygertyger 's #electricdreams contest - round 3 - the prompt this time was to tell the story of a person transported to an alternative reality. This story is about all the realities colliding, the darkness could take you to any of the other infinite places. For the people left behind, the darkness is death, because the chances are they will never get to see them again, although they may meet another version of them. They no longer exist in this version of reality. Some realities loose people, others gain them.

In a way, this is like cloverfield, from the perspective of the reality where the monsters were pulled from, and the family left behind.

Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed <3

Love and sparkle

Photo Credit by pixabay user Comfreak