Out of Sight

Hunter sat still, back to a wooden building. Very still, very silent. All day, people walked by, on all kinds of business, through the rural settlement of Umbridge. Farmers exchanging their wares, traders bargaining to receive the best price on their latest acquisition, and even craftsman hammering away on an anvil or tanning a hide. But other than the shuffling of feet or the sound of metal on metal, everything was deathly silent.

Umbra, his little sister, sat down next to him, weaving hand signs rapidly in order to communicate. “Hey, Hunter. It’s getting late, what are you doing?”

Hunter responded, signing expertly right back. “I’m waiting. I want to see the Visible once the sun rises.”

Umbra’s face changed to a confused expression, as she continued speaking through the mutually known sign language. “Won’t Mother and Father be upset?”

“No, I already asked them. They are fine with it.”

Umbra was still for a moment, then her hands began forming further queries. “Why would you want to see the Visible, though? Aren’t you scared of them?”

“How can I be scared of something I’ve never even seen? Are you scared of them, despite never seeing them?”

“Of course! Completely opaque beings, only able to see with their eyes, moving around and acting just like people… even without seeing it firsthand, it sounds terrifying! We aren’t even supposed to interact with them! It’s the rule!”

Hunter gave Umbra a slightly annoyed expression. “No, it’s not. We don’t have any rule about-”

Despite Hunter having not finished pantomiming his own sentence, Umbra began again, cutting him off. “Okay, so it’s not an official law, but everyone knows the best thing to do is stay away from them. There is a reason they can’t see us, but we can see them.”

Hunter couldn’t help but let out an involuntary chuckle, drawing surprised looks from several people around him as they walked by. They didn’t sign anything or say anything, continuing on their own business without comment. Such was the habit of everyone in the town; always minding their own business, never striking up conversation with strangers unless absolutely necessary. Though most knew how to speak, everyone preferred sign language. Pressured by this societal norm, Hunter continued silently signing his response to his sister. “Umbra… that’s exactly why they aren’t scary. We can see them, they can’t see us.”

Umbra rolled her eyes, signing faster and more angrily. “They are scary because they are so… different. I’ve heard they even tried to take over the town before, and we had to drive them out. They still come every night, but luckily we have those transparent shields around beds and everything important that we can pass through, but they can’t.”

Hunter knew he wasn’t going to get Umbra to stay up with him, despite already having permission, but decided to ask anyway. “Are you sure you don’t want to see them as well? Who knows, maybe they won’t be as terrifying as you think…”

“Absolutely not. I’m spending the night at my best friends house, and we are going to do fun things instead of watching some creepy Visible. Bye.”

Umbra walked off, Hunter continuing to sit still. As expected, no one else approached him, and the sun began to rise. The blinding light caused Hunter to instinctively shield his eyes for a moment as they adjusted to the brightness. Slowly, the dim twilight was replaced by an overwhelming light. He almost couldn’t move for a moment, as he struggled to deal with the sensory overload. But eventually, after an unclear amount of time during which he may have even passed out momentarily, he adjusted, and got up to take a look around.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting there in the sunlight, but there were already several Visible within the town. He had been told by the night watchmen that, once the sun rose and night arrived, it was fairly common for them to show up, but he almost hadn’t believed it. Yet, there they were. Completely opaque people, completely unaware of his presence and speaking out loud instead of using sign language. The din of many conversations felt incredibly loud, and he began to wonder how it never woke anyone one up. Predators were no issue to people, as the animals couldn’t sense them in any way, but the sheer volume of the invader’s speech should definitely be an issue for insomniacs.

One woman, who appeared to be leading a group of about twenty people, walked right into a building as if she owned the place. She spoke as if she was an authority on where they were, as if she was a native to the area. “All right, everyone, here we have the Mayor’s Office. The same mayor that eventually disappeared under mysterious circumstances after several paranormal occurrences.”

Hunter was shocked. The Visible looked around as they entered, as if there was some dark secret to the mundane building they were entering. Hunter quietly followed, the extra set of footsteps being completely undetectable to the Visible, even if they weren’t already causing so much noise themselves.

The woman stood in front of a glass case on a pedestal, holding an old picture frame. “Mayor Khanberg was always an eccentric man, but the strange happenings in this town weren’t only noticed by him. We have several hundred individual reports of objects vanishing, reappearing in other areas, furniture being moved around, and even completely new objects appearing with no known origin. Modern skeptics believe this was all part of some large scale delusion, but the exact details remain completely unknown and utterly unverifiable.”

One girl raised her hand to ask a question, a smug look on her face as the woman noticed it. “Yes, did you have a question?”

“Is the town still haunted?”

Everyone in the group laughed as Hunter covered his ears, annoyed at the sudden outburst. He did notice, though, that some laughs were more nervous than others. The woman had also laughed slightly, but responded politely. “It depends who you ask. There is no definitive evidence of any paranormal activity, if that is what you are asking. Most, if not all, of the recent odd happenings can easily be explained by pranksters or hoaxsters merely exploiting the reputation of the town. You will need to decide for yourself what you believe, I’m afraid.”

The girl seemed to be satisfied with her answer as she gave a self righteous look at her more nervous looking friend. Hunter continued the tour along with the group who was completely unaware he was there, and he eventually learned the names of some of the Visible by hearing bits of their conversation.

The smug girl was named Lissy, and had attended this odd tour of Hunter’s home town along with two other friends, Zylvia and Khev. Zylvia was the nervous girl, appearing slightly younger and possibly being related to Lissy. Khev did not seem related, but was a friend of the older girl. They both didn’t seem to believe the town was haunted, while the younger Zylvia was afraid it might be.

The night ended with the sun setting, and the Visible began to leave the already mostly deserted town. To Hunter’s surprise, the small group of three ditched the tour near the end and set up camp in one of the buildings.

Hunter was tired from being up so long, but he was now far too interested in this small group of Visible to go to bed now. While he watched silently, Lissy pulled out an array of candles, handing one to each of her companions and holding herself. To Hunter’s surprise, she snapped her fingers at the end of each candle wick, lighting it with a spark from nowhere. He was further intrigued by the strange abilities of these beings.

Lissy held her candle under her head, giving herself an ominous look with the harsh shadows it created on her face. “So, now we know the public story of the Cursed Town… but do you two know the secret history that they are too scared to tell everyone?”

Zylvia protested. “Don’t try to scare me, Lis… ”

Khev laughed at Zylvia’s continued unease at the subject. “Come on, she hasn’t even started yet, don’t tell me you're already creeped out?”

“No! I-”

Lissy continued. “Good, because it’s too soon to get scared. Now, what no one tells you is that the entire town was built right on top of… a graveyard.”

Zylvia shifted uncomfortably. “Please, Lissy… I just want to go home. I’m tired, and I’m not having fun anymore.”

Lissy ignored the protest. “Every night… the ghosts rise from their graves, wandering about the town as if it was the middle of the day…”

Hunter looked out the window. There were already some people out and about, though it was still quite early. All of them kept far away from the building, though, as they didn’t want to deal with whatever was causing all the commotion within.

Zylvia was standing now, back against the wall. “Guys, STOP IT! It’s not funny!”

Khev was laughing as Lissy persisted. “… and if, after rising, they find any still among the living… then they will drag them to center of town, and… ”

Hunter jumped as he realized a wild animal had just entered the building. The Pyre Wolf was stalking directly towards the unsuspecting Visible. Zylvia seemed to notice it, but neither of the other two had, as she struggled to find the words to warn them. “G… G… guys, a w… ”

Khev and Lissy turned around as Zylvia pointed, both of them freezing in place when they saw the growling predator. For several seconds, there was a tense standoff, until Zylvia threw her candle at the wolf, drawing it’s attention as well as it’s ire. “Everyone, run!”

The other two managed to slip out another exit down the hall, but the wolf pursued a panicking Zylvia up a staircase. Hunter followed close behind the girl ahead of the wolf, watching in horror as the girl foolishly cowered in the corner of a spare room. The wolf had trouble navigating the narrow stairs, but it would manage to make it up them eventually, and the door to the room didn’t have locks that would hold if off for long.

Hunter’s mind raced. No one else was coming to help, he had to do something or else the girl was dead. He ran over, and grabbed her by the shoulder. The moment he did, he could feel the girl tense up in fear, and before she could cry out he covered her mouth with his other hand.

The wolf burst into the room, looking around confused. It walked cautiously around the room, sniffing the air as embers drifted off it’s bristled fur. The girl was completely stiff as Hunter could feel her letting out shallow breaths in an attempt to be quiet and still as her eyes stared wide in terror, but Hunter knew that as long as he held firm, she was completely undetectable to the predator. Eventually, the wolf left, and once he was sure it was completely gone, Hunter let go.

The girl collapsed to the floor, coughing and wheezing as if he had been strangling her. She managed to regain her breath, and slowly stood up as she looked around in stunned silence. He had no idea exactly what the experience was like for a Visible, only that for the period of time she had been completely undetectable. She eventually found her words. “H… hello?”

Hunter was unsure how to proceed. He felt a tad awkward, as he rarely spoke out loud, yet the girl certainly wasn’t going to see his sign language. The girl spoke again. “Hello?… Is… Is there someone there?”

Finally, Hunter overcame his shyness, and spoke with a hoarse voice. “Hello.”

The single word was quieter than he meant it to be, and his voice a lot more raspy from general lack of use. The girl let out an ear piercing scream, and fled from the building. Hunter followed, but stopped once he saw she was taken into the care of some other Visible who had apparently come looking for her. She was in tear filled hysterics as they ferried her away back to wherever they had come from. Hunter sighed.

While he probably should have expected it, he hadn’t realized that the Visible were even more scared of him than Umbra was of them.

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Thanks for reading! If you are enjoying the story, you might also enjoy my novel! It’s set in the same fictional universe, but follows different characters.

Same post on Minds

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