"Faeries of the Night" by R.E. ´Riibu´ Kankaanpää

It was late at night. The house was almost completely dark. Only the living room was lighted somewhat by the TV. The voices were off. Maria snoozed on the sofa, bowl half-filled with popcorn on her lap.

There were commercials going on in the TV. A woman in bikinis held up a small bottle of something brownish and smiled graciously to Maria’s sleeping form. A screen with text, numbers and dollar sings appeared in the TV with a green flash, showing a ‘truly tempting’ offer for a totally new product of self-tanning cream. And wait, there was more. The TV flashed green a few times. A thin blonde held up a pair of green gloves. The picture zoomed to the woman’s smiling green face.

The TV flashed green some times more. A green screen appeared, showing text, numbers and dollar sings. The screen flashed green… normal... green... normal… green.

Maria’s oblivious dreaming was interrupted by a rather loud bang, and she woke up with a start, just in time to see her precious TV spark and black out.

Without the meagre light of the TV’s screen, having just woke up from an odd dream where her old friend from kinder garden had just asked her to marry her, she felt quite perplexed in the darkness. It took her some two minutes to register where she was. Realizing her TV had just suffered something fatal, she quickly rose from the sofa, knocking the popcorn bowl on the floor.

“Oh crap”, she remarked after stepping on the crunchy popcorn with her bare feet.

“Crap, crap… Light, light”, she stated with intelligence. Then she proceeded to stumble to the light switch with bits of popcorn stuck between her toes. Strangely, even when she applied some brute force and curse words to the light switch, the lamps refused to light the room.

“Okay… so the fuse probably just blew up. I gotta chance it… At least I know it isn’t a power break, cuz old man Jeezkins’ lights are on. But how the hell I’m gonna be able to change anything in this damned darkness, is beyond me!”

Annoyed, she stared out of the windows, over her suffering garden to the lighted windows of her neighbour. Absent-mindedly she picked out bits of popcorn off her feet, while looking her garden, thinking for the tenth time that she should do something to those weeds.

The bushes under the windows were trembling slightly, most likely with stray breeze, but when Maria looked to the happy trees on the neighbour’s yard, she saw that that the leaves didn’t even stir.

“Odd.” She came to the conclusion, after some thought, that it must be some stupid animal. How it could move all the bushes at once stumped her though.

Maria tried to concentrate on the bushes, but a few distant stars could only light so much and the night outside ignored her.

A strange feeling caught up with her mind. She wondered for a small moment before she realized she was frightened.

“Just a stupid animal…” she mumbled to herself. Anguish crept over her back. She felt watched, observed. Standing there, in the doorway, back to the hallway, facing the whole living room. She felt that there was something behind her, lurking in the shadows. Waiting, wanting her to turn around and see nothing.

“Shadows, Maria, shadows”, she said aloud, trying to calm her weak heart down. But it felt wrong. The night was so quiet. Like al the sounds had stopped to exist, like there had never been any sounds. The moment she focused on the silence, her heartbeat started pounding inside her head. Her blood flow sounded like a raging river. She felt that that something heard her nervousness and would advance on her any second. She should turn around. She should turn around and stop it, whatever it was. Any moment…

She turned around. She saw nothing but impenetrable darkness covering the hallway.

“Just some stupid shadows. Shadows, like I told ya… I’m not afraid of darkness. No sir.” She wished she had stayed quiet. As nothing seemed to be appearing from the darkness, she convinced herself to turn back to face the living room. It had more to look anyways. She noticed that the bushes had stopped shaking, although she recalled them shaking almost violently just a moment ago. Just before she turned. “It’s all in your mind, girl”, she thought, but didn’t dare to voice it.

The feeling of being watched, observed returned to her. She felt like she was wanted, hungered. She felt something wanted to hurt her, pain her, devour her. She felt something wanting her to disappear for forever.

“I’m not afraid of shadows.”

[thumpthumpthumpthump]

“It’s all in my mind.”

[thumpthumpthumpthump]

“Curse them all…”

[thump]we[thump]already[thump]are[thump]

“What the…” “I didn’t hear anything. I couldn’t have heard anything. I’m damn imagining things!” But try as she might, she could not get rid of the sight of her TV radiating green light to the room. She started to feel panicky, freaked out by the strange things happening.

It almost looked like the light had a point that moved, looking for something. Maria’s pained heart pounded deliriously. She wanted to move away, to hide, but she was frozen in place. The light came closer still and Maria whimpered. She closed her eyes, taking a step backwards. When nothing happened, she felt relieved and moved further into the hallway.

Her backing stopped. It was like she had hit a wall, one made of fear, nightmares, death. She knew there was one somewhere behind her as well. She had to turn, but she couldn’t expose her back to the light. She didn’t want to. She whimpered.

In one moment, she quickly turned sideways and leaned her back on the wall of the hallway. To her right, the green light swayed closer, inch by inch. To her left, a darkness of nothingness. Nothingness that started to disappear. Shadow by shadow green light edged forward around the corner.

Maria couldn’t see. Her sight vanished as tears swelled her eyes. She was so scared, petrified, terrified. Images of her and her boyfriend came to her mind. She remembered her mother, her father.. her little sister. She had a family of love. Oh God, she wanted to keep them.

But the dark silence around her whispered to her. The unspoken threats slipped in to her mind without any resistance. The fear turned icy liquid in her guts. Her cheeks felt cold, wet with uncontrollable tears.

The gruesome silence was filled with the thumping of her heart, her whimpering. Maria couldn’t have stopped even if she had wanted, it was all beyond her now.

She sunk lower, her feet unable to hold her weight no longer. Green light searched .. and found her. Their fingers stretched, claws quivering out of excitement. A promise of flesh made them tremble. They could smell her fear, tasting the sweet horror she felt. So delicious…

She couldn’t see them. No, but she could feel them more clearly than she wanted, appearing at the both ends of the hallway. How they carefully took only few steps closer to her, closing any possibility for escape from her.

Content she wasn’t trying to run away, they hurried to her.

Completely in the clutches of her terror, she could only whisper stressed sounds, unable to form actual words… “God, God, God… Please. Please.”

They touched her lightly with their claws, anxious at getting to her meat, but keeping themselves halted.

“Oh God, please…”

But one can only wait for so long.

“Please, God..-“

A claw, cold as ice, pierced her hand, another ripped open her stomach. The green light kept her awake.

“…[gurgle]…”

A hand, all skin and bones, grabbed hers and raised it. She felt two fierce fangs sink into her hand, between all the pain. A hand, surreal mostly, grabbed the opening on her belly and teared it wider. Her guts fell outside. She slumped.

“… end it fast…”

The pain. The feelings. The memories.

Her sight was but darkness.

Her mind perished and felt no more.

She was gone.

They left nothing, they left to prey for more food.

Their hunger was everlasting.