Student Literary Works: Always

By Ben Parris

The mind is a powerful thing. Conjuring up faces in the darkness, patterns within the shadows. The human mind is simply uncanny when it comes to making connections where there are none. Ages pass, civilizations rise and fall, yet we are always afraid of the dark. 

The collapse of a nation is easy to understand, after all. Behavior is a science, predictable. Transactions between people and ideologies can be framed as simple quantitative explanations. But you cannot simplify what is already primal.

The sounds of the nighttime, that tickle-scratch the deep recesses of your ears like whispers refuse to be defined by logic. Facts tend to be subject to feelings.

Lucian knew all of these things. Nevertheless, the thing with seven eyeballs was not up for a philosophical discussion.

Eyeballs were not supposed to slither, but these were managing to anyways. Chasing Lucian as if a pack, nearly encircling him. Brilliant green spots hovering about three feet off the ground, dark masses writhing about beneath them.

This particular thing was nearly impossible to take in, it's form drinking in the shadows and refusing to be understood. They were always impossible. But at least it was one of the more formless ones. Fortunately, it wasn't… too human.

Lucian scrambled over loose gravel and crashed through the occasional tall reedy patch of grass. A pale sliver of moonlight peeked occasionally through clouded skies. Of course it was always the cloudy nights.

The thing seemed to make the darkness press harder around him, the floating green orbs did not cast their light upon his dire path. The seven threads slithered effortlessly. It consumed the rocks and the stalks in terrible shadows as it passed and then left them behind, unchanged yet somehow tainted.

The whispers tugged at him constantly, barely intelligible.

Sha-dow… shshshsh… Fle-sh… shshshsh… 

Images flashed through his mind; his foot catching on a rock sending him flailing into the dust; a sudden drop-off in the landscape, his flight taking him over an unseen ridge as his feet found no more purchase but emptiness. He couldn't tell if these were his own worries or the assault of the thing with seven eyes.

Mental exercises he'd practiced over and over flitted through his mind. ‘A candle’ he thought, ‘drives away the darkness. A bubble of light.’ But that was as far as he could get, his thoughts darting back to the impossible shadows in his peripherals. Of a truth, practice was not always perfect.

He ran, what else is there to say? Fear is the feeling which most exactingly subjects the facts. Lucian had plenty of fear this night. And not nearly enough experience with the feeling to know what to do with it.

He was nearing the edge of the forest now, terror driving his muscles to ignore the outrageous tax he had levied from them in favor of supporting a more noble conflict (he wanted to live, that's what I'm saying). The Muscles were always taxed.

It was then, as he neared the supposed cover of the trees (perhaps offering an obstacle to his pursuer) that tragedy struck. His left foot came down just so upon a root couched against the slight incline of the terrain. His ankle buckled, and he tumbled down in a heap of arms and legs.

Scrambling, he tried to rise to his feet again, his angular facial features contorting into a wince of grim acceptance. This would be the end. The thing would win. They always won, in the end. All his futile breaths spent in running would have been in service of providing his dark assailant with some pleasant foliage to shade against the meager moonlight.

 But the end did not come. No pain. No tearing of his flesh. Opening his eyes as he found his footing, Lucian found himself alone. His pursuer was gone.

Hope swelled in his breast. He had done it! He had escaped! Hope threatened to become levity as he checked to see all his limbs and digits still attached, relief flooding his bosom.

Only then did he feel something subtle brush his mind. A sing-song tickle of levity, but not his own. He turned about and his eyes darted deeper into the forest. It was like a raucous laugh, though he heard nothing. All relief he once felt had fled by now.

You do not want to be the source of cosmic amusement.

Lucian shrunk away, wishing to flee but unable to stop darting his eyes from shadow to shadow. A funny thing may happen when fear reaches its peak–that is, logic takes over once more. Logic knows when running is pointless.

This thing seemed to move with a calm and calculated air. This thing was not simply a beast, out for blood. Lucian stood rooted to the spot (ironic) as it approached. It did not bother to hide, snapped twigs and careful footfalls announced it's presence.

And that was the night that Lucian came face-to-face with a nightmare.