Random Writing

The Boy

A scream echoes outside. One by one, the houses on the street go dark. My house is next.

The night is quiet, nothing but the sound of an owl in the distance and the soft hum of the air conditioner disturbs it. Gentle moonbeams sneak through the partially drawn curtains where they dance across the ceiling of the dark bedroom, their ever-changing shapes hypnotizing it's lonely inhabitant.

The young child peers up at the ceiling with wide eyes, the blankets pulled up to his chin in a vain attempt to fight off the nasty winter chill. He blinks once, twice, then glances toward the clock. He should have fallen asleep hours ago, but something keeps him awake. Something is wrong. Something big. The moonbeams continue their dance, an isolated presence of light in the otherwise dark world.

A scream cuts through the silence.

The boy shoots up in his bed, his feet fly to the floor, and he rushes to the door only to find it unmovable. He starts pounding on it, calling out for his parents, for anyone to answer him. But no one does. The child gives up easily and walks back to his bed. With a sigh, he sits on the corner and glances up toward the ceiling where the streaks of light wait for him.

In the way only a child's mind could see, the moonbeams point toward the window, making a path straight for the mirror into the world beyond his home. He grabs his blanket, the one he has had for as long as he has been alive, that is riddled with holes and so faded the once bright orange is nothing more than white. Carefully, he walks toward the window and pulls back the drapes with one hand, the other clutching the blanket to his face.

The light of the full moon casts an unearthly glow upon his face. The street is calm, nothing is out of the ordinary. The boy is just about to turn around when he sees it. The quick shadow flying across the patches of light illuminated by the street lamps. The longer he watches, the more flashes of shadow he sees. And as the shadows increase, the light begins to fade.

Then it happens. The first house falls silent. The lights on the front porch cut off, as does the streetlamp situated just outside. There is no sign of struggle or that anything is out of the ordinary other than the sudden darkness enveloping the house at the end of the street.

The boy's jaw goes slack, his mouth falling open as he watches as, one by one, each house on the street falls victim to shadow. First it is the one on the end, then the one next to it, then the one next to that, the shadows slowly making their way around the cul-de-sac until there is only one house standing between the small boy and the shadows.

"Mommy," he cries nervously, watching as the shadow extends its hands closer and closer, its long clawed fingers enveloping his neighbor's house. The darkness grows steadily closer and closer until the boy can feel it's chill. Colder than a winter's night. Colder than the touch of ice. Colder than anything he's known before.

Gentle moonbeams dance across the boy's ceiling, their rhythm growing frantic, wild, uncontrolled, until they, too, succumb to the dark of night.

The boy is alone now, his parents gone, the moon's rays gone, even the light pouring in from the streets is gone now. The only thing he has left is his blanket, the pale orange cloth his only comfort. The child clutches the blanket to his chest and closes his eyes tightly, hoping, praying that the shadow will pass over him without extinguishing him like it did the others.

With his eyes squeezed shut and his small mouth pressed into a firm line, the boy, standing alone in his bedroom, is finally claimed by the darkness from which he came.