Dawn at Dusk

Nightshade

The air was dampened by a persistent fog that had just recently rested on the cast down grass. It was the earthy scent of fresh rain on unearthed soil that brought about earthworms and venturing frogs from the nearby pond. Horizons were a particularly finicky phenomenon for those who awoke alone, without company. It's often difficult to distinguish sunset from sunrise, more specifically, for particular individuals with diminishing senses of direction. 

Jakab Nathaniel Wolloway was in a precarious situation. His memory had a habit to retract further back into his cranium with each passing moon and the dark liquor from the evening (or was it morning?) prior was indeed not helping his current state of mind. He dimly remembered being at a backwood alehouse after a stranger approached and gave him money as if he were a beggar. Though he looked to play the part, Jakab Wolloway considered himself with pride to be a meandering explorer who wanted to make the most out of his last remaining years; and by that, traveling to every pub in town and begging for a glass of mystical dark liquid before being thrown out onto the streets. He was a man who valued the chance to meet the queen and a chance to get a free meal as one of the same. With my appearance, Jakab had once written to his previous wife, I can pass as some poor bastard and get whatever my heart desires. Unlike many without a home, family, or personal value, he thrived. Despite the toils in his head, with a large stick his tan, wrinkly hand and a satchel strung across his torso, Jakab was determined to find his way out of these dense woods. 

The elderly man wrinkled his nose as a bug buzzed passed. A thought about his previously wiped mind flashed by. That's right, he thought, those Northern men couldn't hold their liquor compared to I. He chuckled righteously to himself, no youngster could match his ability. And obviously they hadn't understood that the loser pays the bar tab. That explained the knot on his forehead and the overzealous ache in his back. Yes, he must have out bested them.

However, now was not the time to recount the previous day's (yesterday's?) events. The path was growing tighter as the trail grew less and less worn. Jakab narrowed his eyes. "Damn it all," he mumbled. It was now apparent that he was mistaken, the trail couldn't have been used in at least a decades' time with the eccentric overgrowth. How hadn't he noticed before? Not only was his memory shrinking, but his eyesight too. One day he'll have to visit the miracle man who promised some kind of youth elixir a few towns over. If only those young hoodlums hadn't emptied his wallets, or perhaps he had himself? Jakab hadn't a clue. Just like how he hadn't a clue of why the sun hadn't risen or fell within the last half hour of walking through this gods-forsaken forest. The lighting wasn't helping, for it stayed at a constant twilight. Neither fully bright, nor entirely dark.

It wasn't until a dim light flittered through the trees, just beyond the extent of his eyesight. It was almost as brilliant as a lightening bug's wistfulness, but a tad brighter. Brighter than any natural woodland creature he had ever seen. The strange entity floated through the trees, knowing and careful. Then, an idea found its way into his mind, gently whispering an evil omen only few knew at the time of his upbringing. 

A fairy.

Of course, it had to be a fairy. It had the movements of one and the light of one. All the characteristics his mother had told him as a wee child back at Sumvale. Fear coursed his veins like ice spikes jabbing his skin from the inside. The fae were spiteful creatures. They preyed on the innocent and whispered deceitful lies into the ears of the paranoid. His mother, a knowing woman, said they ate newborns who dared to cry to quietly or laughed too loud. They were tricksters with ill will towards humankind. 

Yet, another thought blinked into his consciousness. It was said that the fae held great secrets and treasures only the most clever could unravel, as long as they stayed mindful of the tricks. A smile crept onto Jakab's weathered cheeks. He was clever, he knew their tricks, and surely his mother told his all their methods of deceit. If only he could convince a fairy to give him the treasure, then Jakab Nathaniel Wolloway could die a wealthy man. So wealthy his wife would weep for the absence of her name in his will. And with that, the elder followed the blurry light further into the unknown woods.

Trying desperately to avoid the roots that seemed like limbs growing from the ground, he struggled to keep his eyes on the mysterious fairy. Just one glance away is another opportunity for it to escape. His feet dragged his sore body off the path, letting astray branches scrath and knaw into his clothing. 

Suddenly, the light paused momentarily as if asprehensive. Jakab breathed in sharply and clamered to a stop. The twilight was all he heard, though quieter than before. The wind didn't rustle the leaves and the birds didn't sing, the world had grown to become deadly silent. Just as the elderly man thought his plan had gone array, the light of the fae drifted once more. Curious, he thought absently, what a strange creature.

After an hour of wandering the woods after the disembodied gleem of the fairy, Jakab had finally reached the edge of the forest just shy of his target. He paused to take a moment to himself. Through all the rushing and adrenaline his knee had given out more than once and his head felt like it was going to burst with a migraine. It took everything it had in him to stop himself from screaming at the fairy, "Where in the hell are you going?" To him, it made no sense to why this fae would just float stupidly in the open for seemingly no reason. 

And then it was clear.

Within a minute's time, other lights flickered into being from the opposite ends of the small clearing. Everything came into view aside from the reason why this meeting was occurring. Perhaps they were scheming about their treasures? Nearly twenty had appeared before his eyes. Jakab strained his ears, surly they would discuss some type of sensitive information that could leave him a more wealthy man. But instead, they moved in strange formations. A circle at first and then around, exchanging up and down motions every moment. The creatures danced to a song that wasn't playing. 

A voice in Jakab Wolloway's head told him that he wasn't meant to see this. That it would have been better if he turned around and limped back up the path to avoid this ancient gathering of abnormality. Perhaps, if he had been younger, he would have been able to see with more clarity and avoid the grevious mistake that follows his greed.

After each step he took, he began to see this error. These faries were not fairies at all, but flames within a lantern. Their movements were not their own, but the shadow-like creatures that held them. The cloaks that shielded their appearances from him moved swiftly and artificially with each twist and turn. It made Jakab feel ill with nothing he had ever experienced before, the sort of illness where your teeth felt like sandpaper and your toes curled into the balls of your feet. His lungs were gasping for air, struggling to keep up with the demand for energy. The moving clokes began murmering some language that was never suppose to touch his ears. He cringed at the sounds and struggled with his train of thought. His mind screamed to stop his advances, but his feet knew only to keep moving forward. They kept moving toward these things. It wasn't until his feet gave out when he realized he was wrong all along. The feeling in his feet had numbed into nothing, then his legs, then his pelvis, then his hands. It wasn't painful, but silent and drawing. This feeling was the feeling of death.