THE LAST GATEKEEPER

Emptiness

He didn’t come get her. In fact she slept quite long into the day and was surprised when she woke up and it was already evening. The sun was slipping into the western horizon, veiling the plain with orange sun light.

            She sat up and tried to recall her most recent memories, memories of the village she’d told her story to. Andrea’s fears grew larger as she came to remember her missing association. It eventually became unbearable and in half sleep, she scrambled off the bed and to the door. It was dark in the hall, last night it must’ve been lit with dozens of torches but now there was only the faint sunlight from the end of the hall. She turned the opposite way and walked hastily to the main room. No one.

            “Hello!” Andrea called and her voice went faint in the hollow room. Her flesh peeled with goose bumps and she heard soft chirping from outside. She suddenly yearned to be out of the dark building, away from its emptiness. “away.” She murmured and sprinted out of the council. The air was warm and little insects flew around her as she burst into the open. Not a single soul in sight, she thought, that was what her mother would’ve said.

            She cupped her hands around her mouth and screamed. “HELLO!?” For a moment she thought someone was replying.

            “HELLO!?” But then it happened again. “hello!?” And then again, lower each time, her echo. The pebbles on the ground were beginning to claim shadows as the sun faded even further. Loneliness was a shroud hanging over her, she didn’t want to be alone when that sun made its final farewells and disappeared into the horizon, no, she didn’t want to be alone.

            A wisp of skin shivering wind brought her back to reality and she turned to it. The east horizon was the darkest of blues and she could see the moon clearly. It wasn’t beautiful as it usually was, it was an empty object.

            “HELLLOOOO!” She called again, growing even more desperate. Before she knew it, Andrea was searching through homes and looking for the other villages. There were none, she could’ve sworn there were more villages, at least a dozen on the plains further west, a small collection of houses and councils but, but they weren’t there.

Nothing was anywhere, except for the innards of the homes. Knives half deep into fresh grown vegetables and random bits of clothing scattered on the floors. She tried to find the birds she’d heard in the council, Andrea couldn’t find them. There weren’t any clouds in the sky and in one crucial realization as the sun finally disappeared and she was still glaring up at the night sky, she found herself screaming when there were no stars. An infinite distance of black was in the sky besides the moon which might’ve even made it worse.

            She flew into the nearest home and scrambled to the nearest corner. There she curled into the fetal position and cried in the darkness. Andrea would later search for flint for torch light, she’d even try to make fire with sticks but she would realize it was futile.

            The night grew longer and longer, longer than it was supposed to be and that’s when it happened. A silhouette passed a window, furthest to her right and she almost called out to it before feeling it, feeling the idea-no, the fact- that something was wrong. It was wrong. She stopped breathing and when she had to finally do it, she did it in painful silence. It moved slowly, shrouding in different shapes against the window panes. It had arms, though she couldn’t make out any distinctive part of them, which curled out in front of it. She couldn’t tell how she knew but she knew that it wasn’t human, in fact if she’d approached it, if it’d found her, she would have surely died.

            Night passed eventually and the bitter uncomfort of being in the fetal position for so long came to her instantly. She tried stretching for at least an hour but it didn’t go away. The morning was grey skied but there was no storm, still no clouds, only a veil of fog that surrounded the entire village. She couldn’t see passed 30 feet ahead of her.