Midnight

Last night a man was found in his house, dead in his sleep.

Everyone came to me for answers, banging on my door, begging for me to come out and help them. I cannot help anyone. I am useless.

There are rumors in my village of a dark spirit, one who comes in the night, coming to kill.

At twilight every night I close the windows, latch the shutters, draw the curtains, and turn out all the lights. I gather everything I need into my knapsack, then leave the house, locking the door behind me. My hood covers my face, helping me blend into the shadows.

I run towards the wooded area behind my small house, keeping my footsteps light, leaping over fallen logs and ducking the low-hanging branches. I pray my skirt doesn't snag on any twigs as I try to get as far as I can. The Midnight Dragon is coming. I have to prepare.

The rumors started months ago, when the kingdom fell. They say the democracy held our kingdom together by minuscule threads, and all it would take is one carefully placed blade for it all to unravel. As soon as the first council member was found murdered, no one felt safe. We fell into anarchy, everyone for themselves.

Despite all our magic, our powers, every technological advancement, no one could save us from our own naivety. We relied on our new democracy to do everything. We thought the council could save us. More government, more rules, more regulations, keep everyone safe and sound. Were they really protecting us? Or was it just a bubble around our small world?

I hop a stone wall covered with vines and moss. It's more than four feet tall, and I'm barely taller than it, but I've done this hundreds of times. I land on my feet, breathing hard. Kneeling down in the grass, I tighten the straps on my boots and check that my hood is still on my head.

I get to my feet and concentrate, going through the correct movements in my head, then performing them with my hands. Purple sparks shoot out my fingers as I extend my hands. I take my knapsack off my shoulders and pull out a fresh fruit from inside. It's a dragonfruit, how fitting. I focus on the fruit and let it leave my hands to sit in the air. More purple glow surrounds my hands, and I want to let it fill the forest, but I can't. If anyone were to discover me, I'd surely be put on trial and imprisoned for a thousand years. I rotate my wrist and the fruit starts to shrink, slowly turning to a flower and then to a bud. I rotate my wrist the other way and the fruit starts to decay, shriveling up into a carcass of its former self. With a flick of my fingers the dragonfruit goes back to normal. I snap my fingers and it disappears. The purple glow vanishes, leaving me in the dark.

Ever since the anarchy started, we are restricted from using our magic anywhere except the human world, which is supposedly cut off from us. No one has been able to communicate with the humans for nearly a year.

Except me.

My new tattoo on the back of my ear vibrates once. I tap my ear and listen.

"Is it working?" A small voice asks.

"Yes," I say, nodding. "it works perfectly."

"Stay safe," says Adrian, "you can do this."

"I'll try."

I tap my ear again and the connection, the only time when Adrian really has a voice, disappears. I can feel it breaking in my head. A part of my heart crumbles as I hold in tears. I want to run to him and hug him, sit next to him while we read, just go out for ice cream with him- anything. But this is impossible.

Rumors spread through our village fast. At first everyone thought it was the fault of the humans we fell so hard, and so humans were banned from the entire kingdom. Then they blamed magic, the only thing that kept us going, and now we struggle to stay alive, and no one is truly living. Now the focus of the rumors is the Midnight Dragon, the dark spirit with a penchant for murder.