Lights Out

I have always liked the darkness. Maybe it's something to do with my overactive imagination but it has always fascinated me. In light reality is nothing more than what we can see and hear, but once the last slithers of light shrink away anything becomes possible. The murderous clown at the end of your bed becomes only too real, the creature lurking among the dust-ridden confines of your wardrobe seeks you out with gleaming red eyes. Every impossible danger is suddenly so very possible. Yet I’ve found something else with darkness. It brings a surprising amount of clarity, it’s inky black fingers claw at the masks we hide behind during sunlight. And exposes people in a way no rational sole would admit. Perhaps that's why I took this job. I have had the power to do it for longer than I can remember, hacking just seems natural. Exposing people just like darkness. But I had never taken it this far. Until now. 

The note had been passed to me discreetly under my desk during lunch at my high school. Madz, as he liked to be called, had walked over to me with a swagger in his stride. His floppy brown hair was brushed back in a tousled mess over his dark face. An automatic signal that he had a message. 

“Hey Lilly,” he smiled and swung his legs over the side of the bench. In his hand was a faded blue slip of paper, a mission slip as we called them. Madz and I along with a select other few had been hacking together since our first year of high school. Madz basically ran us, he was the only one “brave enough” to make his contact details known to anyone who might have a job for us. Most of the time it was just simple stuff, gathering information on specific targets and maybe the occasional theft. But never anything serious. 

I took the slip from Madz's hand and read it in silence. 

Your mission should you choose to accept: turn off the lights.

“What?” I queried. Madz shrugged his slender shoulders indifferently. 

“I talked to the dude but he was very vague. Just said turn off all the lights in the city for a few hours during the solar eclipse tomorrow. I assume he means all electricity too. Shouldn’t be too hard right?” I thought to myself for a moment then replied. 

“Yeah why not I’ll do it. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. I’ll expect him to pay up tomorrow at ten in the morning,” Madz nodded his mouth breaking into a huge grin then rushed off to join his friends over by the football field. 

Two hours later and the front door of my family's tiny apartment creaked open in front of me. My brother Max answered the door. His lanky frame ducked down to peer at me under the door frame. He was dressed in an old red flannel shirt that belonged to our dad and simple jeans. Sixteen years had gifted him with a scraggy mane of blond hair tastefully curling around his ears and brushing the nape of his neck. 

"So the mysterious Lillyan Greaves finally decided to show up. Your lucky Mums working late today, where have you been?"

I shoved passed him and tossed my bag down by the front door. 

"I had to visit the library," I mumble. Max grunted and let me through to my room. He knows full well that I'm not the type to go actively searching for books. In truth, I was planning how I was going to go about my mission, not that I would ever admit that to him. 

Back in the safe confines of my tiny rectangular room, my fingers hovered in anticipation over my keyboard. I’d been working for nearly the entirety of an hour planning the perfect hack and the time had finally arrived. The soft mattress of my small single bed dipped beneath me as I shuffled over from my desk to the bed. I always released a line of code while sitting on my bed, the change of position just gave it a sort of closure that I needed to feel like I had completed the task. With a complete line of javascript ready in my head, I clicked open the inspector tab of Electro Corps. The only electricity distributor for miles around. Madz had supplied me with the link to their online control system and sure enough, getting in was only a matter of time as the simple firewalls caved around my genius. Code flew from my brain down my arms and out my fingers as they tapped the keys at an astounding rate. A rush of adrenaline kicked in as I managed to successfully program the correct command into the system that would cut off the powerlines. Just one more click then. 

An intense sizzling resonated through the house, punctuated with searing stabs of light. Then darkness. The lights were blown, I had done it. In the apartments below and above me I could hear the feverish stamping of feat. It seemed everyone was rushing to figure out what was going on. 

From the room above I heard a shaky woman's voice strained in fear

“Ben just stop! The solar eclipse takes place tomorrow we’ll be in total darkness,” I felt the sly grin expanding on my face as silence fell. I had done it, now they would learn to appreciate the light. This would be the perfect way to expose the lowly characters of society for who they really were. Then a cacophony of scrambling penetrated through the thin walls of the apartment on all sides. People were scrambling outside to their balconies to see what had happened. Grabbing an old blue woollen sweater I rushed out to join them. Above me, Mr and Mrs McArther stood clutching their plushy nightgowns around them. They looked down at me in confusion, their dishevelled appearances showcasing a side of themselves they would ever normally reveal. 

“Lillyan! Do you have any idea what might have happened?” I cleared my throat and shouted back to Mr McArther.

“No sir I can only hope it's fixed soon,” He nodded and led his shivering wife back in. With a sweeping glance, I scanned over my surroundings. Under the cover of darkness, I spotted several other silhouettes standing out on their balconies. Out in the street people ran wild, rushing to the nearest store for torches and batteries. Somewhere in the distance, the distinct crackle of fire reached my ears. Gosh was it really escalating to this already? Surely people would just wait it out. 

Pulling my sweater tighter around me I rushed back inside and over to my Max’s room. He lay on his bed reading by torchlight seemingly completely ignorant of the madness taking place outside. He sighed and gestured for me to join him. My feet barely touched the carpet as I jumped over to him and under the covers. His warmth took the edge of the bitter cold beginning to bite at my face and within minutes sleep overtook me. 

I barely felt sleep drag me down when Max began poking at my forehead. His voice was hushed but panicked.

“Lilly. Lilly get up we need to go,”

“Medonwanagetup,” I mumbled as he swept the covers off us. Lanky arms rolled me over onto my side to face him. His eyes were wide and face gaunt.

“Look Lil Mum isn’t home yet and people turn dangerous when the lights go out. We can’t stay here, people keep banging on the door and there's shouting all around. I don’t know how you slept through it. We’ll run over to Jamie's house, you remember him right? His dads a police officer, it’ll be safer.”

The remainder of the covers fell to the floor while Max sprung to his feet. He disappeared for a second then returned with two simple black backpacks stuffed with all the necessities you need when your brother’s a full-time the-worlds-gonna-end-any-day-now geek. 

I felt guilty as he handed me a pack and black hoodie. I could stop this now, but then I would fail the mission. And staking the reputation of Madz’s hackers was not something I could do right now. In a swift motion Max pulled his hoodie over his head, he gestured for me to do the same and walked into the front room. With my hoodie swathing me in baggy folds I joined him and hauled my pack over my shoulder. The straps were snuggly in place over my shoulder and the pack was clipped around my waist. Extra protection Max said, if we needed to run then we wouldn’t want to concentrate on keeping our bags on. 

His hand pulled open the door letting in the frigid cold outside. It was like a void, shouts filled the air and the smell of petrol reeked throughout the building. With light feet, we bounded down into the street. I gasped at the sight. Dark figures darted over my vision, the shouts ascended into a roar as throngs of people barged through each other with animal intensity. They were like rabid dogs hunting a darting rabbit. All racing after any source they could get their hands on. 

Max dragged me by the hand through throngs of people. His hand often strayed to his back pocket where a small flashlight was concealed. Though he never quite brought himself to actually fish it out. Darkness brought out the worst of people at times, we didn’t want to be the victims of their crazed actions. When we did finally manage to evade the crowds I pulled out my own flashlight and flicked it on. That was my first mistake. 

The tiny glow felt comforting and warm in my hand, it barely penetrated the night around us but it was enough for me. Max smiled down and slowed to a steady walking pace. We continued like this for the next few minutes. The chaos around us began to merge together, it seemed like nothing could harm us. Then came the stranger. 

We had noticed a few furtive looks before, people glared enviously at our light but never dared to move. Yet here we were walking along when a tall figure collided into my side. I was sprawled across the ground in agony. My flashlight lay discarded to the side where the stranger picked it up. 

“HEY,” Max shouted. Rage tore through him, he glazed backchecking I was okay then flew into battle. Fists swung wildly, connecting with bones with tremendous cracks. Max ducked and tackled the stranger around the middle. He stumbled back and slapped onto the floor next to me. I punched out and my fist slammed into his head. A small cry escaped his lips as he dropped the flashlight. Max began to pick it up when he spotted the familiar silver gleam of a knife in the stranger's hand. Waving at me to get away he rushed over to the nearest car. It was old and rusted with strips of metal curling away from the exterior. Max gripped at a chunk of the car and managed to snap it off just as the stranger ran towards him. Max ran forward and flung the strip. 

Blood flew as the stranger fell before us. His body lay unmoving on the street. The next few hours passed in a blur. Max and I were unmoving as the shock set in. We had killed someone. A kindly old lady had hurried out to us and let us into her house, where I asked to borrow her phone which still managed to retain some data and battery. I barely thought as I hacked back into the electricity company system. When the light flickered back on Max stood in the doorway looking at me pitifully. We embraced as tears flowed over our faces. 

The next day during the solar eclipse I lay in bed thinking. The people outside were laughing and smiling while watching the sun through pieces of tinted glass. They were completely ignorant of the events that had happened the night before. I, however, couldn’t shake the thoughts from my mind. I had always been comfortable with the dark, but now I knew why some weren’t. It wasn’t just the evil monsters lurking in the closet or the eyes searching them out they were scared of. It was the terror of what they would become when no one was watching.