What Happens in the Dark

Darkness. It's all that surrounds us. The only light coming in is the moonlight from the open window. It's not enough, though. I can see the silhouettes of the furniture in our living room. I can see my hands, barely. I can see the shadow of the curtain swaying in the breeze coming through the window. And I can feel the cool air hitting my face and ruffling through my hair.

My sister sits down next to me, but I can't see her face. When the power went out, she ran into my chest and refused to let go. I won't let go of that fragile, innocent little girl that has nothing in this world but her big sister. I know how scared she gets from the smallest of things. So when the power goes out from the entire city at once and without any warning, the only thing I would care about would be to protect her from all the monsters she believes lurk in the dark.

Neither of us has said a word since the world went dark. And looking out the window at the dim, empty streets, I begin to feel al little eerie. Some windows in the apartment buildings on the other side of the street are lit by a fading orange color, candlelight, I assume. I watch the curtain dance because it's the only thing that moves. The air feels tight. And the world is so quiet. Like every single person on earth stopped breathing. If I were a little kid, I'd think the monsters are waking up and it wouldn’t be long for them to find me. If I were a little kid.

But as an adult, I'm supposed to be brave. To bury that fear and never let it out. I'm supposed to control my breathing. In, and out. In, and out. Slowly, feeling my lungs fill with oxygen. As an adult, I'm supposed to ignore the strange feeling that’s creeping up my chest. The power is out and they're probably fixing whatever went wrong right now. Everything will get back to normal in no time.

I pull my sister into me tighter, I need to feel her warmth beside me just as much as she needs to feel mine. Her hands clutch my shirt in tight fists. My eyes never move away from the window, the only source of light. And I suppose hers don’t as well. The stillness goes on. And on. The strange feeling intensifies. My mind goes crazy with thoughts and images. I can't move. I can't bring my eyes to look away from the window. The candlelight coming from the windows across from us burn out all at once. Every window. Every orange light. All dark now. In, and out. It's not that hard. No light but the moonlight. And no sound.

Until the silence breaks. A loud scream. Piercing the air. High-pitched, and filled with terror. I break my eyes away from the window. I turn to the sound. I turn to the door to our apartment. But I can't move. My limbs feel paralyzed. Dread. And panic. They sneak up my skin. Another scream. But the sound is different. A different person. From inside our building. I conjure up the courage to stand off the couch. But a small hand pulls me back.

"Don’t leave me alone." She says. Her voice is small and scared. I lean down and try to make out her face in the dim light coming from the moon.

"I won't. I'm just going to walk to the door, see what's going on, and come back in a second." I tell her. She doesn’t let go. "It's probably nothing."

I'm not sure I'm saying the truth. But she lets go of my shirt. And I walk to the door, slowly, and cautiously. I stop behind the door. And I carefully lift my feet up to look through the peephole. Nothing. For a long moment there's nothing. Only the dark hallway that can't be reached by even the moonlight. There's nothing. Until there's a flashlight at the end of the hallway. It's weak. Barely illuminating anything. It gets a little stronger. My heart starts to beat faster. I try to listen for anything. But it's dead silence again. The flashlight disappears. Just like the candle light from the windows. Two seconds. It comes back, with another scream. And a body thrown from behind the corner at the end of the hallway. It hits the wall with a loud thud and slides down. Unconscious. Or dead.

I move away to the side. My hands covering my mouth and my eyes burn. I can't let any sound escape me. I can't risk standing behind the door again. What just happened? Is that man on the ground dead?

My sister. I shouldn’t have made her let go of me. I wouldn’t have had to see that. I push my hands hard against my mouth, pushing back every sound that’s trying to get out. I breathe. In, and out. In, and out. I remove my hands, wipe them over my face then feel them trembling. I recover from the shock. And tiptoe back to the couch.

I pull my sister into my chest and push her head down so it wouldn’t be visible from the back of the couch. It's dark anyway. And our door is locked. No one can come in. I repeat it in my mind over and over. With my sister's face pressed against my chest and my eyes fixed on the door. I wait. I don’t know for how long. Time seems to have frozen since the man was thrown across the hall. And I am just sitting on the couch with my sister in my arms, so still, so scared to even blink.

Footsteps. They're loud. Confident. And they move agonizingly slow. I doubt I'd hear them on a normal day, when there's light and there's noise and there's movement all around the place. But now there's nothing. Nothing but footsteps strolling down a hallway after having possibly killed somebody.

The shadow appears from under the door. Two small shadows a couple inches away from each other. Two feet standing right outside our door. They linger. I bring one hand to cover my sister's mouth and cover mine with the other. I hold my breath until the shadow moves along. But what if whoever's out there comes back?

I lean down and place both my hands on my sister's face. "Baby, we're going to wait in the bedroom for the power to come back, okay?"

"Why? What's happening outside?"

I sigh and look away for a second. How can I tell a seven-year-old that there's a killer outside. "Nothing, baby, nothing is happening."

She nods and I guide her arms around my neck and lift her up. I use the soft moonlight to guide me to the hallway but after that, it's complete darkness. I use one hand and slide it across the wall to my left and slowly step forward. I take small steps until my hand touches air. The edge of a door. I know the room on the left is my sister's, I walk us in. Still using my hand as a guide, I open the window, letting the dim light fill the room. I sit on the bed with my back against the wall and pull my sister onto my lap.

We stay there, curled up into each other on the bed, for ten minutes. I can tell the time now, the clock on the wall is barely visible. But still visible. "Sam," my sister speaks up.

"Yes, baby?"

"I'm scared."

I'm scared, too. "I'm here, I'm with you. I'll never let anything hurt you, Lilly."

Another scream. Closer this time. Different screams every time. I pull Lilly closer. I won't let anyone hurt her. I'd die for her. But if I do, she'll have no one left to protect her. She's so innocent, and kind, and selfless. Our little angel, mom used to say. Too bad she didn’t spend enough time with her little angel. She left too soon. Just like dad. What would they do in this situation? I'm sure dad would do anything to protect us. I wouldn’t have to be strong, he'd be strong for all of us.

I wipe away tears that fell silently down my cheeks. They're not here anymore. So I have to be strong for my sister. For little angelic Lilly. I push back the tears and the fear. I hear a sound from outside. A loud thud like the one I heard when the man hit the wall. It sounds close to our apartment. So close. How come we don’t have a flashlight. It never occurred to me that I'll ever need one. I need one right now. I need to know what's going on. I hear another body hitting the wall. Another scream. And then my heart nearly stops. The sound is at our door. Knocking. And then something hits the door. So he knocks before he bashes in. The steady and confident footsteps sound in our living room. I pull Lilly to my face and bring my index finger to my lips. She nods. I make sure I make no sound when I slip off the bed and bring her down with me. I motion for her to scroll under the bed then scroll in next to her. I push her against the wall and push myself against her.

I hold my breath when the footsteps get closer. And then I see him. A tall, muscular man, dressed in all black and holding a flashlight. I can't see his face from the light. But I can see the weapon in his hand. A machete of some kind. And what terrifies me is the red color that’s covering the blade. Drops of fresh blood trickles down the floor in his path. He passes our room, disappears from my sight. He won't find anything at the end of the hallway, just an empty bathroom. And then he will come back to the only room with an open window.

The footsteps return. Fading light appears at the doorway. It gets stronger. He's getting closer. He stops. I cover my mouth to stop my loud breathing. He enters my room. It won't take long before he comes in here. I turn to Lilly.

"Lilly, we have to get out of here."

She pulls on my hand. "No, I'm scared, Sam, I'm scared."

I glance at the door, worried he might have heard her. He's still in my room. I look at my sister again. "I know. I know you're scared, but this man will come in here next and he will find us. I'll keep you safe, okay?"

"Okay." She says through her tears.

Okay. This might be stupid and it might save our lives. I slide out first. Then Lilly. I carry her and slip outside. The wall guides me to the living room and the light from the window shows the crashed front door that’s lying on the ground. I walk us to the kitchen where the light is weaker but I can make out the stand that holds the knives. I tell Lilly to hold on tight to my neck so I can remove one hand from around her. I pull out one of the bigger knives then turn around. My arm hits something. A glass cup. It shatters. I panic.

This can't be it. Hurried footsteps come from the direction of Lilly's room. I rush outside the kitchen and into the hallway outside our apartment. Darkness engulfs us and I stick to the wall. I walk. Slowly. To the side where I know the stairs are. My hand touches a doorframe. Another broken door. Another apartment invaded. Maybe one of the screams came from here. I think of Mary, our pregnant neighbor, living with her mother. I liked Mary.

I pass her door and touch the wall again. My foot steps over something soft. Without seeing, I have an idea what I stepped on. I feel bile rise in my throat and more tears burns at my eyes. The hallway lights up. I scream. Then clamp my hand over my mouth at once. But he's out in the hallway and he has light, he would have found us anyway. I have to run. But I can't move. I can't tear my eyes away from Mary. Bloodied on the floor with my foot an inch away from her hand. Her empty eyes are open and they're just dead. A few feet away from Mary, lies another neighbor. Bloodied and dead. Across the hall. By the stairs.

Behind me, the man is moving towards us. His machete lifted up in the air. I push Lilly's face into my neck so she wouldn’t have to look at the sight of the dead bodies. I can see the stairs in the flashlight, I run towards it. With my knife in my hand and the light following me, I keep going. Sparing a glance into hallways as I go. They all look the same as ours. There are bodies on the stairs. People I know. People I've only had a couple conversations with. And people I've never even seen. He's still behind us. My sister is crying. I slip at the bottom of the stairs at the next floor.

Lilly falls onto me. My heart is beating so fast that it hurts. I am going to die. My sister is going to die. I failed. I can't protect her. The man descends the last steps. One step after the other, so slow, taunting us. I can see his face, the shadow of a smile on his lips. His dark eyes filled with pleasure. Pleasure at cornering us, knowing he's about to kill us.

"Lilly, don’t look." I run a hand over her hair.

I search for the knife in a last attempt to escape. It's too far away. I crawl back, away from him. But he keeps taking the small steps towards us. He wipes his machete across his pants, a smile still on his face. I close my eyes.

I hear the sound of a second set of footsteps, quick ones. And the sound of metal hitting the floor. I open my eyes. A young man is backing away from the killer. My knife on the floor next to him. Lilly pulls her face away from my neck. The killer drives the machete across the man's stomach.

"Don’t look, Lilly. I said don’t look."

I pull myself up. There's no time to get the knife. But I run. I reach the stairs. Only a few floors left. I'm back into darkness, it fills me with hope and makes me feel safe. Darkness means the man isn’t behind us. I reach the ground floor, follow the light to the glass doors at the front of our building. They're locked. No. This can't be it. I put Lilly down, bang my fists against the door, knowing I won't break it. But desperation takes over me.

The light is back. My arms fall limp at my side. My forehead drops to the door. I feel Lilly's hand on mine. I turn around. He's facing us. Monsters are real. They lurk around, waiting for the darkness to rise. And now he's here to end us, the monster of the dark.

I close my eyes, feel the tears trickling down my face. My mind goes back to a happy memory. Mom and dad. They're laughing. They're happy. And I whisper, "I love you, Lilly. I'm sorry."

Her arms wrap around my waist. I've failed.

I sink down to my knees, hug my sister and cry. This is the end. This is our end. Why would we make it when everyone else died? I wait for the man to move. But something happens. The light fills the place. I can hear the buzzing of the elevator. The power is back.

The door behind me buzzes open. I turn around. A woman walks in. She looks at me. Her eyebrows are furrowed and she steps away. Like I am the monster. I follow her with my eyes to the elevator, expecting a machete to cut open her stomach. But no one is there. The elevator door slides closed behind her. No one is there. I get off the floor, with Lilly's hand in mine. I walk outside the building, my bare feet step on the concrete. The streets are shining with light. People are quickly filling the street. Cars begin to drive. Everything looks normal. Like the last hour never occurred. Did it occur?

I sit down on the curb, Lilly sits beside me. We nearly died tonight. But we survived. We went through our fears and we survived. We met the made up monster kids get afraid of in the dark. And we survived.