Lonely Evil

And then she noticed, everything was quiet.

The crickets, frogs, and cicadas that had been playing a loud symphony only seconds earlier were silent. Mara looked around. She couldn't even hear the rushing water of the river that was just a few feet away. She stood up from the rock she had been sitting on. A feeling of uneasiness was creeping over her. Looking out over the water, she noticed that the moonlight she had been watching shimmer on the surface was no longer there. The water had taken on a darker hue and seemed almost like ink. It swallowed the moonlight instead of reflecting it.

Mara glanced back towards her cabin but it was out of sight. The town had built the cabin to entice a school teacher to leave the comforts of the more developed cities in the East. After her parents died, Mara had nothing keeping her in New York. She traveled for days by stage coach to this small Virginia town in the hopes of building a new life. But, the town was barely more than a few houses and a country store, and the lack of crowded streets and buildings was completely foreign to her. The summer heat was stifling, even at night, so Mara had went to walk by the river in hopes the air would offer some cool relief. But now, she was beginning to wish she had stayed in the cabin. Or better yet, had stayed in New York.

Mara took a few steps back from the river, forgetting her slippers still sitting on the bank. She turned to go back to the cabin, but she was quickly disoriented. A thick fog had rolled in and blanketed the ground. It rolled around her, covering her so she couldn't see her feet. At first it was only a couple of inches thick, but it quickly swelled to a foot thick, then two feet. It was up to her waist and tugging on her fingertips like an impatient child begging for her to follow.

Her uneasiness was turning into panic. She looked around desperately, trying to find the once clearly marked trail she had followed. Her midnight black hair blew behind her even though there was no wind. Not a leaf moved or a tree swayed. Goosebumps crept up her arms and down her legs and she shivered in the suddenly cold air. The familiar feeling of the hem of her gray night gown tickling the tops of her feet was her only comfort. It reminded her of the real world which seemed so close only moments before.

"What is this place?" she whispered.

As in response, the fog became more urgent. It latched onto her hands like a vice and pulled Mara away from the clearing she had been sitting in. It was taking her toward a dark area of the forest. It didn't look real; it looked like a painter had covered the trees, the ground, even the air in shades of gray and black. She tried to pull her hand from the fog's grasp but she couldn't get free. She dug her heels in and tried to go the other away until she fell to the hard ground and the fog enveloped her. Mara strained to get loose from the fog. She clawed at the ground until her fingers bled, but the fog blanketed her. It had grasp of her hair, her nightgown, her feet; she was slowly being dragged closer and closer to the darkness. She tried to scream but the fog caught hold of the sound and swept it away so quickly she wasn't even sure she had made any noise.

She could feel the darkness now. It felt alive somehow; it pulsed with energy. The trees that could be seen on the outer edges were so black they almost entirely blended into the unnatural darkness that surrounded them and no plants could be seen growing at their base. In these woods, there was only the darkness. It was thick and she could feel it covering every inch of her as the fog pulled her into it. It was a coolness on her skin. It was coating her the way dew coats the grass at dawn.

Her heart felt like it might explode from her chest it was beating so fast. Fear and terror like she had never known before were making it hard to think. Hard to breathe. "No, please," she cried but the fog swallowed her words. She tried to grab onto the roots of one of the black trees but the fog held fast to her hands; she couldn't pull free no matter how hard she tried. Inch by inch, her body was almost completely covered by the darkness. It was creeping up over her shoulders and crawling up her neck. The last part to get submerged was her head which she tried to stretch and hold out of the darkness for as long as she could, like a swimmer treading water, before it finally took her completely. She was gone.

Just as quickly as it came, the fog dissipated, the stars could be seen in the night sky, and the moonlight shown down illuminating the forest. The insects that thrived during the night could be heard chattering to each other and a barn owl was hooting in a tree nearby.

The darkness was gone.

###

Alone again, the darkness swept across the ground. The dense forest couldn't stop it. The brush caught in its path was wiped away like it never was and the darkness would cover the trees forcing them to be its subjects. Animals and insects instinctively knew to stay out of its way, but people had no such warnings. They were its favorite and only playmates. Sometimes the darkness would go years without finding the right person to claim, so it could ease the loneliness of an everlasting eternity of existence, even if only for a brief time. Once it did find that right person--young, innocent, and alone--the darkness would pull the person into it and its loneliness would ease. But, human life was not everlasting. The playmates inevitably died; thus, roughly once every century, the darkness would go on the hunt again, searching always, for a new playmate.

###

Emma found a nice clearing by the river where she could sit on a rock and listen to the water rush by on its journey to who knows where. Being a night owl, she didn't want to disturb her friends in the old tiny cabin they were sharing. The moon was full and shining bright so she decided to get out and enjoy nature. She sat down on the rock and pulled out her Kindle. Emma was known for getting lost in her books and tuning out the rest of the world. She didn't notice the moon wasn't illuminating the ground anymore. She didn't notice that the air was no longer cool; it was cold. She didn't notice that her hair was blowing but there was no wind. She finally noticed when she couldn't here the crickets, frogs, and cicadas that had been playing background music. And then, she noticed she couldn't hear the rushing water in the river.

And then she noticed, everything was quiet.