In The Dark

When Kayla Nicole Morris was 10 years old, the electrical power of her whole city suddenly went out one overcast, dismal, happiness-dampening day, plunging the area into darkness so black, the darkest squid's darkest ink couldn't have been blacker. No one could explain it, and no one could prove that anything had happened, except for the obvious fact that there was no light, or that anyone had done anything to cause this major issue. That was a dreadful, scary, disturbing time, even for Kayla, a mature ten-year-old, 'going on 21', as her dad, Ian Morris, joked. However, Kayla's mother, Jessica Kinmount Morris had often told people at parties that Kayla could write a whole book on the subjects of 'young' and 'innocent', and she certainly showed that side in the duration of the ongoing power outage crisis.

It was hard to manage without power, in the dark, with only flashlights, but Kayla's family made it through, with only minor lasting and immediate impacts.

Others weren't so lucky. Some went insane, others just passed away from the depressing state of the city in which they lived in. Everyone was ordered to stay in their houses and not go anywhere, and some people just cracked under the pressure of the power outage and the severe lack of light, which many had taken for granted previously. Little did they know before, but sunlight was a very large part of their lives, and it brought happiness to many. Without it, there was simply no happiness, no joy in the citizens' lives.

Kayla's morning felt wrong, alien even, without light. It was just so weird, so unusual. She did all of her usual things, but in the darkness, which she hated. She was a creature of the sun, her dad said. She basked in the sunlight like a lizard on a rock.

She ate a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausages with her family. She got dressed in functional jeans and a white tee with a picture of a colourful butterfly on it, applied some light makeup, and combed and double-Dutch-braided her glossy chocolate hair. Finally, she brushed her pearly white teeth in the bathroom mirror. Kayla's routine was natural, but in these circumstances nothing was natural. She felt like a mole rat from one of her animal books, blind and helpless. She wondered if that's what mole rats felt like all the time. Or maybe they just didn't have anything else to compare it to.

Kayla walked to her bus stop in the dark, holding the hand of her little brother, Liam, one week after the power went out. They looked super cute with their matching dark-blue backpacks.

Kayla pulled her black raincoat tighter around her and sank deeper into her shiny purple rain boots. It was a chilly morning, and the darkness didn't help any.

"Why is it dark out? It isn't nighttime," Liam observed, skipping around in the puddles in the gutters, mucking up his bright-red rain boots. He was too young to understand the true danger of this blackout and what it might entail, and was acting refreshingly normal about it all.

"Don't worry," Kayla said, hopefully sounding reassuring. "It's just a little power outage. Everything will be fine."

But even as she said this, she couldn't convince herself. She had been spying on her parents when they watched the news late at night, and the things she heard were terrifying.

There were people dying, going insane, and getting robbed. It had seemed that all of the criminals had taken advantage of the darkness and had become bolder than usual, stealing more items and more often. Their neighbours had been robbed just two days ago, and Kayla was getting nervous.

The criminals had the element of surprise on their side, so none of the citizens would know when and where they would strike next.

On the bus, Kayla played Among Us and Roblox on her purple iPhone while Liam looked out the window at the dark city outside, probably thinking about random boy stuff. After an eternity, Kayla opened the Notes app on her phone and began to write down some ideas for a new Minecraft house build that she was hoping to create.

Time seemed to pass very slowly, and the two were quite bored and were running out of things to do. In the end, they ended up playing a round of a card game called Uno on Liam's backpack.

The two siblings arrived at school on their bus fifteen minutes later, and noticed something off about the building. It looked abandoned. Kayla froze and held out an arm across her brother's chest to stop him from going anywhere. Come to think of it, Kayla realised, there weren't any other people on the bus either. Just us and the driver. Weird.

Something was off and she knew it. "Liam," she said warningly. "Start running home. Now!"

Her brother mimicked her, "Now!" in a taunting voice. Kayla said it again, more urgently, and Liam finally obeyed her and got ready to sprint as if his life depended on it. He thought this was all a very fun game, and hadn't put two-and-two together yet. He was about 6 at the time, so he wasn't exactly a master additioner, if that was even a word.

But it was too late. A dark shape burst through one of the school's brick walls and advanced on Kayla and Liam. They both started shaking with fear, and Kayla moved to protect Liam from the silhouette.

The dark shape laughed at her attempt. "Did you really think you could save him? No, actually, I think I'll get rid of you both."

The shape slashed at Kayla's face with a sharp, skinny object. Liam screamed, but Kayla couldn't reassure him this time. She was writhing on the ground in a way that looked extremely painful, then suddenly went limp as a noodle. And everything faded out, into an endless expanse of black, darker than even their city with no lights.