The Candle

The Candle

           “Why are you here?”

           A lone light flickered before me, the flame atop the candle that continued to burn in the darkness of the world. I was alone, except for it, whatever it was. Its voice slithered and hovered around me, coming and going as it pleased, feasting on my doubts, on my longing, on my despair I tried desperately not to listen to. I huddled around the small flame, protecting it from the voice on the off chance it did have a body, a mouth to put out the spark of vision that remained, the light to guide her back.

           “How long do you think it’s been now, child?” I was no child, but perhaps I was to whatever this terror was. It was hard to tell how long it had been though. Hours, days…longer? With no other life, no light, the only thing I had to go by was the ever melting wax. The candle was enchanted though, she had said before leaving, before the darkness had engulfed the world. It happened faster than we had expected. It started slow, from the center of the continents, the heart of the oceans they suspected. Something old, dark, and hungry made its way to civilization, and once there it devoured everything. Everything but the fire. The people put out the fire, falsely believing that it, too, was their enemy, when it could have been their savior.

           The flame quivered, a breath blowing on it perhaps. If it was a breath, it wasn’t mine. The voice rumbled lowly around me, but I refused to give in and respond. “Do you truly think she’s returning for you? That witch that abandoned you?” Responding would mean acknowledgement, acknowledgement of both it and my predicament. Responding would mean accepting that this was my life, that perhaps it had a point. Responding would mean communicating with the thing that took our world away from us, and I could not grant it that pleasure.

           Elysia would return. Whatever magics she had learned before this thing came into our world—or reentered our world, as she said—would save us. At least us. The rest could be figured out later. As I looked at the ever-dwindling wick and wax of the candle though, I couldn’t help but think even an enchantment couldn’t last forever. This void that consumed us was likely proof of that as well. Something had held it back, held it back for so long that once it broke free, its appetite was insatiable. But Elysia would stop it. She would find her way back to the flame, back to the beacon I watched over, and she would put a stop to it.

           As soon as thoughts of her entered my imagination, a stroke of what felt like a finger caressed my hair and I jerked away looking around. Nothing. When I looked back to the flame, she was across from me. Her pale skin lit up with an amber hue brought about by the flickering candle. Her platinum blonde hair shone like a dying moon against the dark.

           “Elysia,” I said, and she smiled.

           “I’m back,” she said. Her eyes narrowed as if to say they had a secret, and her smile grew to agree. “That’s what you want to hear, right?”

           “You’re not…”

           She disappeared away into the nothingness, her image like a remnant of what once was. And then she was behind me, her fingers sliding down my neck, delicately tracing up and down my skin. “I can be her,” it said, the whispered words warm and seductive against my ear. “All you have to do is let it die.” It blew lightly on my skin, and I swatted away at it, but nothing was there. “Elysia,” it said. It repeated her name again and again, a slight difference to the cadence each time. “It’s a pretty name.” It wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t going to agree with it. “Do you have a name?”

           My mouth opened almost instinctively, trained since grade school to respond when asked for your name, and I caught myself. I would not give in. However long I had been here guarding the flame, this had been the first time it revealed that it could take form. That it could wear another’s face. And it could see the rise it had gotten out of me, my hope when I believed it to be her, the despair I tried to hide when I realized it wasn’t, and the fear that filled me when it touched me with hands that didn’t belong to it.

           A sinister whisper, unintelligible, a mix of an unknown language and hissing filled the air. Then Elysia came out of the shadows again, and my heart jumped, but I quickly knew this time that it was not her. “Elysia is prettier,” it said. It took a second to process the meaning, but it dawned on me soon enough. The noises I had heard weren’t it trying to scare me or deceive me this time. It was communicating with me intentionally in its own ancient tongue. It was giving me the courtesy of knowing its name, even if it knew I wouldn’t understand it. My continued silence seemed to displease it though, an uncharacteristic frown appearing on the familiar face. “Have it your way,” it said, and reached down with Elysia’s hand, down to the lone flickering light that remained in the world.

           I panicked. My body jumped forward, and I attempted to slap the hand out of the way, momentarily forgetting what happened the last time. A grin spread on her face, and she faded at the touch of my hand. The force from my strike sent a stream of air near the candle, and the light wavered, threatening to go out, leaving me for the darkness to finish. Before it could die, I quickly retrieved a small paper from my pocket, the final thing Elysia gave me before she left in case a situation like this occurred, and I fed it to the fire. It ate its fill and lived on.

           I understood now. If it wanted the flame to go out, and it could take form, it would have done it already. Here it was though, still burning, and there it was, dressing up to lure me in. But that’s all it was—a dress up. The only one that could put the flame out was me, or the end of the candle’s natural life. I breathed a sigh of relief, and the hint of a smile crossed my face. The darkness growled a low hum. But then, out of the darkness, I heard footsteps. That was different. Out walked Elysia.  My eyes lit up, certain this time that it was here. I stayed seated, continuing to guard the flame as she joined me, kneeling down. She looked exhausted. Wards covered her arms, and she put her fingers near the candlelight, hovering over its warmth.

           “It’s so cold out there,” she said. “I’m sorry I took so long.”

           “It’s—” I swallowed the words. Was this her? Or was I just hoping it was still?

           “You’re not sure, are you?” the voice whispered around me, but Elysia didn’t seem to notice it. Could only I hear it? “Sweet Elysia,” it said. “How hurt she must feel that you don’t even recognize her.” It was at my ear again with her lips touching my skin. “Push her hand into the fire,” it whispered. “See if she burns like the witch she is.”

           Elysia peered into my fearful eyes. She looked confused, hurt, scared as I had been. “I found a way out,” she said. “I’m sorry I took so long, but we’re going to be okay now.” The words I had hoped to hear for so long, but were they real? I wanted to believe they were real.

           I took a breath before asking her what she should be able to tell me. “What’s my name?”

           She squinted at me. “What?” She seemed genuinely confused. She reached out, her hand just out of reach as if waiting for me to take it, waiting for me to put the candle out all the way this time when she left me again. “Are you okay?”

           “How do I know you’re Elysia?”

           “Come with me,” she said, her eyes pleading with almost tears at the question. “We can leave now,” she said. “Trust me, please.”

           I reached out for her hand, grasped it, locked my fingers around hers. Behind me, the other her’s hands rested on my shoulders, equally firm, almost comforting had I not known beyond any doubt that that one wasn’t her. I stared into her eyes, as real as the ones I had seen before me only moments before. I eyed the flickering flame intently.

           “I want to,” I said. And I did. Oh, how I wanted more than anything to trust her…