Poisoned Darkness

It happens every time and I always end up in hospital. I can hardly remember a time it didn’t happen, except of course before the accident. They told me it was a miracle I survived, but I felt cursed. I was only quite young at the time, barely a teenager, and with teenage hormones came teenage moodiness. Tragically, I had stormed out of the house after discourse with my mother. I took to the nearby forestland for an evening stroll to help relieve some of my pent-up anger. It was an evening stroll that would change my life forever. Though I had my phone with me, my parents were unable to make contact. After an hour they began searching. After two hours they returned home and discussed calling the police. After two hours and fifteen minutes they did.

In the midst of night, the police, my parents and a bunch of concerned neighbours conducted a search party. They found my body tattered and torn at the bottom of a steep hill. I was unresponsive with a pulse so weak the medical team almost declared the worst. They flew me to the hospital where I remained in comatose for three days. My mother was guilt-ridden the entire time, praying and wishing that I would wake up just so she could tell me she was sorry and that she loved me. Luckily for her, I did wake up.

It was late in the evening on the third day when I finally began to stir. My mother, who had barely slept at all since that fateful night, was the first to notice my groggy awakening. Her cold, clammy hands clasped onto mine with all the hope in the world. I remember hearing her sweet, soothing voice telling me how much she loved me and that she was there for me. It was her comforting welcome back to life that reawakened me. My father had tears running down his face. He hadn’t shaved for a few days and presumably hadn’t slept any better than my mother.

No one could say for sure what had happened, but it was assumed that I had a misstep on my walk and slipped down the side of the rocky hill. They told me I hit my head during the fall which resulted in memory loss surrounding the incident. I asked my parents to bring me to the place they found me only to be met with heartache and resistance. Not wanting to return to the place where you found your almost-dead child was understandable, but the frustration of memory loss was difficult to combat. After spending a week indoors recovering, I asked again. This time they agreed.

Leaving the house was my first mistake. Stepping out into the light brought on a horrific headache and dizziness. I persisted, finding comfort in the shadiness of the forest. As we walked, my parents led me a different way, far from the trail I usually followed. They brought me to the exact place my body was found and immediately clung onto me as though we were visiting my own grave. Dried blood stained the rocks on the ground. To my dismay, no memories were sparked. I remained confused and unable to recall the moment I slipped and fell, but something deep down was telling me that I didn’t fall at all. A gross concept crossed my mind; had I been attacked?

Recovery took longer than expected. Every time I felt ready to go outside and enjoy the day the light would hit my skin and I would become unstable and disorientated, leading to trips to the hospital. Covering up with a sun and long-sleeved shirt seemed to help, but even then, my body could only stand so much. I would angrily persist and remain outside as punishment for my body not recovering fast enough, but that usually ended with my parents finding me passed out in the garden, and more hospital trips.

If I came outside in the late afternoon my symptoms were nowhere near as bad. At night, I was asymptomatic. Mother took me to a doctor who simply explained it away as a confused traumatic symptom. He said the trauma was being incorrectly triggered by the safety of well-lit surroundings in the outdoors. The argument was that because the traumatic experience happened outside, I would suffer a trigger from that. When I pointed out that the symptoms were non-existent at night, his response was the lack of lighting could make it hard for my mind to determine whether I was inside or outside.

After another month of being unable to face the day, my parents organised a visit to a psychologist. She was a nice enough woman but the information about trauma and the way my brain was supposedly working didn’t seem to match what was really going on inside my head. I told the psychologist, without filters, what I thought of the doctor’s opinion. To my surprise, she nodded calmly and validated my concerns. She told me that I didn’t actually display the typical signs and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and advised recording the activity, place, time and feelings I was having when the symptoms were triggered. After experimenting with candlelight, electrical light and moonlight, I quickly learned that sunlight was the culprit.

I could have just accepted that sunlight was to blame, but it wasn’t. There was more to it than that. Months had passed since the injury and I had avoided sunlight for practically the entire time. Walking past the mirror in the hall, I could see my skin had become rather pale. The kid that once enjoyed the outdoors more than anything was now forced to remain inside, but even that was not enough. Despite my best efforts to remain out of the sun, my energy levels stooped lower with each passing day. My mother bought multivitamins and my father suggested doing indoor exercise to keep my strength up. Neither helped. The psychologist’s suggestion to record everything came into play yet again.

I soon discovered that eating red meat was most effective, which was rather disturbing. A blood test revealed normal levels in everything despite my declining energy. My sleep-ins lengthened until I was waking up in the mid-afternoon. During the night, I felt most rested. It was hopeless. I couldn’t attend school; I couldn’t see my friends and I couldn’t even go outside. A swirling feeling in my stomach warned me against my disturbing idea to return to the scene of my trauma, but I couldn’t ignore the urge to go. In the middle of the night, I snuck out of the house. No one could go on living like I was and expect to have a fulfilling life, and so, returning to the beginning was my last resort.

A snap, crunch and whisper of a stranger followed me into the dark. Never in my life had I felt so fervently stalked. I felt my heart stop altogether when I saw it. At the bottom of the cliffside where my body had once laid there was a creature unlike any other I had seen before. It knew I was watching and turned slowly to face me. Cloaked in black garbs and harnessing claw-like fingernails as long as small daggers, its humanoid figure awaited my move. I couldn’t tell who or what was facing, but every part of my body became numb.

“Who are you?” I asked with a shaky voice. The figure nodded and turned its palms outwards as if to display surrender.

“Unlucky. Just like you…” it whispered with a distorted voice. I swallowed as its words haunted my mind.

“What do you mean?”

It began circling me at a comfortable pace, dancing around like our conversation was a game.

“You will be like me soon. Can you feel it? You are weak, you cannot last much longer.”

A terrible, high-pitched cry echoed through the forest. I couldn’t make out a face or eyes or anything from beneath its hooded garb.

“Did you hurt me? Was it you?”

“Yes... I should have killed you. I was conflicted.”

I stepped backwards.

“Don’t leave yet. You haven’t got your answers…”

“Tell me what’s happening to me,” I demanded with heightening anxiety.

“We can only live in shadow, we can only survive by blood. You must drink it or it will drink it for you.”

The warning appeared almost friendly.

“What will drink it for me?”

“I infected you, I should have killed you. I am sorry. Darkness sits in waiting in your heart, if you do not feed it, it will take you over.”

Its hooded cloak snapped to the right eagerly as we both heard another person approaching. It made a harrowing groan as if it was anticipating a kill. A voice called out into the darkness, beckoning my name. It was father. I tried to call out to him but a malevolent shift in my body had already subdued me.