Elian in the Dark Part 2.

The conclusion to a young monster hunter’s story…

Photo by Kat J on Unsplash

“Yeah, I get it, sounds like an I.”

The messy-haired hallway man interrupted Elian’s dazed re-introduction as Bügmen shuffled him toward the exit. “What’s all the noise about?” When there was no reply, he continued. “Hey, I was thinking,” he said to their backs, “ do you go by the specter inspector? That’s cute!”

Elian couldn’t find the words to answer the man. In his two years of Chief Inspector, he’d seen children horrified, vomiting, and sometimes even losing consciousness to fear, but this fowl…heinous…violence was unfathomable.

“Be silent man! Can’t you see the boy is catatonic?” Bügmen placed a hand on the child’s shoulder, whisking him away from the newly made crime scene.

As they emerged from the building, Elian ran. He ran with no destination, only to place space between him and the growing sound of people discovering the atrocities that had just occurred.

When he finally stopped, he found himself under an immensely shady tree, panting, then he doubled over in a wheezing sob. When he felt Arthur appear next to him the specter stood there, unmoving and silent. When he finally reached down to place a hand on Elian’s shoulder, he spoke his calculated words.

“I will find who did this and personally hold them accountable.” the specter said.

Elian yanked away his shoulder from the monster’s touch. His eyes darted wildly, searching for the words to direct his rage.

“Don’t you touch me!” he said.

Bügmen, wise in his age, did not speak.

“You said your kind scare but never hurt! Never hurt!” he screamed. “You lied!”

Before the specter could respond, the boy gathered himself and pumped his legs again. This time, he knew where they would take him, a place where Arthur would not follow.

Here in the graveyard, Elian sat facing the tombstones of his long-departed parents. Despite Arthur’s intrusive nature, the specter knew not to follow him here. When the incident happened, the sadness that Elian felt in the long months afterward was unbearable. It turned everything into a twisted half-version of itself. He couldn’t eat without picturing the breakfast his mother would make. He couldn’t play without feeling the dread that permeated every moment in between the joy.

More than the sadness, it was that emptiness that nearly drove him insane. Most versions of pain will go away with time, but emptiness can do nothing but drain everything good into its depths. It sits, waiting for feelings of joy, creativity, or happiness, snaring it and greedily claiming it when you need it most. The months passed and all he could feel was the void. It would be many more months before he found a way to finally fill it. That’s why the specter knew not to come to this place. So when Elian heard a familiar rustling in the bushes he nearly blacked out from the sudden swell of disgust.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Elian

protested.

Arthur uncharacteristically skipped reprimanding him for bad language and abruptly stood up, towering over the bushes he must have been painfully crouched down into. A sudden crack sounded from above. The flash of lightning that preceded a horrendous downpour of rain nearly blinded Elian. The water quickly pooled around the boy’s ankles in moments. It washed out the tears crusted on his face. The rain persisted. It filed his shoes to the brim. Harder it rained still. It wasn’t until Elian began to believe it would rain so hard that it would kill him that he ran, leaving Bügmen behind, standing in a bush.

Elian soon found himself at the entrance to the nearest building. He did not know if the door would open when he wrapped his fist around the handle and pulled, but it gave. He did not know if it were residence or business, but he entered trailing in an unfathomable amount of water.

Darkness.

It reached into the room like greedy fingers, searching for any sign of glee to drag out into the cold and wet dirt. That’s when he knew this was not his usual darkness. Not the one that now held him safely. Yet somehow it was just as familiar. As he traversed through the room, lamps, rugs, and couches formed patterns that currently existed in his memory. He passed a potted plant, always perfectly firm even in the harshest months. He walked past an absurd painting of a tree. One that his mother hated but his dad cherished.

He knew this place. It was his old home. Yet he knew it could not be. So when he walked up the stairs to his room, opened the door, and stepped in, it was almost a surprise that he pulled back his sheets and slid into his bed. Soggy clothes and all. It felt good to be home again. He almost allowed himself to ignore the impossibility and drift off to sleep when two figures crested the doorway. Although Elian knew it could not be, his parents remained visible, obstructing the light as familiar figures and walking toward him.

“Is he sleeping?” his mother said.

“I’m not sure,” said his father, “I’m glad he can finally sleep in the dark. I was going to have to take on a second job to keep the lights on for this boy. My frugal genes must have finally made him aware of how much energy costs.”

His mother let out a quiet giggle before leaning down and kissing Elian on the cheek. The warm and long overdue sensation sent tears streaming down his face. He remembered this conversation. They were so proud to finally have convinced him that the cloaked figure coming to scare him in the night was just a figment of his imagination.

As his parents walked away Elian begged himself to speak. He tried to tell them to stay but he no longer had control over his body. His mouth trembled but would not speak. His limbs gave the slightest twitches but he could not make them move. He wanted to shout and tell them that something was wrong. This night was wrong. Yet his body would not obey. So when he heard the sound of the bedroom door closing, he waited. He waited for the moment he knew would come. The sound of their front door being kicked in.

Yelling. Yelling and fighting. Two precursors to the violence that was to come.

Gunshots sounded.

One.

Two.

Then silence…

Fear tore through Elian, hot and prickly. Despite his command to stay hidden, the sickening energy empowered his body to run. Elian’s frame jolted on its own, darting immediately out the door and coming face to face with a home invader who promptly put a bullet in his chest.

A shrill scream came out from several yards away. In his daze, Elian just managed to see a blood-soaked mother flailing at the attacker, shouting. “Hide Elian!”

He then felt his weak and pain-filled body pull itself along the floor. He traveled passed the toys he promised he’d pick up, through the field of shag carpet that now seemed miles long, into his room and to the bed.

Elian lay in the dark, wading in a pool of his own blood. The bed he lay under acted as a weak shield he could only half expect to cover him from the intruder now stomping through the house. When the footsteps turned toward his room it was the darkness Elian chose to put his faith in. On this night several years ago, he reached for it, and made a deal with it, to be its friend, its ally, if only it would keep him safe in this moment. If only it would shield him from the intruder who would soon see Elians blood flowing from under the bed.

Elian held in a scream so long that he thought it would kill him. It begged to be set free. To echo through the house and let everyone for miles know ‘I am here and I hurt’. However, he knew that the feet clunking through the house deterred whatever force was controlling his body. It was the third presence he felt in the room that would almost make this past Elian break that silence. Turning his head the opposite way Elian came face to face with the monster that had haunted him for weeks.

After the initial startle, the two stared at each other. It would not be the first time, but it would be a different time. The look on the specter’s face, usually a mockingly confident smirk, was now a grimace. Somehow, across widely different cultures, they silently came to an understanding, that this situation was horrid. Here surrounded by his enemies, one of light, one of shadow, and the dark of the under bed, he found his ally and his friend twice over.

Just as he knew he would, the creature he would come to call Arthur slid from under the bed. Elian turned back toward the murderous intruder that came into his home. His feet thudded almost excitedly closer, no doubt noticing the gathering pool of blood spreading across the floor. When he knelt down to peer Elian in the eye, the man probably expected to see a cowering child clinging to a bedpost. Instead, he came face to face with a wide-eyed grin that remained on Elians face even after the assailant reached down and grabbed the boy by the shirt. Then, as soon as he began to drag Elian from under the bed, the Boogey Man got him first.

Hours after, Elian lay there shocked. As many times as he played these memories; the break-in, his parent’s murder, and his rescue, this last part was strange. Arthur did not come back this time. Doubts began to swim through his head. Are these really memories? Is this all a part of some kind of Deja Vu? Was his life as a monster hunter all a dream? All of these thoughts happened as he lay effectively paralyzed and bleeding out on the floor as the sun rose.

As the light slid across his face, Elian’s vision began to blur. Lightning continued to thunder outside, growing louder and more frequently with every passing moment. Fear began to creep back into the boy’s heart, terror even. He is dying, his parents are dead, and now he is confused, abandoned, and afraid.

There he lay, exposed. Not just to the light, but for the scared little boy that he’d always been. So afraid and so tired and so alone. He had no allies now. Arthur abandoned him, his body denied him, and the darkness had fled.

When his parents died, at least in his mind’s eye, his therapist told him that it was okay to be sad and he believed it. He thought that he could feel the sadness and be fine. That he could process the emotion and it would eventually end. He felt it for months and months and still, it didn’t cease. Then, at his lowest moment, he found a way.

He turned to anger and found solace. He embraced the rage, the pure unmitigated audacity of everything in life to do this to a child. It kept the emptiness at bay by becoming its own void. It was that darkness inside that served as a gateway to the eternal force that shielded him from fear. In time he learned to be happy again but the darkness never left. It sat waiting to rise again. At this moment it did just that.

Elian let his malice flow. All the pain and hurt, the anger and disgust, murderous rage and toxicity. He let it consume him. Then, in a final show of defiance, Elian painfully forced his body to obey him and screamed. It wasn’t the screech of fear but the guttural howl of a wounded beast, raging against all who may hear and dare to meet his wrath. The long yell washed away his fear and sorrow, leaving nothing but pure anger. and triumph.

Thunder and lightning raged all around him, closer now, blinding him. The two sources of the lightning stopped to stare at the child on the bedroom floor who had been growling for almost a full minute. It was Arthur who first took advantage of his distracted, striking the murderous monster down in one sound blast. As the dark shape hit the floor, Arthur rushed to Elian’s side.

“I thought I had lost you”, he said.

“What…was that?”, Elian replied, looking around at the bedroom where they found the girl quartered in her bed.

“Well,”, the specter said as he picked up Elian, “This one apparently had been making children relive their worst, most gruesome nightmares in mind and body. I can’t imagine what he made you go through, but you took it like a champ. We’ll have to get you to the hospital quickly though”

Elian said nothing, and instead looked down at his chest wound exactly where his bullet wound was now reopened and bloody.

“What was it like? The mental prison,” said Arthur as he gathered the boy in his arms and carried him away.

“It was a mother fucker”, Elian said weakly.

“Language boy… language.”