Girl, Alone in the Dark
You are a girl, alone in the dark. You wake in the middle of the night, your home all but silent except for the strange rustling downstairs. You climb down the painful metal ladder from your bed to the soft, squishy carpet below. Outside your room, to the left, is your parents’ room, and the rustling continues.
Trying to make as little sound as possible, you avoid that creaky floorboard that comes with every house. You don’t want to wake them, but the sound from below grows louder and forces you to, anyway. The knocks are gentle against the hard wood with a light bump-bump-bump. No reply.
The door edges open and you enter, swishing your head around to check the bed just inside. They’re gone, and it doesn’t make sense. It’s too late for them to be out, and surely, you’d have heard them. The rustling persists.
You return to your bedroom and remember being told not to go downstairs if there’s a burglar. “It’s not safe,” they said. And so you climb back up the ladder to sit… and to wait. Your phone should be beneath your pillow and so you check for it, to call the police. The plush pillow is tossed aside but your phone is nowhere to be found.
It was taken downstairs earlier when you were put to bed, you remember, don’t you? You’re not allowed a phone at bedtime. The only phone is downstairs in the living room. Down there with the sound.
You don’t want to go there, wanting to stay firmly rooted in bed instead of walking down there like someone out of a bad horror movie. But you remember that your parents are missing, and anxiety takes hold.
What if they went down there and were attacked? What if they’re bleeding out, hoping that you would call for help? What if whatever’s down there comes up here? No one would know if you were killed, and maybe no one would care.
But what if your parents were just downstairs, feet up on the sofa, none the wiser to your terror? It would be better to check, of course. To make sure that they were truly safe, and that you aren’t alone.
Your foot reaches the carpet again before you register the decision. If you can make it downstairs, past the living room door to the side, and bolt for the front door, then you can make it outside. There’ll be help out there. Your house is anything but safe, the outside is where you will be safe. You must leave the room of safety and comfort and venture out.
The stairs are always the worst. Each footstep might as well be a small nuke as you tiptoe your way down each inch, the carpet bristles scratching between your toes. Somehow, you make it to the bottom without waking the rest of the world, and there’s the living room, orange light oozing out of an open door.
You think again that maybe you were being stupid. Maybe if you stepped through the doorway you’d find your parents laying back in the reclining sofa. How embarrassing it would be to run outside to find help for your parents’ midnight feast. How utterly ridiculous you would have to be.
If you could just peek around the doorframe, you’d see them there. Go on, take a peek. Nothing to worry about. You know that. Then why are your feet stuck to the laminated wood, not moving? You feel the word forming in your throat: “Mum?” your face mouthing out the syllable without sound.
The light flickers from within the room as someone, or something, scutters across. The sound now a scratching. But against what? Like the whole house was being torn from inside out. Your feet can’t move. The plaster screams as it peels away. Heavy footsteps and breathing come from within.
Where are your parents? You need to get out through the front door. Just one foot in front of the other and move.
The TV inside the living room flicks on, but you hear only the crackling hum of white noise while its scratchy white-and-black light shudders through the doorway. You try to call for your Mum again but the word lodges like a pear in your throat.
You set your right foot forward, then the left, and move toward the lit living room. A voice calls out your name, beckoning you in. A voice you can’t quite place. It shifts and swishes each time your mind takes hold. You’ve always wanted to be wanted, to be desired, and the voice gives that to you.
‘Mum?’ you mime. Or maybe the words escape? You can no longer feel them. Tentacles of pure light wriggle up to the ceiling and down to the floor, edging up to your feet.
On the sofa, in front of the static-showing TV screen, sits your family: your parents and… you. They stare blankly at the screen with grey eyes and even greyer faces, like the world went black-and-white. You, the you on the sofa, turns their head to the standing you and opens their mouth. White noise blasts out the gaping abyss of their lips — your lips — and then a pear, which is then held in their hand. They smile at you and turn back to the TV. Your parents haven’t noticed what has happened.
The winding arms of the crackling light work down to you (your bedroom’s only a memory now) and envelope your torso. It’s cold, colder than you’ve ever been, colder than the time you’d been locked in the freezer. They wrap around you with their sweet embrace. (Who’s panting?)
But this is how it was always supposed to be. Your parents smile with faded lips and their eyes turn to fog. The you that isn’t you bites into the pear, its juice flowing down silvery lips, and they grin.
The tentacles cover the eyes you no longer value, your senses taken from you until you learn to appreciate them. All you see is the light, and that is all you will ever see.
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