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Darkness

 Darkness

Oct 6, 2022


Prompts:

  1. The call of adventure

  2. Aloneness

  3. Subtle fuzz of alcohol

  4. Sleep

  5. Being lost


  1. Someone meets a person or creature that is an embodiment of these characteristics


Nala was on the bridge watching the boats go under it and reappear lazily on the other side. She would have liked to jump, land onto one of them on her feet, knees flexed, hide in some safe storeroom and just be gone from there.


– You wouldn't do it. 

A voice teased here from nearby. She turned around and saw this teen hovering on a bathroom carpet right across the handrail. He was holding a flask and briefly sipped from it before repeating:

– You wouldn't do it. And that's a pity, because you know what you're missing. And yet…

– And who might you be, kiddo? – she grinned.

– Oh, I'm no kiddo, darling! 542 years I've been traveling the land, seen it almost all.

– 542, yes, sure, and what would it be that I wouldn't do?

– Jump in the darkness. Easy to dream about it, but would you do it?

– And your name?

– Doesn't matter in the matter.

– But where do you come from?

– Darkness. Now let me drink. – and he took another generous sip from his flask.

– And where would you want me to go?

– On an adventure with me. But you wouldn't do it.

– And who says that?

– I do.

– Oh, I'll do it then!

– See that dark spot on the left?

– Near the bank? Yes.

– Jump.

– But…

– Just jump. Or admit you wouldn't do it, and I'll go on in my adventure, alone.

Nala stared at the darker spot, wondered if it really was the chance of her life. Not just a different city, a different country: a different universe! A new dimension! She started running along the bridge, got right above that darker spot, climbed over the rail and before the drivers could honk their useless alert, she jumped.


It was dark in the Mindflayer's lair, and she couldn't see her hand in front of her nose. She was so sleepy. "542 years is a long time to be alone", she managed to think, before her mind was sucked away.


  1. With the arrival of light, the thing struggles to survive


Julio was waiting for his grandma to come up to the roof terrace to help her hang the laundry. Then, he'd be having fun running through the lines of drying sheets with the family hotel logo on a corner. He loved the end of summer, when the light is still strong but the sun is not so hot, and people go back to their houses, and the town is finally quiet, so quiet one could hear the waves gently breaking on the shore from two blocks away, where their 2 stars pension was.

He would have loved to go for a dive, but grandma needed help. She eventually came up and they quickly hung all the sheets from the first floor. Then she went down to start making dinner, and he was left up there, free to run and pretend to get lost in a labyrinth. 

– You have never seen a labyrinth in your life, and you never will – said a voice behind a sheet.

– And how do you know?

– Because you wouldn't jump in the darkness.

– That's horse crap. I dive from the highest rock into the deepest water. I'd do it for sure.

– Then dive into that dark spot on the sheet to your left! – the voice teased him.

– Oh, no way! – laughed Julio.

– Coward.

– No, just well informed. We know who you are, we all do.

– You know nothing.

– Five-Four-Two! We-know-you! And more will know each day.

– But… how?

– Nala. Millions of us watched every day of her life since she was 3, which was way before I was even born. We all heard you, we all saw you, "kiddo". You will starve.

– You will jump!

– Nobody will. And you will starve.


Nobody indeed seemed to fall for the Mindflayer's challenges and adulations anymore. Light had been cast on his dark schemes, and he was getting mortally hungry.


  1. Begin or end with "Dawn tried to make us forget, but it never fully succeeded".


Too many things happened that night. We got separated in the woods, shouting to each other to guide us back together, and failing. We all faced him, his lures, his promises of a better world if only we had the courage to jump. Of course we all knew him. Nobody can be so out of touch with the world to ignore Nala's killer. But each one of us had to fight their own battles, control their own hope, fear, desire, and tell the thing what it needed to be told. 

It grew more and more desperate, its attacks using all tricks learned in 542 years - 532 if one may assume it ever had a childhood of some sort. Its voice got fainter as the night grew older, and when the first rosy hue started bleeding over the horizon, we all could hear its last, desperate, starved whine.

Dawn tried to make us forget, but it never fully succeeded.
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