Endless

“The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window."

And now it was starting to rain. It was getting dark and she was already cold. But her heart sank with dread at the thought of who might have found her. She had fled to these woods a few days ago, knowing that this cabin was miles away from the next nearest road. It had served as her bunker, hiding from the faces she could no longer bear to see.

She stared into the cabin for a long time, her teeth inclined to chatter, but clenched tight to stop the noise. The shallow puffs of breath from her nose, now starting to make tiny clouds because of the bitter cold. There was also a fog rolling in. She noticed just how sharply the temperature had dropped in just a matter of minutes - hell, in a matter of moments. It was like once she noticed the candle, all the heat left on the mountain was hiding right on the wick. As scared as she was to see who had found her, it was practically a matter of survival for her to get into the cabin.

She slowly sauntered towards the door, peering into any opening she could see through. There were many. The windows were actually providing the least information about the interior - just a sheer reflection of the dark woods around her and impossible to see through, except for the candle itself. However, the cabin though, was so decrepit and rundown, that she could peer inside. The gaps in the wood of the planks of the walls. The door hung loosely and drooped on its hinges. Despite her having a pretty clear picture of the inside, she could not see anyone. In fact, she looked around. No vehicle. No footsteps. No indication that anyone besides her had been there. Sure, it was still possible. After all, she didn’t have a vehicle and she had made the journey.

“Hello?” She called, from still outside. The sky now letting down a steady pour of freezing rain. A person passed in front of the candle towards the door. Her uneasiness about who might have found her jolted to a full panic as she assessed the helplessness of her situation. In an instant, she processed several assumptions: if this person is looking for me, they must know what I’ve done; if they know what I’ve done, me coming here was to hide from them; there is nowhere I can go; if it’s not someone looking for me, then it could be literally anyone else; they could be the original owners; they could kill me.

Considering the speed at which they crossed in front of the candle and how tiny the cabin was, the person really had nowhere else to be except behind the front door. They easily should have heard her calling to them.

“Leave me alone, okay. Just, go away.” They waited, silently, on the other side of the door. “What the hell do you want? How did you even find me?” Still, no response. A sense of utter dread was now taking over her. Her mind was no longer reeling through possibilities of how this pans out - who it might be - what they want. At this point, she was shocked with fear. It felt like an eternity was passing by without a sound but her own voice and an orchestra of raindrops plopping around her.

It’s funny, how each surface the rain hits makes its own sound. Raindrops hitting pine needles, hitting rocks, hitting the roof of the cabin, the moss growing all around, her jacket and her eyelashes. For some reason, she became very attuned to all of these unique signatures around her. A moment of serenity. Tranquility. Peace.

The person walked back by the candle, away from the door this time. Half with rage, half with panic, she frantically stormed the cabin and flung the door open.

Empty.

The light from the candle, filled the cabin. It did not look this way from the outside, but now, standing in the rickety frame, she could see the large, vacant space of the cabin. And that’s all it was. Empty. As she peered inside, the concert of raindrops that she had heard before went silent. The astonishing disbelief of there truly being no one here had stunned her. She saw them. She saw them twice.

She stood for a long time, sort of entranced. Once she came to, it was pitch black outside, and freezing cold - far colder than any night she had been there so far. She looked around again, slowly starting to remember the situation in which she found herself. She remembered the figure, she remembered calling to them, opening the door. But now, she was shivering too hard to give it much more thought. She walked to the candle and held her hands to it. She couldn’t feel the heat through her gloves. She slipped them off and squeezed them between her thighs and placed her bare hands to the candle. Still, cold. Still freezing. She tried the back of her hands, close to the flame. Even touching it. The candle may as well have just been light. There was no heat at all.

That feeling was coming back. Dread. A fear that cannot be described with words, but is recognized by all. Like the scariest part of a nightmare. Helplessness. She held her hand right to the wick of the candle and waited for it to burn. She hoped it would burn. Prayed.

She looked around the cabin again with familiarity. Sure she had been there a few times before, she had seen its unremarkable walls and floor. That’s not what she was seeing though. She was seeing a memory. As she looked at the wood, felt the cold, and smelled the rain, she remembered. Tears filled her eyes and she felt like throwing up.

Hoping that she was wrong, she touched her sleeve. It was wet, but the texture was different. It confirmed what she was pleading not to be true. She turned her arm over to see dark, crimson stains on the underside of her jacket.

The details were not coming back. She couldn’t remember how she got here, or what happened to her arm. But her stomach pained with certainty. Her face winced when she realized that she would never be leaving this cabin. And it would never stop raining.