Last Light

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Isolated in the deep forest, there was no one to see the candlelight, or wonder at its meaning. But in the village, beyond the wood’s leafless branches, three figures woke in three separate houses. Each of them felt the candle come to life at the cabin, and each of them felt cold fear burn within them.

They moved swiftly, but with reservation, gathering what few items remained to them. They had to reach the cabin in time, but weren’t sure how. They were not supposed to make it there. Not supposed to reach the light. And that was the cruelty of this place.

What if they did reach it? What if they found something bad?

Or...what if they found something better?

What if…? What if…? What if…?

Many died with these questions on their lips. Died horribly. But it was still…what if the Candle solves everything?

Three lanterns trembled on hooks outside the silent homes. Wraith-like, bitter, and broken, the figures stepped from their dark cottages, watching one another with caution. With slow movements, hesitant to spook the others, they took down their lanterns. They all knew. They all wondered which of them would die tonight.

With white lips and hollow eyes they entered the night’s silent mantle. A triad of pale auras in a dead world. Left behind, the village was quickly swallowed in the gloom. They refused to look back. Even at the forest’s edge, confronted by the gaunt branches and black shadows, they stared forward.

The lantern light trembled weakly, and the ebon stillness swelled in tense anticipation.

Breathing a deep, simultaneous breath of resolve, the three prepared. And then they began to run. The silence exploded around them in a cacophony of chittering screams, guttural howls, a banshee’s wail, and a beast’s snarl. Skeletal claws grasped at them, snagging and snaring, and they knew it wasn’t just branches and underbrush that tore at their skin. Their lanterns were all that protected them from the bleak wood, protected them from the night.

Years ago, many years ago, the Forever Night came. Plunged into darkness, without even the moon, the village glowed like starlight after nightfall. They built a safe place, protecting themselves from the evil that haunted and hunted in the gloom. The night brought screams, blood, and a world of death, but the village lanterns shielded them from the worst of the horror.

There was no dawn. No end to light the horizon. The Forever Night’s smothering blackness was a blanket, moist and cloying in its invasiveness. And over time the village’s starlight faded.

And then the Candle in the Wood would light.

Everyone in the village felt its light within themselves. Felt the desire to find the unknown mystery. And they died, one by one, in seeking the Candle. The candlelight extinguished after an hour, within the cabin and within their souls. It left a consuming emptiness in its place, and the survivors returned to a dimmer home. In their lifetime, the Candle in the Wood ignited four times. Four massacres that killed all but these final three.

Their lantern light was fainter than ever, barely holding the darkness and danger at bay. The tallest of the three quickly took the lead. She was driven by fear, the most basic of instincts that drove all others. She understood that the darkness devoured, understood that the unknown meant risks, and understood that creatures in the shadows stalked with possessive hunger. She even understood the danger running right at her heel. And she feared. What if the Candle was her last chance for safety?

The second figure ran right behind the first, and he was driven by anger. Always striving, always failing, he’d lost everything to the darkness. He broke under the weight of survival, under the pressure of watching all others die, and under the frustration of constant loss. He glared at the first figure, the tallest, running just out of reach ahead of him. And he raged at the thought of being second again. What if there is only room for one?

The third and last figure trailed even further behind, struggling to keep the lantern light of the others in sight. The child pushed forward. With only emptiness behind, they ran towards a single, simple idea. And they hoped. What if the Candle is my mother?

The tallest was the first to fall. Hampered by her fear she found herself looking everywhere for danger. Darkness glinted with grinning, gnashing teeth. Laughter oozed from fake, seductive smiles and glowing, deceitful eyes. Within every shadow, doubt and cruelty whispered her name and the tallest finally froze in her terror. Overwhelmed, she was unable to find the light of the Candle in her frenzy.

Indifferently, the second figure tore past the tallest. Leaving her to cower alone, fingernails tearing at her eyes as her lantern died. The darkness consumed her. By the time the child ran past, puffing in exhaustion, the first figure was no more.

The second forced himself to ignore his terror. He fed his anger, fed his focus, and aimed it all at the Candle in the Wood. He was in the lead! Nothing else concerned him now, he had to keep his place. He was all that mattered. Out of everyone in the village, he alone would reach the Candle in the Wood. He would be FIRST. Ignoring his missteps and looking down on any threat, he bullied his way forward. He never saw what killed him. He was forgotten before his lantern light died in the night.

The child, raised in a world of horror and death, saw all of it and none of it. Death was every day, despair was normal. The child fled not from these things, they accepted them. Instead, they fled from something even more unbearable. The child ran from nothingness. From the bleak emptiness consuming what little world they knew. Escape presented as the Candle in the Wood. It had to be so, because if everything was darkness, then this light must be something else.

This resolve drove them forward, a short life of experience with the darkness helping them evade the enemy. Ducking the blows, dodging the predators, and hardening heart to the oppressive sadness, the child pushed ever forward. Towards the only light the world offered, towards the idea of their mother.

And then the child was in a dark clearing. The cabin squatted in the gloom, like a toad at the edge of a murky pool. Lit from within by an unearthly light, the child smiled shakily at the sight. Around them, the Forever Night retreated, as though holding its breath.

The child stepped slowly, setting their lantern down and knocking lightly at the door. There was no answer, but inside, the candlelight flared. The child opened the door and stepped into the glow.

Outside, forgotten on the ground by the door, the lantern went out.