The Blackened Glass

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. It was dangerous to watch, but I did it anyway. I loved the thrill of it all. The exhilaration I felt didn't compare to anything else. Of course, it had its downfalls. Maybe downfalls isn't a strong enough word. Destruction, devastation, now those two words describe it better. You know the old saying beauty is pain. Well, in this case, it's true. Although those clouds were magnificently beautiful, havoc reigned along with them.

I knew it was stupid to stand out and watch them roll in, but I only did it for a minute. Any longer, and I’d be a goner. I was dumb, but I wasn't that dumb. I wish I could watch the clouds through the window. Unfortunately, when the sun went down, the blackout effect took over. You couldn't see anything out the window, and no one could see in. It was purely for safety reasons. Once a specific time hit, the whole world just shut down. They coward away and hunkered down for the night. It all seemed a little overkill to me. Just because the sun went down, they thought all hell would break loose.

For the longest time, I never knew what it looked like outside after dark. Now here I am, the age of 15, and all my mom will tell me is monsters come out at night. Curiosity got the best of me, though. My mom would freak out if she knew I snuck out to my balcony just before midnight. It took me a few weeks to figure out how to change the automatic timer on the security system. So instead of everything locking at sundown, I changed it to just blackout mode until 12:02 am.

The first night I was so worried. I didn’t know what would happen. Would my mom notice the doors and windows didn’t lock? What if the monsters came inside the house right at sundown? I didn’t even know what the monsters looked like. No one would tell me. Granted, I've only been homeschooled, so I never really get to socialize much. Were they big and scary, with giant teeth and razor-sharp claws? I had to know. So that night, when my mom went to bed, I snuck her laptop. Mine was useless because of parental controls. I will add I think that’s ridiculous. What am I, a 5-year-old?

I searched and searched for pictures of the monsters. I couldn’t find any. All that came up were those magical purple clouds. I’d never seen anything so enchanting just from the pictures alone. I couldn’t believe all these years, that’s what was behind my windows. I was about to give up, but then I saw a folder on the screen labeled Will. That’s my father's name. I didn’t know much about him. He died when I was a baby. All my mom would tell me was he was a great man, and the monsters took him away from us. Without hesitation, I clicked open the folder. Inside was one video.

I was nervous to watch it. I’ve only ever seen pictures of my dad. It was very intriguing. What could be on the video? For all I knew, it was something completely dull. If it was a video of my father, why didn’t my mom ever show me? Was it something terrible? Finally, I clicked on it.

What I saw was extraordinary and disturbing at the same time. My mom wasn’t lying when she said monsters killed my dad.

The beginning of the video was wonderful. I’m guessing it was recorded on the first day the purple clouds appeared. My dad went back and forth from the clouds to his face. He was beaming with excitement—a look of pure joy. Within a minute of the video, one of the monsters came into the frame. Are you ready to know what the monsters were? I hope you’re sitting down. It’s nothing I would have guessed. They were…… CARNIVOROUS FAIRIES! Beautiful freaking flesh-eating fairies! At first, only one flew in and landed right before my dad. It looked like Tinkerbell with purple luminescent wings. Now I know why my mom would never let me watch Peter Pan.

I watched as the fairy stared into the camera. My dad kept saying how astonishing everything was. She seemed so harmless and graceful. After about 45 seconds, hundreds of fairies raced in, and all you saw was the camera fall to the ground. Here is where the disturbing part came in. My dad's arm was the only thing I could see, and I watched as the fairies ate it down to the bone.

Now I understood why my mom never showed me. Her extreme overprotectiveness didn’t seem as crazy as I thought. Yet even after watching my father’s arm get devoured, I still wanted to go outside. I knew I could watch those clouds for about a minute and sneak back inside before the fairies got to me. I set my alarm for 12:01 am just in case. I waited and watched the time tick by until the clock hit 11:59 pm.

I slowly opened the door to my balcony and stepped outside. The minute before midnight was dark and almost creepy. It was absolute silence as I stood out there. Sadly that night, there weren’t any stars in the sky. I was excited to see them. Just like the purple clouds, I’ve only ever seen pictures of the stars. When it hit midnight, I felt a warm breeze rush in, and the majestic clouds moved it. I was mesmerized. They pushed through the darkness like wild animals breaking free from a cage. The sky glowed with different pigments of purple, from lavender to dark violet and everything in between.

Reality sunk in when my alarm started to beep, and I had to snap out of my trance—that one minute seemed like time had stopped. That old saying popped into my head; beauty is pain. That’s when the rush of danger first hit me, but I loved the feeling—knowing I was just one minute from a gruesome death. The rebel in me wanted to see how long I could stand out there or wait till the last moment to go inside. Like I said, though, I’m dumb, but I’m not that dumb. So I quickly stepped back into my room and shut the door. I was back to being surrounded by the blackened glass.

Months went by, and each night, I snuck out to feel the rush that came with the purple clouds. It never got boring because that was the only thing I looked forward to daily. Sometimes I would go out an hour early to look at the stars. One night though, something made me reevaluate, wanting to feel that dangerous adrenaline. I was unaware that every 3 months, the security system updated at midnight. At this point, I was already outside. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my door about to slam shut. I didn’t have much time to react, so the only thing I could do was put my arm in the way to stop it. The pain felt like the door would chop my arm in half. It was like the door was fighting me, and it would do anything to win. I pushed back with all my strength, but it wasn’t working.

My alarm started beeping, and panic took over. Now I only had seconds before I became an entree for crazed fairies. I could see them popping out from behind the clouds. I stepped back as far as I could and slammed myself into the door with all the force I had. I got through and thumped down on my bedroom floor. I heard my door slam shut. That experience alone almost made me want to never go out at night again. Luckily my mom didn’t hear anything that happened. I still had the problem of explaining what I did to my arm.

That night I lay in bed, glad to be alive. I’m pretty sure the adrenaline from almost dying eased my pain. I finally felt comfortable enough to turn my light off and go to sleep. When I shut off the light there was a faint purple glow in the corner of my room. I sat straight up and threw a pillow at the light. I heard a hushed voice say,

“Please don’t hurt me.”

I wanted to scream in horror. One of those zombie wannabes was in my room. She flew out from the corner and landed on my bed. I almost pissed myself; I was so scared.

“I’m not going to eat you. I promise.”

I was too shocked to say anything back. All I could do was sit a stare, but she kept on talking.

“I’m not a sick fairy. We eradicated them years ago. We never meant to cause harm to any humans. We tried to escape, but the infected fairies followed us here. We feel terrible for the things that happened.”

I still couldn’t speak. I just sat there like an idiot.

“Oh my, where are my manners? My name is Alanisa. What’s your name? Do humans have names?”

“ Piper,” I blurted out.

“It's so lovely to meet you, Piper.”

Alansia went on and on. I swear, if it was possible, she could probably talk someone’s ear off. We chatted all night, and we devised a plan we knew would change the world forever. I think the hardest part is going to be telling my mom.