The Darkest Night

Lyla shivered as goosebumps rushed down her neck to her forearms, causing her arm hairs to stand at attention, as if they too were anticipating the unspeakable.

Balled up on a dismal excuse for a bed in the barred off corner of a cellar, Lyla stared into the emptiness above, doing her best to think normal, to be normal. Her thumb and forefinger rubbed the smooth metal of the heart-shaped locket that rested against her collarbone, a nervous habit that did little to calm her rising fears.

She took a deep breath and tried imagining she was anywhere else. Perhaps she was in her own bed, tucked beneath her soft, purple comforter—safe.

But as she adjusted her legs beneath the rough fabric of the thin blanket they had issued her, the burlap scratched against her lycra leggings and made her cringe, shattering any illusion she’d conjured.

She pushed the blanket from her lap and sat up, attempting to peer farther into the darkest night she’d ever experienced.

The dark didn’t bother Lyla though, nor did the quiet, not compared to the other dangers the cellar promised. While it was within the quiet darkness of the cellar that she and fourteen of her peers waited, it was the inevitability of what they waited on that pumped terror through her veins.

For now, their contaminants held the warm bodies of classmates, crushes, and best friends. Which was an unfortunate contrast to their intended purpose as cold, dark cages for future monsters.

Lyla twisted her fingers around the itchy blanket until it slipped above her ankles. A couple toes poked through the holes in her wool socks, causing goosebumps to reappear. With nervous arms, she threw the rough fabric over her feet as her thoughts took to worry.

How many would they lose to the monster within? Would she be among them?

The idea of losing one of her friends to the sifting always brought on a whirl of depressing thoughts, but the possibility that she might be a monster was maddening to the point she couldn’t fully process.

Lyla lay down and turned her back against the wall to face the direction she thought light had once shone beneath the exit. The last ray of hope that’d been extinguished seconds after they locked the exit. `

She knew it would be 24 hours before the leaders returned. It always took one sunrise to another to expose those with a propensity for violence and find those able to survive a dying world without food.

The promise to be rid of hunger pains was motivation to take the cure. Changing a body’s structure to find nutrients it needed from the plentiful dust that scattered the world was a long-awaited Savior to many who’d suffered at the hands of famine. But in this darkest night, the potential side effects felt too ominous, too real, too hope-shattering.

Her fingers found her locket. The clasp had broken, and the locket forgotten by its owner. It was an unwanted gift from her father to her mom. For Lyla, it was a reminder of her father’s promise to keep them safe. The locket is key to finding me; he had cryptically written in a letter the army censored after taking him away. She doubted something so inconsequential could find someone she loved, yet she clung to it.

Lyla’s eye twitched. She froze. Was that a sign she was changing? She shook her head. She was tired, that was all.

Still, her chest heaved with apprehension. Like a balloon being filled with air, it was about to pop. She feared the inevitability of the latex bursting while simultaneously wanting to be the pin that popped it.

The pin that finally pierced the silence, however, didn’t cause a single pop. When it came, it was a whispered gasp—air slowly leaking from within.

The gasp quickly turned into growling that led to flesh pounding against metal bars and cement floors.

Lyla placed her palms over her ears as hot tears slid down her cheeks, marking her otherwise unwavering human features.

Would she be next?

Hoping to gain the illusion of safety, she pressed her palms tighter against her ears to muffle the growling and pounding growing in intensity and volume.

It worked until the sound that burst all sense of security echoed throughout the cellar, bouncing off its barren walls, piercing every soul to the very center with a clang of metal hitting metal.

Every anxious thought Lyla possessed zeroed in on that clang- a gate being thrown open, followed by more groaning and pounding until another clang and then another.

The gates kept them from each other. The cells were intended as sanctuaries for the living and cages for the monsters. With each crash of metal, Lyla’s body seized with terror, again and again. Until finally, on the heels of the clang to her own gate, she covered her mouth to trap the scream that fought for freedom.

The locket she clung to would do nothing to shield her from those that gnawed and groaned in the now open cellar. She slid to the floor, her body against the cinderblock wall, the bed between her and her cell’s opening. Steady tears turned into short, hiccupped sobs before she remembered she needed to be quiet.

“No matter what, stay quiet,” her mom, the mayor, had warned.

Lyla shoved her face into the pillow, doing her best to block out any noise her terrified gasps produced.

Another scream from somewhere in the cellar, followed by a thrash of flesh hitting flesh prompted her to wedge her head between her knees as she rocked back and forth.

When the gruesome symphony finally ended, the silence was more than a relief. It was the kind of silence you wanted to breathe in. And breath she did into her small pillow as her sobs slowed, mirroring the gradual decline of movement from the rest of the cellar’s occupants.

The monster, or perhaps monsters slid their unhuman bodies to the ground, their slimy flesh slapping against the cement floor. Their labored breath, rapid and shallow, was a sharp contradiction to the now cautious, deliberate breaths of the living.

And the cellar grew quite still.

…

After hours of silence, the air in the room felt weighed down as the cellar brimmed in unspoken thoughts, the stench of recycled breath and the overpowering stink of monster flesh. It was no longer something you wanted to breathe in.

Lyla ached to scream, to make the quiet leave, to voice the fuzzy thoughts bouncing around her mind. But screaming, speaking, even a whisper, held the potential to wake the monsters.

They could not wake them again.

Something moved against Lyla’s leg. She flinched and pulled away, praying it belonged to one of the living, praying it wasn’t a monster. Fingers trailed up her back, and she gasped, a noise made without permission, but unconscious disgust.

She pulled her hand to her mouth too late. What had she done?

The fingers pulled back suddenly before she heard whoever they belonged to recoil in the distance. Thankfully, they didn’t belong to a monster. The monster would’ve started feasting at the touch of a warm body. No, they belonged to an idiot, an idiot she blamed for her gasp and the inevitable chaos about to happen.

She clutched the locket, hoping her father’s promise of safety would magically appear.

Nothing came.

The mayor had taught Lyla to count to calm her nerves. So, she did.

One... breathe. The locket was worthless. So was her father’s promise.

Two... breathe. The slick sound of monsters peeling their freshly dead bodies from the floor made her shiver.

Three... breathe. Is it safer to run or stay still? The mayor said to stay. To be quiet. Above all, BE QUIET!

Four... breathe. How could she be quiet when her pounding heart fought to be heard above the noise of flesh sliding across the floor?

Five... What would Lyla’s dad have done? He was a fighter. He could have gotten out of this. But, of course, he left to research the cure. He left them with nothing but a stupid locket and the promise that it was the key to finding him. No wonder her mother threw it away. All it did was provide false hope in a hopeless world.

Six… breathe. What would her brother do? He would run. He did run the day before the community’s first mandatory sifting. He abandoned her, too. Left her to face the monsters alone.

Seven... breathe. The sound of saliva gurgling in the monster’s mouths grew closer.

Eight... breathe. A cold, clammy hand touched the back of Lyla’s neck and she stopped breathing. Whatever survival instincts she owned pleaded for her to run.

Nine... She held her breath and bolted from the floor, launching herself in the opposite direction of the hand.

Ten... Exhale. Something constricted around her neck. She coughed and lunged forward before realizing it was the chain from her locket that tugged at her esophagus. The chain broke with her pull for freedom before she bumped into her cell wall, grateful it wasn’t another person—or worse, a monster. But the sound of bodies sliding toward her destroyed any victory she’d found.

She pulled her fist back, preparing to hit whatever came near, when icy fingers wrapped around her ankle. Without permission, the whimper of a scream escaped her lips.

She’d done it, whatever monsters were not already after her would be now. Tears pooled as she unclenched her fists in defeat.

She pressed herself against her cell wall in a weak attempt to escape.

Just as the icy hand tightened its grip, a light peeked beneath the exit.

Her wet and worried eyes looked to the light, like a sinner seeking salvation. The door burst open. Someone tossed an object inside. It crashed on the opposite side of the room with a thud louder than any gasp or whimper she’d made.

The hand clinging to her ankle went limp at the emergence of light and its dead-eyed face gawked at Lyla toward and then to thud. No longer recognizable, the scarred and mutilated face left Lyla to wonder which one of her friends sought to tear at her flesh. Like the stupid monster it now was, it would always be drawn to the loudest sound, something the government would exploit when they sent it to war.

A dozen soldiers soon accompanied the stream of light, dressed in riot gear, tossing noise makers against the far wall. They rallied the few who had survived the night into a small corner while they shackled their new recruits.

From within the small safety net of survivors, Lyla spotted the locket in the center of her cell, its broken chain coiled around it like a snake weaving in and out of the now open heart. Instinctively, she stepped from the security of her kind and scooped it up. Holding it in her hand, a glint of silver shined against the otherwise golden locket. A small key, similar to the one she locked her diary with, had been tucked inside the heart. She enclosed the locket and key in her grasp as a familiar clicking of heels echoed down the metal stairwell and into the cellar.

“Let’s get these yearlings out of here.” The mayor demanded. Her hand reached for Lyla and pulled her to stand by her side nearest the exit.

“Lyla.” The mayor spoke her name as another command.

Lyla swallowed hard but could not find any words to follow her cleared throat.

“You’re fine, right.” The mayor stated what should have been a question.

Lyla answered the statement with silence as the locket pressed against the palm of her closed hand. She hadn’t any idea how such a small thing could help find her father, but it was a hope she hadn’t thought possible, and it was in her darkest night that it was found.