Extinguish

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The night was warm, with fireflies abundant, so when Jason pointed out the light in the window, Kyle thought it was only another illuminated insect.

“Can you see that light in the cabin?” Jason asked as they sat on his family’s river dock.

“Just the bugs dude,” answered Kyle, fully aware of the potential antics his friend could get him in.

"No, it's not moving," Jason said, pointing at the cabin that had sat across the river from his home his entire life. The image of the cabin was faded like a memory in the darkness.

Kyle, the skeptic whose faith firmly lies in his own eyes, looked again. The fireflies were truly out tonight, lighting the river as if the moon were out though the light didn’t seem to touch the cabin. “How can you tell with all the bugs out?”

“I just can,” Jason whispers.

They were newly graduated high school seniors enjoying a last summer of freedom together before going to different universities hundreds of miles apart. Best friends for years, these summer nights were not uncommon, Jason’s imagination inspiring the pair to go on adventures. Kyle, pragmatic to a fault, would follow along with a knowing smile that the fantasy could never last.

But Kyle followed, faithful to his friend.

“There’s no light,” Kyle said dismissively, like a challenge. Like he once did as a child to excite Jason into leading a new adventure.

Unperturbed, Jason stood, grabbing a handful of Kyle’s shirt, drafting his friend into the investigation. “Let’s go,” he said as they began marching to the boathouse and the kayaks therein.

“No swimming?” asked Kyle, they both were athletic enough to make a simple swim across the river. He did not actually want to swim though, like that would be too much work on a lazy summer night like this.

“Feels wrong to swim,” Jason says, looking back across the river to the cabin, to a light only he could see.

Kayak in the water, the pair gently paddle across the slow current. Jason in front, leading the way like a conquistador and making Kyle feel more like a pawn than an adventurer, until he looked around. They were surrounded by flickering lights both in the air and refracting off the water’s surface. Kyle realized they were more like future explorers than the past, space flight leading where the paddle no longer could follow.

Beaching the watercraft, they began up the bank of the river. The moonless, starless night was not a deterrent as their phones had light if the local insect life decided to abandon the task of illuminating the way.

The cabin, visible from the other side of the river, was still tucked further into the woods forcing the pair of explorers to navigate the darkness and deadfall of the surrounding woods. The pair had walked this path many times, as the cabin had been a favorite location for adventures when the friends were much younger. Under low hanging branches and around stumps in the no longer well worn path, the fireflies continued lending their light for the pair’s final excursion to their old playground.

Jason, with a lunge up and over a fallen tree, was the first to set eyes on the cabin. He stood still, facing the structure and waiting on his friend to catch up. Kyle noted, reaching the tree and climbing over himself, that Jason seemed to have some of his momentum halted. He realized his friend and leader of countless adventures to this cabin was frozen mid step.

The air was cooler on this side of the river, allowing a fog to drape itself around the trees like curtains in a great hall. The fireflies, seemingly more numerous, continued their business of lighting the ways of the lost by casting eerie flashing orbs.

The cabin was different from what he remembered. The light from the life around them didn’t seem to land one the walls. The structure was familiar to Kyle in his fond memories, but he was struck by how hollow it looked now. How cold the abandoned cabin now was due to time and inattention.

Jason began walking towards the cabin, unfrozen suddenly and mumbling about a candle in the window that was not there.

“What are you doing?” Kyle asked while grabbing Jason’s shoulder and turning his momentum, preparing to negotiate out of continuing further.

It was Kyle’s turn to be halted, and Jason turned and looked at his old friend with wild eyes.

In a whisper slithering out of a wide smile, he said, “look at the light in the window.”

Kyle let go to look but could not find a light in the structure before them. Jason, walking forward again with the bravado of his youth, called over his shoulder, “the light is brighter than I thought it would be.”

They made it to the door, held closed by a stick in place of a doorknob. Jason, smiling like they were boys once again, grabbed the air where the doorknob should be and turned his wrist like he would open the door.

Kyle crossed his arms to keep the chill of the place away. He was just behind Jason, watching as he pushed open the door, breaking the stick lock, without touching with door itself and with the ease of well-oiled hinges.

Kyle dropped his arms, realizing this was a trick his friend had planned for him. There was no other possible reason. The ambiance of the night merely a coincidence.

Time to play pretend again, just like many years ago, entertaining the fiction for the sake of comradery.

Jason entered the black hole of the door and was gone in the suddenness of a mousetrap. Kyle, holding onto coincidence for strength, followed.

The light that had brought them there floated through the windows, lighting enough of the cabin to keep the need for technology at bay.

Kyle took a deep breath, realized he must be winded from the climb and the paddle over, and quickly tried again to fill his lungs with the soggy air.

He was interrupted by Jason, taking a meandering path to a fireplace, to put his hand up to the hearth like he was warming himself.

“I’ve never seen this place look so good, have you?” he asked, smiling and looking around his own imaginings of the room. Kyle stood, letting his eyes continue adjusting to the darkness and seeing only an empty room.

“Crazy we didn’t see this fire from across the river,” Jason says in excitement, looking over his shoulder to Kyle.

Kyle, wishing he had the imagination Jason did, looked around trying to come up with an observation of his own. He wondered, ever so briefly, if they were too old to play house.

“Whoever did this got some classic stuff for this place,” Jason said, looking around the open room like he was surveying a new and exciting space to play in.

Kyle took a step inside. Then another, looking into the darkness and desolation.

“Watch your st-“ Jason called when Kyle’s foot caught mid stride. He fell, hitting his hip on something when gravity took hold of his momentum.

Catching his breath from the sudden excitement, Kyle rolled to his back with his hand on his hip. “What,” he croaked out, feeling the bruise forming.

“The foot stool, didn’t you see it? You hit the chair on the way down too.” Jason said, smiling over his friend.

Kyle’s breath was coming back slowly while he looked at his friend, hovering over the ground and holding an air squat effortlessly. Like he was sitting in the make-believe chair Kyle supposedly hit on his way down.

Jason, smiling like a good sport, as always, lends a hand in helping Kyle up.

Up off the bare ground, in an empty room of an abandoned cabin.

Eyes more fully adjusted to the light now, Kyle does not see anything in the room that only he and Jason occupy. Nothing to trip over. Nothing to hit himself on.

The air seems colder now as Kyle starts looking for an explanation, for a practical reason, for physical evidence of a trick.

Jason slapped him on the back, interrupting the panicked search for practicality. “Looks like someone left some food too,” Jason said, pointing to the other side of the room from the fireplace. He walked, zigzagging across the room like a drunkard on his way to get another glass of their preferred poison.

Kyle, curious yet suspicious, follows Jason. Holding to the pattern the trail blazer set for no reason, he walked like he is avoiding unseen obstacles in the room.

In an empty room, a rout to avoid nothing. Yet the familiar sensation was felt by Kyle, like he was barely missing furniture in a practiced path through a known arraignment.

Jason stops suddenly, his destination found with excitement and reaches down to waist height to pick up something. Kyle is slower in his approach, like this meandering walk in an empty room was more like a mile timed run. His hip was starting to really hurt, and his breath was catching in his throat.

With a flare that was out of place in the empty cabin, Jason turns holding his hand out like he is passing a glass of water. Wide smile of excitement and awe plastered on the lead explorer’s face. The confusion in Kyle’s eyes is evident as he stares at his friend.

“Suite yourself,” Jason says bringing his hand up to his face like he was going to drink from the cup. Eyes closed, his throat even doing the swallow motion, he acts out finishing the glass.

Kyle crosses his arms again, feeling colder than before now. The chill creeping in and catching his breath even more than before, like his air capacity is slowly decreasing.

“So good!” Jason nearly yells to the void. His arms do the familiar motion of going to refill the cup in his hand with a pitcher, but the action is alien in the barren cabin.

The steps to refill the cup that was not there completed now, Jason turns again to Kyle holding out the empty hand with the imaginary cup. Kyle cannot catch his breath though; he is breathing quickly feeling the pressure from his diaphragm somehow making his hip hurt with each convulsion.

Jason flicks his wrist, pretending to splash Kyle with the nonexistent liquid in his hand.

Kyle knows nothing will happen, there is nothing in Jason’s hand.

But his breath catches quickly, nearly suffocating Kyle with the abruptness. His eyes, closing on instinct, open slowly now to the blurred drops of water hanging on lashes.

Kyle is breathing fast, shock from the cold liquid appearing out of his friend’s empty hand. His hip aching more and more. He is drowning in an empty room, like he was dunked in the ice water instead of having it splashed on his face.

Jason is laughing at the mess he made of his friend. First a giggle, then growing in intensity and volume like a flash flood of unfounded humor. Laughing hard now while watching the water drip, staring at his friend.

They lock eyes. Jason, tears flowing from his eyes, laughs harder and harder while staring back at Kyle.

Confused, wet, in pain, and breathless, Kyle watches as Jason continues to cackle like the saddest clown. Time slows, the laugh echoing in Kyle’s mind keeping pace with his panting breaths.

Jason stops laughing, like the joke played out, and looks to the window.

“The candle. It doesn’t need to be lit now does it.” He whispers. Kyle follows his friends gaze as it falls on the only thing in the bare room.

A candle, old and half burnt, dust covered on a clay plate, sat on the window seal.

Jason looked back to Kyle so quickly the crackle of his spine echoed in the small space.

“Put out the candle Kyle.” Jason commands in a soft tone

Kyle, fighting for air like a drowning man now is gasping desperately. His vison is diminishing, he focuses on Jason’s face. Tears are still falling down his friend’s cheeks, but the smile is gone.

“Put out the candle!” Jason yells at Kyle, anger in his voice but his face placid.

In his shrinking vision, Kyle can only focus on Jason. His friend, his leader sense childhood.

“PUT OUT THE CANDLE KYLE.”

Kyle turns back to the candle in the window, panicking in asphyxiation. Gasping and stumbling, he limps to the window. The effort is too much now, not enough oxygen in his system. He falls, catching himself on his hands and knees.

“PUT OUT THE CANDLE KYLE.”

The screaming of his friend behind him is fading as Kyle crawls forward like the volume of the world is being turned down.

“PUT OUT THE CANDLE KYLE.”

The darkness engulfing his vision is blinding and his focus only on the floor below him.

“PUT OUT THE CANDLE KYLE.”

The yelling is a whisper in his mind.

His hand hits the wall.

Kyle looks up, pushing himself upright to his knees, face next to the candle.

“PUT OUT THE CANDLE KYLE.”

He is no longer breathing; he can’t blow out the candle. In the background of his mind, he realizes the fireflies are still outside, behind the candle like a history he wishes to go back to.

“PUT OUT THE CANDLE KYLE.”

With the last of his energy, he brings his hand to his face and wipes away the water that should not be there.

The fireflies stop their fluttering. Lights freeze in the air.

Kyle pinches the wick with his wet fingers.

Like a cold wave engulfing the world, the fireflies go dark. Kyle’s world in swallowed in this cold ocean.

The last thing he sees before he closes his eyes, are his fingers around the wick of the candle.

“Can you see that light in the cabin?” Jason asks.

Kyle opens his eyes to see Jason, sitting on the dock and pointing across the river.