One Last Candle to Keep Out the Night

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Nora lit it an hour ago hoping their parents would find them first, but now... it wasn't safe. She paced back and forth on wood panels so rotted they were becoming soft and tugged almost too hard on the loose strands of her hair. Victor remained catatonic where she sat him down earlier in an almost-clean spot against a hopefully stable wall. She was older than her eight-year-old brother by six years, so it was her responsibility to get them out of this. She had to get him out.

Nora desperately wanted to let the candle keep its vigil over them. She couldn't. Her chest hurt from the way her heart smashed erratically into her ribs; her world narrowed down to that flame, no longer able to feel the air passing briefly in and out of her lungs. She stopped in front of it but did not dare to let her gaze drift through the scuzzy glass to the forest beyond it. Nora closed her eyes, took one final breath, and extinguished her only hope.

Nothing happened.

Nora held her breath a few moments more anyways before even fear could not beat out the instinct to inhale. The candle's smoke briefly overpowered the smell of the dusty, rotting wood. There would be some moonlight if the dense canopy of the forest hadn't swallowed it. Even so, her eyes slowly adjusted; they flicked wildly around her surroundings straining for anything to focus on, almost burning with the effort. She almost risked looking outside again, desperate to see anything at all in her sudden blindness; head-spinning as if her sense of balance was stolen with the light.

Then, there, faintly in the darkness: a phosphorescent light. Not just one, she realized, but dozens, hundreds even -all glowing quietly scattered across the walls and floor. The mushrooms cultivating themselves in the cabin were casting light! They reminded her of the soft green of the glow-in-the-dark stars she used to have.

"Victor, look-" she began, about to point out the tiny lights.

He was already watching her.

His eyes were focused intently on her, unlike they had ever been. Her heart lurched. His eyes were shining despite the darkness. Victor stayed still, except for his head which continued to track her movements. She forced herself to meet his slightly-too-wide gaze; he wasn't blinking either.

"...Victor?" She tried again.

He smiled, but it wasn't comforting like it would usually be. His mouth was too wide, and there were too many teeth.

Nora backed away, watching for any sign of movement in its form. It did not move. Then there was a sound from the furthest corner of the cabin. A sliding noise, like a small object would make, nearing. Out of a void-like shadow crawled a... a baby? Her confusion was chased away by the instinct to flee. The infant sized creature had eyes just as reflective as whatever was posing as her brother, and its own smile full of teeth. She turned to run out the door.

In the moment she looked away, both the brother-creature and the infant-creature had somehow made it to her side. They grasped onto her legs and in her panic, she punted the infant-creature into the ceiling, knocking a board loose. A nest of insects fell into the room beneath the hole. They writhed around, agitated by their abrupt change in location.

The brother-creature watched them hungrily and she managed to dislodge him too, but not before losing a boot to his hold. She wasted no more time, throwing the door open and darting out into the woods. She didn't look back, charging through shrubs and bushes, and leaping over fallen tree limbs. Nora ignored the shocks of pain in her foot as she listened for any sign that either of the creatures were pursuing her. She couldn't tell if she was imagining the sounds of leaves rustling above her or the thumping of a body leaping between branches. Her own blood was slamming against her eardrums, carrying with it the all-consuming pulsating of her heart.

It was getting harder to catch her breath. She swore to herself that she would join track and field if she survived. Or at least, that she would take gym class more seriously from now on.

Even so, she pushed herself forwards. Each step gouging into the ground for brief purchase before propelling her further. Passing tree after tree, Nora found herself deeper in the woods, but also at a slight clearing. The trees were just sparse enough that she could see the moon now. It was full in the sky, and its light beckoned her to pause.

The moonlight falsely promised safety. If she stayed within its light, she would be fine. Except she wouldn't be. Nora didn't know what those creatures were, but she didn't believe they would stop hunting her. Her muscles ached. She almost sobbed with the desire to rest. She thought she could hear a voice asking her if she was sure the moonlight wasn't safe. Tears of panic fell and dried as she urged herself to start running again.

The trees were laughing at her. Snickering, cackling, giggling. High pitched and screechy, compared to what she may have imagined if she were reading a fairytale. The thumping above her didn't stop. A lighter thump had joined it. Morbidly, she noticed that it had the same rhythm to it as a heartbeat. The chase continued.

Thump-thump.

She wanted to scream for help, but her vocal cords were paralyzed. All Nora could do was open her mouth and shape it around the hoarse, frantic whisper of her plea. Running became harder and harder, she started to feel impossibly slow. Her surroundings came to her in sharp but inconsistent focus as her senses parsed danger from potential refuge.

Thump-thump.

She wished she was home. Back with her parents and not lost in this forest. She wished she had said no to the annual family hiking trip, wished that she had suggested they go to the beach instead even if she didn't really like the sand. She promised that she wouldn't complain, just please please please get her out of here. Then she wished that Victor hadn't started this whole mess by running off in the first place and suddenly she was flush with anger. Anger at Victor for getting lost and then anger at herself for not being able to get back and then she burned with shame.

Thump-thump.

She shouldn't blame Victor for this. She was supposed to watch him. She was supposed to make sure he didn't do curious-little-boy-things like run off after flashes of movement in the trees. But she hadn't, and now her little brother was missing, and she was running for her life, and it was all her fault.

Thump-thump.

Cold sweat dripped down her back, gathering uncomfortably in her clothes and chafing. The rawness of her skin begged her to stop moving. Her mind begged her to carry on.

Thump-thump.

They were closing in. Nora couldn't keep pace anymore.

Thump-thump.

There! An opening in the trees!

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

Thump-

She dove into a clumsy summersault, rolling across the loose, leaf-drenched ground.

thump.

Somehow, she made it to the edge of a road. She scrambled up the slight shoulder onto the gravel. The creatures dove down after her one at a time, crunching the pebbles together with their impacts. She couldn't help the way the sound forced her to look. In the recycled light of the moon, she could see their frames more clearly. Nora could've sworn their limbs hadn't been so long when she first saw them in the shadows of the cabin. Pallid, translucent skin, through which she could trace out a cursed map of poisonous veins, and hook-clawed fingers. They moved to surround her; Nora crouched to scoop hasty fistfuls of gravel before flinging it with the last desperate dredges of her strength.

The brother-creature shrieked from the gravel hitting its moon-mirror eyes; she missed the little one. The smaller creature made a frog like jump at her, claws extended. Nora tripped out of the way, but not before one of its hook fingers tore through her shoulder. Nora whimpered, unable to muster the full scream the pain demanded. Even the whimper was muddied with panting breaths. Tears streaked through the dirt on her face as she scooted backwards, kicking out feverishly as if she were merely smothered by her blanket on a too-hot night.

Nora hit the other side of the road before she realized the creatures had paused their pursuit of her. The one that had drawn blood was busily licking its claw while the brother-creature shook off its pain and scratched at the road. Then the infant-creature began spasming in the gravel, creating a demented snow-angel. She watched with bulging eyes as the creature's bones stretched out beneath its wax paper skin; spontaneously she had the thought that it would crumble to pieces like how she had seen old paint flake off of sun-worn toys. Hair grew out of its previously bald head, sandy-brown and pin-straight like her own. The holes in its face widened into nostrils and a bridge rose between them. The pasty body became that of a young girl; a familiar body with familiar moles dotting its skin, for all that it was still grossly lanky and hook-clawed and vein-traced.

Nora broke out of her stunned horror the moment its blue moon-mirror eyes, the same blue as hers, rolled back into place in its skull. She turned over, pushing herself up and passively noticed how red the hand she had clutched at her injury with had become. The feeling of blood crusting off her palm was almost disturbing enough to distract her from the way the tiny stones had dug into her skin. Nora threw herself into the trees again, clawing her own hands into the bark to pull and push her body forward. She wasn't sure she was even running the same direction as earlier. She wished she had taken the moments the creatures were distracted to find the North star instead of witnessing the infant-creature's metamorphosis.

Thump-Thump.

And they were still following her! If she had anything to spare beyond the pain and exhaustion she would have been annoyed. Frustration welled up quietly under the terror and spilled out with it.

Thump-Thump.

Maybe she should just let them get her. She slowed a moment.

Thump-Thump.

NO. Nora shook her head, panting out half a sob. She sped up again, as much as she could.

Thump-Thump.

She wasn't paying attention to where she was headed.

Thump-Thump.

Before her lay a hidden ridge.

Thump-Thump.

Nora tumbled blindly over the ledge. Down down down, a plucked swan's frantic dive. She could barely process the sensation of her body slamming down the steep face, ramming into bushes, branches, and rocks as she rolled. Only once her battered form had settled at the ravine's base could her disoriented mind attempt to right itself. Laying in a broken heap, she wondered why her first inclination was to laugh hysterically at her likeness to a pachinko ball. Laughing hurt too, straining her damaged ribs, but she couldn't stop.

Thump-Thump.

She was still coughing out her abrupt hysteria when they caught up. Nora was done running, even if her young body wasn't at its limit. The girl-creature drew itself up to loom over her on two legs. Its mouth widened into that too-toothy smile.

"Thanks" it said. She wondered if that was really what her voice sounded like, or if that too had been warped by the creature's imperfect mimicry.

Then it turned and leaped away with the other.

Thump-Thump.

And then she didn't hear them anymore. Her eyes sealed themselves as her consciousness slipped away.

When she woke up her body was covered in sweat and her hair was a tangled mess. She sat up on the bedroll beside her mother and tackled her sleeping form for comfort. Nora spent the next thirty minutes crying in her parents' arms and begging to end the camping trip early this year. When they got home, her distress finally eased, and she only tugged on her hair a little bit.

Only when she thought about the nightmare, or the forest, or the way Victor's eyes seemed a bit more reflective in the dark than they were before the trip. Only when she looked down and imagined hooked claws growing out of her own hands. Only when she saw the sly, almost too-wide grin that her little brother sometimes shot her. Only when she wasn't starring intently into every accumulation of darkness she could find, daring it to just move already.

Eventually Nora stopped pulling out her hair because it did.

Nora smiled. Her mouth had too many teeth, but her mom and dad didn't seem to care. Or maybe they hadn't noticed anything was different? After all, they left the forest with the exact number of children they entered it with: two.