A Visitor

Not quite Comic Relief this time. Here's something a few of you might have heard before. If you haven't, I hope you enjoy it, as much as anyone can, at least.

The square of light flickered in the darkness, a blackness that seemed almost liquid in its fluidity. Or perhaps it was only because his glasses were cast aside as he prepared to embrace his slumber.

The air chilled his skin even as he lay beneath the green and white cotton blanket, thrown over his prone form more out of habit than as a ward against the artificial elements. He stretched, and yawned, and stretched again. The fabric of the admittedly kiddish sheets bunching beneath his back, joints cracking like dead branches on a forest floor. Lazy eyes drifted again to the light; dull vision and dull visions. His toes peeped over the edge of the bed and out from under the blanket, like so many knobs, shapeless.

From outside, a claw tapped and raked and scratched and pawed at the window, a low howl accompanying the subtle greeting. But tree branches had never posed a mortal threat, and this one seemed no different. The claw persisted, and stopped, as the howling died.

The light, however, had a life unbound to the wind.

And from the light, there was darkness.

There is a certain innate ability inherent in nearly all creatures that allows them to recognise one of their own, even from a silhouette. And a certain terror that overcomes one who knows he is not alone, but not who he is not alone with.

The shadow in the light stumbled with an infant's gait, hunkering silently as the darkness it seemed to be made of.

Horrifyingly, it stopped. And turned.

Eyeless, it stared with reptilian patience, for what could have been years or heartbeats, unwavering and unflinching.

Demons and fiends and phantoms and spectres are often portrayed as large, horned, flaming behemoths, all teeth and fangs and eyes that glow red with hate and malice. But when such a child-shaped darkness simply waits, not two feet from your exposed toes, a hint of a snarl or a flash of talon would have been respite from the torment of the shadow.

A cotton blanket seemed a feeble buffer against even the most insubstantial of dangers, his pounding heart was sure to have drowned out a scream if one could be conjured from between parched lips. Quaking against a wall, he stared into the interloper as it stared back.

He was afraid.

Afraid to move, to brighten the room, to call for someone, to breathe. Afraid of what he would do if the figure moved. Abruptly, he was even more terrified of what he might be faced with if it remained.

And darkness befell him from all around.

Cursing the sleep timer on the television, he fumbled out of bed, expecting at any moment to feel small, cold, fingers wrap dreadfully around an ankle or wrist. Miraculously, the light switch materialized under his trembling fingers and he threw it.

And it was gone.