Dark Ventures

One more scribble to the left and a furious dash of hyphens to the right--she had finally dotted her sentence, and with that, the piece was finished. It had all clicked; in just a thousand words, the syntax, the rhythm, the whole of it all had made sense to her uniquely.

A searing pain suddenly shot through her wrist and up into her arm, causing her to drop her pen to the floor. She grabbed her wrist instinctively.

“Damnit!” she screamed and shot up out of her seat, squinting at her injured hand. It briefly flashed into her mind that her mother experienced the same symptoms before she was diagnosed with carpal tunnel. With her thoughts racing, she began groaning slightly. At the memory of her mother clutching her hands in pain, she clenched her wrist tighter, hoping that doing so would ease the pain.

While looking down, she gazed at the crumpled mountains of paper, smothered in wild lines of graphite, that lined her desk. Full, she thought. This was her life being spilled onto the paper. This was all the hard work that it took to be great. Finally, she would surmount to the greatness everyone had cheered her on for. At this rate, she would become the greatest writer ever to have walked the earth--without pain, there is no gain. Suddenly the fire in her face and hands vanished, and she soon felt warm. This is what I want to do. She smiled.

To her, the pen was her sword, which, as she had always known, was mightier than the mouth. She found that through her sword she could protect herself against abstract demons, and ghosts from her childhood, whom, at every waking hour, wished to strangle her existence, usurp her words, and squeeze her from existence. Each day was a reflective battle.

Beginning to file away her crumpled masterpieces, she noticed that shadows began to hover above her papers. These shadows skulked, slowly, arrhythmically and toward her. They swallowed the top surface of her desk and its bottom, gently stretching its fingers toward her chin. She almost choked with fear.

For a while they entranced her with their movements--stalking through the room and forming an indistinguishable blob of darkness that turned everything it touched a shade darker. One, by one, she watched her desk become an indescribable mass. Her papers--and all the stories with it--soon had no quality.

The shadows were quickly becoming all-consuming, slowly enshrouding her in a brusque darkness that nibbled on the hairs of her arms. Where is it coming from? She had to find its source before it was too late. Desperately scanning the room from left to right in an all-too-familiar panic, she searched for the ominous cause. Her heart was racing as the room got dimmer, She fell to the floor immediately--despair. Her screams ensued.

She cried, burying her head in yet another pit of darkness. She sobbed, and fear, slowly and surely began consuming her with an unconfounded weight that she could not quite describe. Before allowing her consciousness to collapse into the abysmal deconstructs of the life, she peered through her weary hands and gasped.

Sparkling dots twinkled outside her kitchen window. Their rays illuminated the tears still sliding down on her cheeks. She paused. Night, she thought. It’s only nighttime. I still have more time. She picked herself up, and walked closer to the window. Just as her kitchen had filled with darkness, the night sky was pitch black save for the stars and a full white moon. These things glowed snug and high in the sky.

She found herself, once again lost in the intricacies of the universe. Sadness was slowly slipping away from her memory. She began distracting herself by counting the stars. That soon turned into connecting them, creating stories from imaginary squares and circles. She scanned the sky for abnormalities, and found that multiple stars did not twinkle or shine as brightly as the others. Some hid behind others, as if afraid to be seen by the girl’s searching eyes. How could it be that something as vast as the sky could hold so many secrets? They were all different in their own ways.

Likewise, the world had been much more complicated than given credit for. There were new discoveries hiding in every corner. More experiences to document. Sights to see. Everything was a new thing to her, and she wanted to write it all down. If only there was a way to--

“Niya,” an older sounding woman’s voice broke her concentration. “Why are all of these lights off? You can’t write in the dark.” The light switch was clicked, and behind her was her mother.

“Oh,” said Niya. She felt her nervous chest descend as she blew fear from her lungs. “...Sorry about that.” Her mother had always arrived home from work at night, usually catching Niya in her most creative moments, or when she was asleep.

Her mother paused momentarily, searching her daughter’s face for a familiar weariness she had felt before. For only a brief moment, they stared at each other’s faces, and used their eyes to gather the other’s feelings. Her mother sighed.

“Just...don’t do it again. You know we can’t afford it.” She added, and disappeared to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. She would not emerge from here for the rest of the night.

Silence ensued. Although she was used to seeing her mother disappear for the rest of the night after coming home from work, this time there lingered an indescribable heaviness that followed her mother. She gazed at her mother’s bedroom door, which connected to the kitchen because their house was so small. The door was plain, white, barren, and very thin. She could barely hear her mother shuffling, changing out of her work clothes, replacing things on her dresser. Or a while, more silence completely ensued until she heard her mother click on the television. A flurry of muffled voices filled the room. The News, she thought. Evening News blaring through their television speakers. This would finally fill the silence. This was how they would communicate for the rest of their lives.