Echos (Prologue)

Tuesday

The moon is waning. It’s nothing but a sliver up in the sky. It makes everything look incomplete, unfinished, wrong. I don’t like it. They’re too active in the dark. More and more of these creatures are coming out of the woodwork, and no one else seems to care. Is it because they can’t see them? Or do they just pretend that it’s not happening? I wonder if people realize just what goes on in the dark.

I saw them seven times today, in different places. Tragedy always followed. The amount of times I’ve seen them has been going up recently. I don’t like it. Before, I only had to worry about seeing them in my dreams, now they’re everywhere in little glimpses. I counted eight Mississippi’s before the images of them faded.

How much longer is this going to last? Something bad is going to happen. They’re preparing for something. A war. They’re preparing for a war. I don’t know who they’re planning to fight, but I don’t like the look of it. It gives me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. If this war is directed at us, we stand no chance against them. Of this, I am certain. But how can you fight a war against things no one else can see?

She looked up from her journal at the dark sky. The silver moon twinkled amongst the stars, leering down at the Earth and its doomed creatures. There wasn’t enough light to fight off the darkness, let alone the creatures that came with it. Morning was just around the corner. In an hour or two, the sun would shine brightly, but the moon would still be there, slowly fading as the morning came to a close. She was looking forward to it.

A beam of silver light danced through the green grass across the street. She watched with a growing fear. A figure stood in the circle the moonlight cast on the ground. They were looking up at the house before it. Their back to her. She couldn’t make out just who, or what, was standing there, but she felt threatened.

… One Mississippi…

The figure moved and the black cloak it wore, fluttered around their ankles. It touched the ground. It skimmed right over it. Yet it barely moved the tip of the tallest blade of grass.

… Two Mississippi…

They took one step closer to the house, their hand outstretched, their palm facing the door. Wave upon wave of dark tendrils snaked out of their palm. Leisurely, they cut through the air toward the house across the street.

… Three Mississippi…

A cold chill snaked up her spine and closed in around her throat. She couldn’t breathe.

… Four Mississippi…

Whatever it was, it slipped through the walls unnoticed, and entered one of the many rooms. It was an old house. A house with wide windows and steep gables. It looked helpless in the darkness with those moving shadows coming closer.

… Five Mississippi…

Those shadows wound their way around the house, encasing it in a dark mist. Her heart raced and terror made her limbs shake.

… Six Mississippi…

She wanted to look away, to scream. She wanted to wake up, because surely this all had to be a dream. But she couldn’t move from where she sat, transfixed by the figure and its darkness. For a few moments nothing happened.

… Seven Mississippi…

… Eight Mississippi…

She heard a single gasp. A soft scream. A slight, tearing sound. And then nothing.

… Nine Mississippi…

She heard nothing as the dark tendrils retreated from the house and back to their master. But as the shadows retreated, clutched in a sphere of black, was a simple white light. It flickered in a cage of darkness, trying to get free. But it did not get free.

... Ten Mississippi…

It looked so feeble and so pitiful. She couldn’t look away. Now the house looked haunted, dead. It peered down at the road with empty eyes. She felt so alone.

… Eleven Mississippi…

The darkness was gone, retreated into the figure bathed in silver moonlight. Once again, the figure moved. But this time, it was to turn around. A black hood hid their face from sight. But she could feel their eyes on her face.

… Twelve Mississippi…

Gone. The figure was gone as if it hadn’t ever been there. The pool of moonlight still danced through the green grass across the street. But no one stood in the silver circle of light. The blades of grass shuddered against a breeze.

No one had been there. But without a doubt she knew, that whoever lived in that house, was gone now. Gone forever. Lost to that darkness that had surrounded their house. Lost to that figure cloaked in the night. The figure that was no longer there. She had seen a murder. A murder that didn’t exist.

I saw one. They stood in a patch of moonlight for twelve seconds. And in that time, they took a life from the house across the street. I saw one. And this time… I think they saw me too.