The Shadow and the Lights

His own. On his back, down his pants, in the soles of his shoes, in his hair. He ran from his house. Why had his stepfather done this? He looked back again. His stepfather was quite a ways away, but Rian had gotten a head start and his step’s longer legs would catch up with his.

His body was tired, he had been running for no more than ten minutes, but from loss of blood and pain it seemed he could not go much further.

Rian was running alongside the edge of trees that quickly became dense forest. His house was getting further and further away. He looked down at his dirty body, putting one foot after another. The tall weeds bit and tore at his exposed flesh, the nighttime mosquitoes gored and made it worse. His skin-tight white t-shirt clung to his skin, drenched with sweat. His shorts were ordinary and green, almost too small but very flexible from heavy wear.

Two hours ago, when Rian approached his house after the long walk from school, Rian had heard his stepfather and his mom fighting. He snuck up on his house and, after furtively peered through the window, he had saw him hit his mother. That didn’t happen often. He felt pain for his mother. She hated being yelled at or hurt, and always ran to her room in tears when her husband got into such a frenzy. Though he worried for his beloved mother, he feared that he would get hurt even more than her if he had walked in the house then. He had decided to go to the woods and wait until the danger passed. After a couple of hours, Rian decided it was about time his step had cooled down and he returned home. He was startled to find that he hadn’t.

Behind him, he heard his mother’s husband yell after him, chasing in his drunken stupor.

"Rian, get back here! I’m gonna beat yer insides out!" Despite his drunkenness, his longer legs were catching up to Rian. He had to find shelter, fast, or his step would kill him.

Panting, he dove headfirst into a thicket of unidentifiable underbrush. Underneath the soft green leaves of some fern-like shrub hid a thorny vine, hungry, it seemed, for Rian’s flesh. The thorns stuck into his legs and clung to his shorts. Crouching behind the leaves and because of the darkness, he would surely be hidden from his drunken stepfather. He turned his squatting body so that his back was to the dense woods behind him and he looked down the dirt road.

He saw his house, not too far away, perched atop a green hill next to the narrow dirt road, surrounded by imposing trees. There were no other houses; his house, the family house, was in the mountains surrounded by a dense forest that seemed to stretch on forever to the south and east, but went on for only a few miles to the northwest. The nearest town and school was five miles west, and north was the Tarnimur Mountains.

Rian heard the noises of the woods behind him. An owl hooted in preparation for a kill.. A late bird sang its song one last time before going to bed. His real father taught Rian all about the woods. He had taught him to hunt and fish and live in the wilderness. He had taught Rian all the trees by sight and most by name, though for the strange trees that were deep in the forest, Rian’s father didn’t have names.

Because of the comfort and serenity offered by the woods, and because it Reminded Rian of his father, the forest was the only place Rian truly felt at home.

"Rian, you little twerp, where are ya?!? I’ll spank you till you beg for more, boy! How dare you come home late with dirty clothes!" That sounded pleasant. Rian wondered if he really meant he would only be spanked. Seemed like a hug compared to what he would really be getting. Rian knew from experience.

After his father died, his mother stayed in her room a lot , and they lived off the money his father had made building houses in the city. When the money ran out, his mother remarried to Carl, his new father.

His new father that was going to kill him.

Rian took care of his mother. He loved her fiercely. Sometimes, when Carl was particularly mean, Rian would take her into the woods and show her his secret spots. She always laughed when Rian took her into the woods. Rian loved her laugh more than anything in the world

Rian heard his stepfather stumbling not far down on the rocky, unpaved road.

When he had returned home after his excursion in the woods, Carl had broken a bottle over Rian’s head and cut him with the glass. Those wounds, filled with sweat, were hurting. The thorns in his legs stuck deeper as he struggled to stay squatting - his legs burnt from the exertion of trying not to fall down and make a noise. His step-dad looked into the woods behind Rian, stumbling dangerously close to the undergrowth where Rian hid. Rian would have to move or he would be caught soon. Very soon. He shuddered at he thought of his second punishment.

His stepfather dumbly walked into the brush. Now or never.

Run. Into the woods. Rian jumped up, darting into the darkness of the woods. The thorns in his legs painfully tore hide off and shredded his shorts. Rian’s legs pumped as hard as they could. His heart started to beat even faster causing Rian’s wounds to bleed more. He dodged the trees like a creature at home in the woods. His stepfather called after.

" I see you! Get back here!" His stepfather couldn’t traverse between the trees as gracefully as Rian.

Rian kept running, trying to go zigzag to get his father off his trail. It wasn’t long before he was completely lost. He kept running anyway.

Rian suddenly tripped over something, sending him flying headfirst into darkness. He tried to bring his arms up to brace for the fall, to protect his eyes, but they weren’t coming up fast enough. He would hit the ground, hard, an he would land first on his head. He had been running fast. He might be knocked out. He heard a splash and was suddenly very cold.

His shirt was soaked, his short were soaked, his hair was soaked, his socks were soaked- he had fallen into the creek he ands his father had always fished at. It was fairly deep - about four feet. He had fallen on his face, but the water had softened his fall and, minor stinging aside, he was okay.

He tried to stand up straighter, fully onto his feet. The depth of the water and his soggy clothes made this painfully slow. When he was finally up, he sloshed his way up to the shore. He heard his father pushing limbs aside, closer than he expected him to be. He heard the slow slush-slush of someone trying to wade across a waist-high stream.

His stepfather was already to the creek! Rian tried disparately to pull himself up onto the high shore.

"Come’ere, kid! I gonna kill you good!"

One leg was up and he was trying to pull the rest of his body up when his ankle was grabbed and he was pulled back down into the stream.

"Got ya!"

His stepfather roughly gripped Rian by the hair and shoved his head under the surface of the water.

Rian pushed himself up quickly, gasping for breath. He kicked his legs, as hard as he could, under the water, hoping to hit his father and knock him off him. He didn’t get him once and was painfully pushed into the water again.

Rian’s legs searched for a footing so that he could push himself up out of the water. When he found none, panic started to grip him.

He wasn’t coming up. He couldn’t breath, couldn’t see. He shut his mouth tight, shut his eyes tight, and tried with all his might to kick his father off him. His stepfather tore his hair out of his head it seemed. He opened his eyes to a blurry blackness of shadows and the shifting moonlight through the water, and made his legs, instead of try to kick his father, look for a footing again. He saw dim flashes just at the outside of his vision. Suddenly his feet found a large rock and, with a renewed strength, he hurled himself upwards out of the water and gasped for the life-giving air.

In the surprising force of Rian’s fight for air, his stepfather had lost his grip on Rian and fell backwards with a cry. Gasping for air, Rian pushed his way back up to the shore and hurled his dripping body up. Without a look back, he awkwardly ran into the deep shadows before him, his wet garments slowing him down.

"Get back here!" his stepfather called after. He wouldn’t be getting out of that creek for a while.

Where could he go to get away? It would take a little bit for his stepfather to get free, but it would happen, surely. He couldn’t run forever. At least he wasn’t lost anymore.

Then he realized: beyond the beyond the fence. Rian ran faster despite soggy clothes.

In the corner of his eye, Rian saw more dim flashes. He would soon drop from exhaustion. He came up to a big oak, his big oak, that he could climb nearly to the top. He always slapped its trunk for good luck as he went by. This time, Rian forgot.

Around him the trees were getting bigger and older and gnarled. Rian rarely went this far: it was too close to the fence. His father had warned Rian to stay away from the fence; that there were things that could kill you beyond it. His grandfather had built it as a boundary, more of a warning from the things beyond than defense from them. Rian’s father never said what those things were, only that they were bad and that he should never go past the fence. Until now, Rian hadn’t.

He had no choice.

He stopped for a moment to catch his breath and listen for Carl. Rian heard a rustling of branches and cursing fairly far behind, though close enough to be still considered a threat. His head throbbed. Rian knew he was close to the fence; he hadn’t ever seen these trees. His arms ached. He aimed where he thought the fence would be. His muscles screamed in burning agony. He saw more flashes in the corner of his eye. It seemed hopeless. He ran once again.

Dodging trees and vines and prickly underbrush, Rian heard the soft pitter-patter of rain on the leaves of the trees. Good, Rian thought, it would hide his noise from his stepfather. Rian pumped his legs with renewed vigor. Rian loved rain. The way the air felt on his skin, the rain on his hair, his T-shirt. He could escape, yet!

Suddenly, Rian slammed into the shoulder-high wire fence. The force of the crash knocked the wind out of him. He heard a rib crack. The barbed wire dug into his skin, one-hundred times more painful than the thorns. His momentum flip him over, so that all of the sudden he was upside down in the air, with his head about to hit the ground with enough force to knock him out. He turned, feet-over-head, more than he thought he would and landed hard on his neck.

The whole world was suddenly still; the only sound was the softening rain hitting the treetops and dripping down on the floor. Rian’s father was gone. He had made it.

He lay in front of the fence on his back. He had cut his arms up, along with his shoulders and chest, on the fence. His old wounds throbbed; his new wounds screamed; his broken ribs made breathing painful; more blood seeped from his wounds. His entire body was exhausted.

But he had made it.

Rian still couldn’t hear anyone coming. It was dark. So dark, the darkness seemed to take form, pressing against him, filling up his entire vision. The sticks underneath him sharply pressing on his back slowly seemed to go away.. Something flashed in the corner of his eye again, brighter this time. He tried to turn his head to see, but his neck exploded in pain. Sharp pain. He tried to raise up on his elbows. Nothing happened.

Panic suddenly hit Rian like a brick wall, cutting his painful breath short. His neck. He had broken his neck. He couldn’t move. His breathing came quick. The world around him swam. The rain was warm. He shivered.

There it was again.

The flash. This time it was more in the center of his vision.

A flash of blue light; it stayed this time. It moved to in front of his face. It tickled his nose and flew in circles in front of him. He was hallucinating, he told himself. He was dying. There was another flash.

Then another.

And another.

The orbs of light appeared like stars in the night, more and more, slowly, in thousand of different colors.

The rainbow in front of his eyes swirled , dancing, swaying, pulsing, touching his flesh; his wounds.

The lights were friendly. They were healing him; saving him: his pain was slowly ebbing away. The odd orbs of every hue lit up the night, lighting up the forest, and even, it seemed, Rian’s soul.

Rian was overcome with a curious felicity. What were these Creatures of Light? They lifted his horizontal body up of the ground, soft as his mother. Rian’s eyes lit up in awe at the beautiful spectrum; even if he could he wouldn’t run away: it was beautiful. Their touch was the sweetest thing Rian had ever felt, like wind, but fresher, filled with joy, love. They caressed his wounds in their loving embrace. What were these magnificent creatures of light? Why were they helping Rian? The Lights swam before his eyes, their beautiful dance increasing in intensity. The trees around him were lit up in a myriad of colors, the air alight with the creatures’ radiant glow. Rian felt his wounds healing, the blood going away. His neck pleasantly tingled.

Rian felt his body move; not by his own force, but by the lights: he felt them gently pushing his body. He slowly drifted past trees and deeper into the dark forest. His arms hung below him, dragging across the ground; his head face up into the canopy above. Most of the pain was gone, replaced by the euphoria related with the creatures, still dancing all around him, pushing him feet first deeper and deeper. The trees became stranger, unlike ones his father had ever shown him. They towered over him, huge structures of unfathomable age; yet they were somehow not imposing, but welcoming. Their thick leaves protected him from the rain; they seemed almost to follow Rian like a green umbrella.

The lights turned his body and Rian found himself heading headfirst into a wall of green. Soft, thick furry leaves brushed against his head and down his body as he entered a small, round room of leaves. There was something in the center of the room: a trunk! Rian realized he was under a tree; beneath the welcoming limbs of the giant, silent creatures of the woods. The limbs branched out, and the leaves that sprouted out were so heavy they sank to the ground, like walls. Soft, fallen leaves formed a golden-yellow layer on the ground.

The lights slowly set him down on the comfortable floor. It was perfectly dry, despite the rain. He felt his torn t-shirt slipping of him. His shorts slid down his legs. His shoes came off. Lightning flashed, and for a split second the lights disappeared, drowned in the sudden light of the flash. When they reappeared they were even more beautiful, though softer; their lights reflected off the soft green of the leaves.

Warmth enveloped him. His whole body relaxed. His tense neck muscles loosened, his back curved a he rolled on his side, legs curled up, arms forming into the fetal position. His eyes slowly slid shut, the dance of the lights still faintly visible through his eyelids. The lights seemed to sing him a lullaby, a song of love. The light’s sweet melody filled his ears. The lights grew softer. Rian felt more secure than he had ever felt in his entire life. He thought of his mother. Consciousness slowly left Rian in a gentle trickle.

He slept.

* * *

He sat cross-legged by the warm fire in a room. In his hands rested a large mug of hot chocolate, mostly for warmth, though he was sipping on it. The room was bare. There was no door, no windows. He was alone. Or was he?

A woman, looking at the yellow flames of the fire, sat down in a soft, comfortable chair next to him. The soft glow of the fire revealed her calm face, aged too quickly, wrinkles developing around her mouth, dark circles under her eyes. He noticed a bruise on her jaw, starting to turn yellow. A tear slid down the bruise, reflecting the fire’s light. His mother was softy crying.

As the fire crackled, he saw a man appear next to her, hovering over her with an angry glare. His lip turned up in a nasty snarl. His stepfather raised his arm, fist clenched, preparing to strike his mother.

Hot rage erupted in Rian. He suddenly stood, his hand tightly gripping a knife. He raised it, feeling nothing but anger for what Carl was doing. He couldn’t do this to his mother. She didn’t deserve it.

Carl would pay.

Rian let out a cry and hurled himself at Carl with deadly intent. He shoved the knife into his ribs, took it out, then pierced Carl again. He would pay. Carl fell to the floor, still being jabbed with Rian’s knife, over and over and over again. Blood oozed onto the floor. The fire roared, flames erupting out over the fireplace, licking the walls, sharing Rian’s rage.

Suddenly Rian stopped. Carl was gone, with the blood and the knife. Rian turned and embraced his mother, her sobs rocking her body.

"Have fun!" she whispered into his ear.

Rian let go of her. He looked down at his camo pants and green T-shirt.

"You had better quit admiring yourself and catch up with your father. You don’t want to keep him waiting, do you?"

Rian looked up at his happy mother.

"No, mom. Goodbye. See you tomorrow."

He grabbed his gun and went out the door to his waiting father.

" ‘Bout time, Rian! Deer’ll all be asleep by the time you get to ‘em!"

His father and he walked into the trees, laughing. Father and son.

By dark, they had only gotten one buck. Rian’s dad set up the tent while Rian built a fire. They would spend the night there, in the woods, together. Rian and his father did this every weekend, rain or snow, cold or hot. Sometimes they took Rian’s mother. Those times with his mother, his father and him were the best; Rian would never forget them.

Rian’s father cleaned and cut the deer, finally sticking the meat on sticks to cook. The smoke rose into the canopy, dissolving in the limbs of the tall trees; embers rose high into the air on waves of heat. The roasting meat smelled delicious. Rian looked up at the sky that was mostly blocked by the leaves of the tree, searching. Through a small space where the leaves and limbs didn’t cover, Rian finally found the early stars peeking out at him. A small patch of leaves rustled in the wind.

That was odd: wind would have rustled more leaves. Rian stared into the dark shadows of the high limbs.

And something stared back.

The eyes were odd, not like an owl’s: they didn’t reflect any light.

They absorbed.

They would be impossible to see if they weren’t darker than the shadows. He could see only the two orbs of darkness; the rest of the body was hidden in the shadows, was the shadows. The creature clung to the limbs like a thick fluid, and started to slowly drip and slide across the branches of the tree and then finally down the trunk to the ground.

It leapt forward into the shadows of some tree and slowly started creeping, slithering toward Rian like an amoeba, lashing out part of it’s body to dark places then pulling itself along. Rian knew where it was only by seeing where something wasn’t: leaves gone here, the limbs disappearing a little closer, the ground just before him a dark void. It was so close Rian could hear it’s raspy breath.His father hadn’t noticed it yet.

Rian couldn’t breathe. The Shadow’s cold eyes silently stared at him, into his soul, it’s painful glare absorbing him. Rian took a step backward as the thing hurled itself at him, the massless glob spreading out at the last second to envelope him. It hit him hard to the ground. Unimaginable pain suddenly became terribly real, it’s touch was freezing agony on his skin and his painful eyes were freezing agony to his soul. He screamed, the Shadow’s cold touch becoming too much for him. Rian fell to the ground, enveloped by the Shadow, crying for his father.

His father suddenly hurled himself at the Shadow with a flaming torch. The creature screeched a horrifying cry in agony and unwrapped itself from Rian, darting for the shadows under the tree. It’s cold, absorbing eyes apprehensively stared at the fire. Rian still lay on the ground.

"Run!" his father shouted toward Rian, torch in hand, trying to keep the Shadow where it belonged. "Go home as fast as you can! I’ll follow!"

Rian looked at his father.

"Daddy..."

"Go! I’ll be OK! I’ll catch up, I promise!"

Rian’s gaze turned to the Shadow. "I can’t."

" Go! I’ll be home soon, I promise! Tell your mother to cook me some soup for when I get back!"

The Shadow thing, confidence slowly being restored, started writhing toward Rian’s father.

"But you..." Rian couldn’t leave his father.

"Go! Now! I’ll be okay!"

The Shadow was getting closer. Rian hesitated as his father waved his torch at the creature.

"Rian! Go right now!" His father turned and waved the torch at Rian. Tears streamed down his father’s face. "You’re gonna be in so much trouble if you don’t leave right now!"

Tears coming to his own eyes, Rian rose to his feet.

"Go!"

The Shadow leapt up into the air, an armless, legless mass that seemed to have no definite beginning, no definite end. It’s body avoided the shafts of silver moonlight that had crept through the tree branches above and clung to the shadows at the sides of the trees. It was spreading, in the air, flying, creeping, crawling: it was on the ground, sliding into the darkness under the dead leaves that had fallen from the trees, though it reached up to the top of the canopy, wrapping part of itself around the tall limbs. It stretched, forming a net in between; a net of dark from which nothing escaped. A terrible net of death.

That was heading straight for his father.

Rian tried to turn and run but his legs wouldn’t budge. He tried to close his eyes, but they stood, staring, mouth agape, transfixed by the horrifying sight of the shadow tearing toward his father.

His father cried and turned and swung his torch in one broad, sweeping motion, catching the center of the Shadow. The fire pierced the void, giving light to nothing. It caught fire, and instantly the flames spread outward, illuminating the entire night as the thin fingers of flame swiftly set up into the canopy and down into the ground. A horrifying cry of agony pierced the night.

And all was silent.

His father looked at Rian and smiled.

"Got it! Now let’s go. Your gonna get it when we get home: I told you to leave..."

Rian shut his open mouth. Something seemed wrong. Was it already over? Just like that? All his father had was a torch. Could that really scare away a creature of such evil? Were they safe? The pit of his stomach still warned of danger. Rian looked past his father into the trees.

And once gain, something back.

It grew, expanding, back up into the trees, mostly hidden further up in the forest, a huge void. It dwarfed his father. Rian didn’t know how it fit under the trees. It slowly circled his terrified father, enveloping him, jumping from branch to branch and sticking, looking like a piece of black cloth hanging to the ground. Neither of them could move: all was still except for the shadow’s constant writhing and circling. Rian saw his father’s terrified, bloodshot eyes look on in horror as the shadow slowly finished the circle around him.

And then it fell. From the highest reaches of the treetops, the shadow collapsed, with terrible force, onto the tiny patch of ground where his father had been. A shockwave erupted out from the force: leaves were lifted into the air a blown out radially from where the shadow had fallen. The thick limbs of the trees shook as if by some invisible, terrible wind. When the force hit Rian, it knocked him down, breathless, to the ground. A horrible roaring like a thousand trains at once swept past Rian and was slowly dissipated miles away in the woods.

Rian, on his back, lifted himself up onto his elbows. He never let his eyes stray from the spot where his father had been. It was still now.

The leaves had settled down, the limbs had ceased their swaying, the terrible roar was gone, though Rian’s ears still rang. There was a bare patched of ground where all the leaves and sticks and underbrush had been blown away from where dark shadows lingered. And then moved.

Rian screamed to his muscles Run! but they moved with agonizing slowness. The shadow’s dark eyes stared at him as his arms pushed his heavy body up onto his feet. Rian was up! The shadow extended itself into the tree’s shadows, slowly, but much to fast for Rian. He turned.

And ran.

His face brushed against trees, the underbrush tore at his legs. He ran and ran, frantically getting air into his lungs so he could run more. His heart pumped until he thought it would burst. It got darker and darker, the deeper he went into the woods. Flashes flashed in the corners of his vision, flashes telling Rian he would soon be unconscious. He didn’t know where he was going though it didn’t matter; as long as he was away from the Shadow.

Suddenly he came upon something: his tent. Had he gone in a circle? He heard the ear-shattering scream of a man in utter agony - his father- except he hadn’t just heard it. He had emitted it.

His skin froze, his eyes were locked wide-open in terror and panic, sharp pains shot down his spine.

But it wasn’t his skin that froze, it wasn’t his eyes that were open so wide, wasn’t pain that shot down his back. It was his father’s. He looked up at the void above him, and saw two terrible eyes staring back maliciously. All around him he heard terrible hissing laughter. Rian heard through his father’s ears his father try desperately to speak to the shadow.

"Wha.. wha.. What do.. . you ... want ... from me...?" The pains up his spine intensified.

"Want? Oh, you’ve got it all wrong." the Shadow’s icy voice seemed as if it would tear through his ears. "I don’t want."

His father gasped for his final breaths, fear rising, higher and higher, panic taking over.

"I need!"

His father’s heart stopped. The shadow rushed into it’s prize as Rian looked on.

"Daddy..."

He numbly felt himself running into the forest, unstopping. The darkness of the woods seemed to press against him, suffocating him. Tears streamed down his face, blending with sweat and blood.

He fell to his knees, sobbing for his father, in the depths of the forest. He closed his eyes and wept, quaking, terrified, alone.

Bereft.