In the Darkness Quickening

By Jonathan Garrett

In the great, dark forest where lives the lost and hidden things, the darkness quickly approaches. Night, the dark and silent night, creeps through the towering oaks and elms on its way to places that no man has yet seen.

The bobbing light of some traveler floats gently along below the spreading branches. He is the first in a measure of time that is beyond counting. Trees creaking and groaning in the gusting wind and the soft fluttering of ghostly wings are the only sounds that break the silence.

It was here that the world began, but times change. Now it is merely a distant dream that haunts the dark recess of people’s minds. They no longer know their history or where they came from. The people were great once, the kings of Old Earth and almost like unto gods. No more, no more the realm of man is this place. It is a world of illusions and horrors that cannot be explained nor comprehended.

Ghost of the old world, and phantoms of a time that had long since passed well before those that now live were more than a whisper in the stream of time, are all that is left. It is a place that has grown wild and fierce without the influence of man’s presence.

Why then is now a mere man entering it? He’s knows, as every man knows, what this place is and he has heard tales of the things that steal softly through the trees. Shadows twist and bend in the quiet, lunar light, almost as though they have a will of their own.

The traveler stops often to consult a compass that he grips tightly in his shaking hands. He has come to this place with some purpose, but those who dwell here in secret will not allow him to fulfill it.

There is no longer any wind and the birds have quieted in their tree-top homes. It is still and silent, utterly so. The traveler looks up from his compass and glances all about, trying to see into the deep gloom of that unholy night.

Whispers come from the depths of the forest, just beyond the edge of hearing. The traveler breaks into a run, his compass held directly in front of his face. He cannot escape for this is their world; no human holds sway here.

They follow him as he runs, always keeping step with him. He breaks through the trees and into a large clearing. The traveler stops suddenly and looks up. What he sees causes him to forget entirely that he is being pursued and fills at once him with awe and wonder. The very birthplace of humanity, this is what he sees. It can be described with no other words than those.

The shadows quietly surround him and then rush in upon him. Darkness fills the world, blotting out the stars in the sky. Then they move away and drift back into the forest.

Nothing remains in the clearing save that which has always been there.