Prompt #6: First Steps
You will walk out into the night, and through the forest.
Milo sat still, eyes closed in a dark and quiet room. There was nothing in here but him, a book, a wine-red crystal and a flickering, lit candle. The stygian darkness was not pushed away, and instead the flame was a ring of warm half-brightness that enclosed almost all of the man.
It was dead silent, the Dark drank in the sound of his breathing. The book was explicit on this, here. To open his eyes was to sever the possibility that there was more here. And in Milo’s mind’s eye there was the room, the well of light and the Dark. And against his back there was someone else.
“Why?” He asked, this someone who was probably not there at all.
Because you want to feel the darkness, to know the shape of it. The book shows you this pretty little picture, doesn’t it?
“It… Shows me something.”
It shows you what I am, hidden in the edge of vision. But the only way to know the feel of me is to touch without the gloves. The book agrees, doesn’t it? It showed you how to do this. It showed you the next step.
“You want to hurt me.”
So many things want to hurt you, or can hurt you. You already know that. That’s not why you’re hesitating. You want to—
The nothing cuts off, as Milo takes up the tattered tome and snaps it shut. The candle goes out, and rather than the devouring dark there’s the silvery glow of the moon through a window, and the dull redness of the soul crystal. The young man opened his bright green eyes, with a slow sigh.
-
The book was… Compelling. Milo made sure he was checked before he indulged temptation, to make sure this was no voidsent trick or terrible curse playing on his soul. Not that it ruled it out. But oh, the need to know. The book was clear on the nature of this power, the forces that lurked in darkness. Not evil, nor good. Powerful but so, so dangerous. And the only way to use them, to know them?
Reach in and take it.
Milo steps out of the cabin as the moon is hidden behind cloud. It was dark now, and not even his night vision helped him in this remote crop of forest. He hovered on the doorway, fear holding him for a heartbeat before the weight of inevitability bayed him take the next step. He wore nothing, held nothing but the soul crystal. Each step was an effort of a more mundane sort as he gingerly picked his way across the rocky, uneven ground without cutting his feet open. The act became a sort of meditation. He was alone in the dark, with just the next step in front of him, and the next, and the next, and the—
Presence behind him. In his minds eye? Or in truth? The shadow of his soul, the darkside, his inner truths. Each footstep was heavy, too large. The breath long and harsh and… Animal. The sound of claws creeping over wood.
Milo spent another heartbeat held by fear, before once more inevitability caused him to turn around and see something the light would never touch.
-
Milo stepped out of the cabin again, into crisp morning air, the sun rising over the Shroud and pushing back the early, curling fog. He stood there for some time, just… Watching. He reached up, rubbed his bright amber eyes and began his trek home.
