Nightfall Pt. 1

Nightfall Pt. 1

The forces of darkness have gathered and risen under a common flag. Humanity no longer resists, merely struggles to survive.

The lights were out throughout the entire street. It was a sight she still wasn't used to even after living it for a decade. Her mind still clung to the memory of a world where pools of amber light fought back the darkness and everything that hid in it. She had never been afraid of the dark and despite all the things that she knew to lurk in it, she still wasn't. Still, she ached for the electric glow of her childhood that she knew she'd never see again.





The moon was full and the only reason she was still out and about after dark. She couldn't afford those fancy goggles the sweepers wore when they were out hunting the dark ones. She could defend herself alright but not if she couldn't see the enemy coming. Unfortunately, the sweepers for the other side had perfect night vision, naturally. That had made them easy to blind when they first stuck but they had proven to be quite good at taking out power sources.

Leaves crunched underfoot as she made her way down the street. She loved and hated autumn. The leaves made it hard for anything hunting her on the ground to get close without giving itself away but they also signaled the coming of the short days and long nights of the winter to come. She knew she'd survive. She'd made it by herself in that first winter without light and back then, she'd had more to worry about than the dark ones. There were so many people and all of them had been willing to do anything to survive.

Things had mellowed out since then but she still wouldn't risk having children of her own. Pregnant women made easy prey and children even more so. If only she could find that safe haven she knew had to be out there. Places existed where the dark ones would not or could not go and those were the places that provisions came from and the places that made the night-vision goggles she couldn't afford. There were places where the plight of humanity was over and that's what kept her going when her intestines rumbled for food she couldn't always provide.

The wind brushed the leaves somewhere behind her. The back of her neck erupted into a million tiny pockets of paranoia. It was just the wind. She convinced herself of that and didn't turn to look. If there was something out there, it wouldn't do any good to let it know that she knew it was there anyways.

She kept walking as the wind picked up. Leaves crashed into her face. In the brief moment when the sweet scent of decay filled her nose, she heard the unmistakable crunch of something stepping on the leaves. She didn't bother with the leaves stuck to her face as she turned and fired the gun she didn't recall drawing at the source of heat. On instinct, she fired again despite the thud on the ground. There was silence.

She shook her head, not daring to take her hands of the gun long enough to pull the sticky leaves off her. They didn't fall and she had no choice but to make a quick attempt to get them off. It worked but she was shaking, expecting at any moment to be attacked by whatever she had shot. She wasn't. The figure lay motionless on the ground.

The gun remained pointed at the body as she risked turning it over. He was human and he looked less than half her age. Her parents would have thought her horrible for being glad that it was boy she'd shot and not a monster. She would have told them that the monster would have gotten up and eaten her. They would scolded her and said there was no such thing. That boy had parents. His parents would have told him that monsters were real, dangerous, and worse than the ones he imagined. In another time, she would have been the trigger-ready maniac on the news. Now, there were no police for her to run from, only monsters that would be drawn by the smell of his life leaking from his corpse.

She wasn't used to dealing with thieves. Usually, she was the thief and generally more of a grave robber. Her lungs burned and she worried about the slap of her shoes against the cracked pavement. There wasn't enough grass growing in them to cushion the sound. That was the reason she'd chosen that street but it wasn't working out the way she thought it would. She saw a dark alley overgrown with dry weeds and dashed into it.

She drew long breaths, trying to fill her lungs to the brim despite the pain. It was only after her breathing slowed that she cursed herself for her hasty decision. She'd gone for the place on instincts that were only any good in a world where there wasn't something waiting in the dark to gobble you up. She got lucky though. She was the only thing hiding in that shaded blotch of darkness that night.

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