Light's Demons

WARNING!! MAY BE SCARY!!

Light never spoke. Nobody ever asked why. Not that she'd answer.

She was not dumb. She could write. In fact, she carried a pad of paper and a black pen
everywhere. But she didn't. Instead she drew shapes. Strange shapes. Shapes that curled,
twisted, slithered, crept, writhed on the page without ever moving an inch. She used a new
sheet every day.

Her parents were quite proud of her, for reasons known by all parents. But Light, who was
not her name, scared all who saw her. Something lurking behind her black eyes seemed to
warn all to stay back, run, save yourself. And they did. Everybody gave Light a wide berth.

Her parents wanted to exhibit Light's drawings, but they couldn't. At the end of every day she
ripped them into a million pieces and threw them into the fireplace. After that, she gave a
satisfied smile, and crawled to bed, slowly, excruciatingly, as if something had sucked all
energy out of her. And the next morning at breakfast she would start a new drawing.

But finally the day came when a lonely man who wanted a dance parter asked her at a small
Halloween party at her parent's house, "Light, what do you draw?"

Light looked up and locked eyes with him. It was a thoroughly disconcerting experience. He
felt like she was examining his mind with her piercing, haunted black gaze, sorting through
every thought, deciding if he was worthy to know her secret. Finally she spoke, barely more
than a whisper, for the first time since she was three and told her parents she saw a black
shadow by the window.

"I could tell you. But it might kill you."

Might. Curiousity overcame him. "Tell me," he murmured.

"Demons." The word came like a death toll. "I can see them, and only I. I bear the burden for
the world. And I must keep the world safe. They do not know. If only they did! Demons, lurking
everywhere, black and slithering, ready to take over the world and feed on your soul. I draw
them, every one, and destroy them in the night. It keeps me sane, keeps me alert, as if I slip I
will fall to them. And it weakens them, somehow. I do not know why." He was starting to feel
oddly numb. "Ignorance is your only escape. Once you know them, they have a way in. That
is all they need. I am the only one strong enough to hold them back." He was starting to hurt.
All over. The world was fading... The last thing he heard was Light saying in her weak little
voice, "I am sorry."

********
Happy Halloween!

(originally posted on Indie's blog, The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy, under the Halloween picture. There it shows under my old pseudonym Talespin. Posted here by request.)