Within the Darkness

[This story is a work of fiction. Any likeness to real people and events are likely unintentional and coincidental. This story contains graphic depictions/descriptions of gore and violence as well as other adult themes that are not suitable for all readers such as sexual themes and more.]

Nighttime, somewhere deep in the woods, a panicked woman is running for her life from something in the moonlit darkness. She keeps looking back and letting out various sounds of panic or screaming. She trips over a root only to scramble up and continue running. In the darkness something is stalking her, hunting her, chasing her. It moves silently and unimpeded by the trees and branches.

Blackness, accented by gentle beams of purple from the sky. A silhouette of a woman running among the outlines of the trees. Every time she takes a step and the sound of the impact echoes, ripples of distortion wave out on the ground from where her foot lands like waves in a lake. Her body heat stands out amongst the dark green and brown of the plants around her. The dull colors of nature subdued into the background as the predator focuses solely on its prey. Ever closer now, ever nearer. The clumsy woman trips again, losing her right shoe. Low heels, platform. Not exactly made for deep woods running off the trail. Especially at night.

She turns herself around to face her pursuer, sliding backwards on the ground with one hand, kicking her feet at the ground and digging it up as her other hand waves in protest to the same rhythm of her head shaking in equal protest. But no thoughts seem to be given to the plight of the woman as black tendrils of solidified shadowy darkness coil around her limbs and torso. She begins to scream and struggle against them but it is no use. The ripples of distortion move through the air as the more intense sound waves vibrate the predatory creature in a way it finds unpleasant.

It begins to pull at her arms and legs, her screams and struggles becoming more intense. The sonic vibrations are now somewhat painful for the creature but it powers through it in desperation brought about by a deep insatiable hunger. It pulls with all its might doing its best to ignore the screams of pain and the discomfort they bring it. A loud ripping sound can be heard, followed by an intense and sudden pop, then by even more ripping as the screams reach an ungodly volume and the right leg is torn free from its socket at the hip. Blood dripped fast from the wound.

Crunching sounds emanate from the creature as the limb is brought into the shadowy mass that is its main body. The screaming and struggling continue as more ripping is now heard. Again followed by a sudden pop and more ripping as now the left arm comes free at the shoulder and enters the main body of the creature with a series of crunching sounds. Done dealing with the pain brought to it by the woman's screams it finally moved a tendril from her body and wrapped it around her head. There is a sudden jerking twist followed by a loud snap. The woman goes limp, finally silent. The creature rips off her head and continues munching it's hard earned prey. Ungodly crunching sounds echoing into the moonlit forest.

James wakes up with a start, covered in cold sweat and breathing heavily. He calms himself down before going to the bathroom sink and using it to splash water on his face before looking in the mirror at his own pale skin and the intense dark circles under his eyes. He groans as he dries off his face with a small towel before brushing his teeth. Still groggy he gets dressed and heads to the door. There he puts on a hoodie and picks up a backpack before going back and grabbing a cream cheese beagle off a table before heading out. He hops onto a yellow school bus and off it goes.

It was a warm June morning and the monotony of what little schoolwork there was at the end of the year made the day feel slow. With the final bell James grabbed his backpack and headed out the door. Rather than get on the bus he walked to a black jeep where a man in a suit opened the door for him and pointed at the back seat. James grumbled and groaned before getting in. The man in the suit then drives James to a somewhat large but bland looking building. The man then leads James into the building and to a door. After opening it for James and gesturing into the room, James enters with a sigh and the man closes the door behind him from the outside.

In the room there is a leather chair and a classic therapy couch. In the chair a man in glasses holding a clipboard sits with his legs crossed. He gestures to the couch. “You know the drill Mr. Holden.” James makes his way over and gets into the couch as the man flips through his notes. “Happy belated birthday Mr. Holden. Finally eighteen. Once you have graduated from high school these meetings will no longer be mandatory. Let's see here… James Holden, 18, male, Caucasian. Suffered from chronic nightmares starting in the first grade. Sorry if I have to play catch-up, the person that was originally assigned to you is on leave.”

James sighs. “It's fine really. Considering I had a relapse last night I don't object to starting from the beginning.” The therapist nodded and adjusted his glasses. “Okay then. I'll let you ease into it by telling me about the incident.” James took a few breaths. “Well it was a long time ago so my memory is fuzzy on a lot of the details but I'll go through what I remember and then I'll let you know when we shift to the content of the nightmare.” The therapist tested his pencil and got ready to take notes. “Ready when you are Mr. Holden.”

“I was around five years old at the time, in the first grade. We were having a sort of “learn on-site” field trip. The school wanted it to be a camping thing overnight to learn about nature or whatever. We would hike, set up tents, and learn survival tips. Scout kid stuff. The schools here really like adding practical long term life lessons to the curriculum whenever possible. Highschool even has an elective that teaches you how to do taxes, balance a checkbook, and other such things. There is another elective class that teaches work experience. Anyway, everyone got their parents to sign off and we were divided into groups of three to five people with each group having the parent of one of the kids as a chaperone. Then they would always have two groups and two adults moving together with groups swapping what group they were paired with from time to time.”

The therapist nods. “Sounds like an interesting and informative trip. I assume they had you identify bird and tree species or something.” James nodded. “Yeah. Identifying as many animals we spotted as we could. Real hands on learning Ranger Scout kind of stuff. I think the teacher was also a scout leader so him adding a Ranger Scout trip for students wasn't abnormal.” The therapist nods. “Okay, continue.”

James once again took in a few deep breaths. “I don't really clearly remember much from the trip. I spent a lot of time just chatting and joking with other kids. Goofing off and being a normal five year old. Nothing out of the ordinary. It started getting dark and we set up tents and…” James’ hand starts to shake as his voice also shakes. “I remember hearing screaming from a kid in the middle of the night. The chaperone got out of the tent to check it out telling us to stay out. After waiting for what felt like forever and still hearing screaming, now with adult voices joining in, I left the tent. I don't remember if I wanted to investigate or simply run for my life but everything after that is a blur. Next thing I remember I was covered in blood, sitting in an ambulance with a blanket over me. Too scared to even speak to the police and military people that were there. I was one of the few to survive.”

The therapist goes a bit pale. “What happened?” James shifted around on the couch. “The cop said it was a rabid bear that either contracted something similar to rabies or got into a drug stash. Tore up anything and anyone that happened to be in its general area. Thing was declared dangerous enough to deploy the National Guard or something I guess because why else would military people be there. But as a kid my idea of what happened was… different. And what I imagined to have happened kept haunting me in my sleep. The nightmares eventually stopped but recently they've come back.”

The therapist takes a few notes. “Tell me about the dream, then maybe we can come up with a few ideas as to what could have caused this relapse.” James took a few shaky breaths. “In the dream it wasn't some bear. It was a monster. An honest to goodness monster. The thing was hard to see, like it was made of shadows. Though I know now that shadows and darkness are just the absence of light and not a physical thing. In my nightmare, this shadow entity is what ripped apart all the students, teachers, and parents that died that day. It grabbed them like some sort of giant floating octopus made of shadows and it… it quartered them in the way one would split a wishbone. The sounds of fabric and flesh ripping, the sound of bones breaking and joints being forcefully popped out of sockets, the sounds of screaming and blood splashing onto the trees, rocks and grass.”

James paused to take a number of rapid shaky breaths as he recalled his recurring nightmare. “It… was eating them. Pulling the severed limbs into itself and consuming them. I saw as one of my fellow students, a Japanese American girl named Yuri, was grabbed from behind and snapped in half like a twig right in front of me before she was split in two splashing her blood all over me. I fell backwards and back up into a tree as the mass of shadow covered over me blocking out what little light there was in the majority of my vision leaving me in almost complete darkness. Then, I felt a strange sensation of serenity wash over me. I was going to die, there was nothing I could do about it. Resistance was futile. So I simply… gave up. I chose not to fight it and suddenly it was like all my fear of death washed away.”

The therapist took more notes. “You embraced the end as inevitable and saw fearing something you could not change as pointless. An illogical waist of energy.” James nodded. “Something like that. The monster paused above me, as if it could sense the change in me. It could feel fear and the sudden absence of it within me. It seemed to abandon seeing me as food and now saw me as a curiosity. An anomaly. Something to study. It seemed to observe me and look me over for some time. Hesitant to kill me for some reason. It then slowly reached out a shadowy tentacle to my face. Poking at it gently as if trying to get a reaction. I just sat there, frozen, unable to move and waiting to die. It prodded my mouth a few times before forcing itself into it. Sliding down my throat causing me to choke and start suffocating. But even then I did nothing. Then a bright spotlight hit the creature. I heard what could only be described as a scream as it recoiled in pain and ran off.”

The therapist took even more notes. “So the creature of darkness was naturally weak to light. It stopping to study you because of your unique reaction bought time for a rescue. However, that's not what really happened, is it?” James shook his head. “No, because there is no such thing as monsters. Darkness can't take a physical form and attack people. Although I don't remember what really happened, it was likely as the police said. A coked up and diseased bear having a bad trip taking it out on anything that moved. I probably never even saw the thing and passed out from the shock of seeing a dead body in bloody pieces. The bear then assumed I was dead and moved on. My body automatically played possum leaving me one of the few people to walk out of there alive.”

The therapist jots down more notes. “Do you have any ideas as to why the nightmares returned now of all times?” James shrugged. “School stress. I'm about to graduate and go out into the wide world. It's a scary place out there and sometimes it feels like I'm being pulled in a bunch of different directions by the people in my life. Many of whom just want what they think is best for me. I feel lost sometimes, without clear direction. I'm bumbling around in the dark while being metaphorically torn in a dozen different directions. It feels like everyone has these expectations of me and I don't even know if I want to fill any of them.” The therapist nods. “You just want to find your own path. It's understandable at your age to feel this way. I'm honestly not surprised you've had this relapse. I suggest you find a goal you want to pursue. Work at it. Don't ignore the pulls but you don't have to follow them. Acknowledge them and make it known you won't go that way. Talk to the people in your life about how you feel. Hopefully the nightmares will fade again. Because unfortunately when you graduate we will no longer be offering our service for free.”

James sighed. “Yeah, the good ol’ government fit the bill for these mandatory visits. Unfortunately, needed or not, I doubt I'll be able to afford it. You charge more an hour than I'll be lucky to make in a week.” the therapist chuckled “Yeah, and it doesn't help that most insurance companies don't cover mental health things. They are not considered “necessary” or get labeled as a pre existing condition. Because God forbid you actually get to use the insurance you paid for.” Jemes nodded. “Is my hour up yet? I'd like to go home. My English teacher thought it would be funny to issue a large assignment with like two weeks of school left.” The therapist looks at the clock. “I mean I get paid for the full hour whether you use it or not. I'm supposed to keep you for all of it but if you want to skip out early just this once I won't tell anyone if you don't. You only have one or two more sessions anyway.” he signs something on a piece of paper and hands it to James.

James looks at it. “You're prescribing me sleep aids?” The therapist nods. “I wrote in a number of refills so it should last three months. Since I issued it now it's covered. No out of pocket cost.” James takes the paper and puts it in his pocket. “Thanks, I guess.” The therapist nods while paging through His notes. “A car will be waiting outside to take you home.” James exits the room where a man in a suit escorts him back to the black jeep. Once in the backseat the man in the suit drove James back home. Feeling extremely hungry he made himself a nice big plate of spaghetti and meatballs for himself. Once that was done he opened his backpack and started working on his end of the year English project.

After spending several hours on the project, James gets a quick snack before settling into his bedroom to relax by watching TV for a bit before going to bed. He tosses and turns several times trying to get comfortable before eventually settling in and actually trying to doze off. James sat still with his eyes closed, laying on his back with a pillow over his face for what felt like a small eternity before finally going to sleep. Once asleep he began to toss and turn restlessly in his sleep as his dreams were haunted by the horrors of the past. Images of the terrible monster his childish mind created to fill the gaps in his memory flashing before him in his dream. James was never the same after that.

On the therapist's clipboard several notes about how James: “went from the most outgoing extroverted child anyone ever knew to a quiet shell that sat in the back corner trying not to be bothered.” “Has difficulty connecting to others.” “Creates a wall and distance as a sort of protection, refusing to get close to people.” “Is continually haunted by the tragic and sudden death of multiple people that he may or may not have witnessed first hand.” “Is dealing with repressed memories and emotions that are resurfacing due to external stresses.” “Does not blame himself or hold himself accountable for the tragic deaths, shows little to no signs of survivors guilt.” “Shows no signs of having developed or developing Nyctophobia despite the nightmares of early childhood.” “Tests show zero fear response to stimulation from images and exposure of dark rooms, bears,  or extreme gore.” “Shows no signs of violent tendencies and shows signs of empathy when shown images of suffering from a living person. Shows no such signs of empathy when shown images of people already dead. Low risk for psychopathic or sociopathic behavior. Continued treatment: unnecessary.” “Naturally suffers from sleep issues like insomnia, prescription for sleep aid provided.”