(October Project– started 2021)

In a land plagued with eternal night, where no stars shine in the sky, candles are the only source of light for many villages; anywhere else is in complete, utter darkness.
To the residents of this world, darkness isn’t just where the unknown find solace.
Darkness, in this world, is where monsters hide to ambush their victims.

It is best to drive darkness away from anywhere anyone would deem safe.

This is what she knew.

Valda was raised her whole life knowing this. She was taught, it was stressed to bring a candle wherever one goes. To keep a pocketknife in one’s satchel, just in case.
To never, ever stray too far from the light.

What she didn’t know, was why.

Why would the unknown be so dangerous?

Had there been someone who knew it before?

Someone vile, perchance?

As she meandered through the town of her home, the questions were abundant. They could never be asked. They would be forbidden.
Nobody would know these things, they say.
They lie.

The candle inside the lantern she brought everywhere was burning brightly, showcasing its embers for all to see. The flames were blue, blue as an aquamarine crystal. Having a blue flame was a sign of luck.

Her long, black hair was hidden behind her cloak, the cloak given to her by her father, just as he left for living somewhere else, somewhere farther from the manor.
What was wrong with the manor, nobody knew.

Anymore, that is.

There was a legend someone walked inside it, and never returned. Whether or not it was true, nobody would dare to guess. It was what Valda knew for sure, that nobody was courageous enough.
Fear was quite a normal piece of life in the Midnight Stasis realm.
Did it have to be?

Nobody dared to guess.

As she stealthily pulled her hood over her head, preparing to leave the village, she knew she would try her hardest to be the first to figure all this out; to find where the dawn left the world.
She had her pocketknife. She had her candle. She had her cloak.
Preparation was only a relative concept.

Maybe she wasn’t prepared.

That wouldn’t matter. She’d catch them by surprise.

The sky was its usual void black that day.
Was it even a day at this point?

The darkness was punctured by her candle as well as all the other candles in the world. It only made it to look like little fallen stars in the grass, but it was worth the price of wax. Survival was worth the price of a little wax. As she walked away, the candles were faded in the distance, and they eventually disappeared. Her blue flame was all that was left.
The haze was turning everything else obscure. Valda didn’t know the difference between the shades of gray; she never had that sort of power. Her father always said he did.

Maybe it would have been useful to bring him along.

No, she thought, because then he would beg me to turn back.

The village disappeared over the horizon, blocked out by trees, as she entered the forest that preceded the manor. The haze made most of the landscape obscure.

Valda illuminated the forest with her candle, but it was little help in a night with no stars and no moon–a world that was shrouded in darkness that even a sun could not penetrate. She wanted to be ready for whatever she would approach–whatever was hiding in that manor that her father was so afraid of.

Maybe she could cure the world of its night.

Was she ready?
The question is left in the air.

She found the manor–a dilapidated place. It had started to rain by the time she found it. The haze surrounded the house, like it was guarding it from her; there was not a single light on inside. Not one.
The red door looked like it was falling apart. Its red coloration did not look like paint, but maybe that was the mystery of the manor…?
One of the windows was gone. The entire house was made of wood, wood that looked like it dated back hundreds of years. Planks bent over, revealing small peeks of the interior. Shingles of the roof falling off with every gust of wind. Valda wondered how it managed to stand strong.

Curiosity was the drive of her adventure, after all.

The door was off of its hinges. Valda looked at her small pocketknife in a pocket on her cloak, before pushing the door aside; the hallway was as dark as the windows were implying.
She wondered if she was ready.
Preparation is a relative thing.

Walking inside, she readied both her lantern and her pocketknife, listening to every noise she could hear.
Despite it appearing abandoned, she was certain, it was obvious there was someone in the house. She heard a focused muttering from upstairs.
The rumored owner of the house, perhaps.
Preparation is a relative thing.

Maybe she wasn’t ready.

She couldn’t fathom it, of course.