The Light Hungers

It has been the way of things since the dawn of time. Evil has always been birthed by darkness. The strong feed on the weak and the lesser. Not always for survival, but sometimes, just to revel in its cruel power. To inflict suffering for the sheer pleasure of it. Though the methods and locations may change over the long eons, the story is always the same.

The creature crept from the shadows towards the little girl. For the last few hours, it had toyed with her, meticulously building her fear to deliciously intoxicating levels. The darkness was strength, power, and the creature’s to command. Patiently it watched her the last two nights, learning her hopes and fears. Oh, how it loved to let its victims desperately grasp at hope after playing on their fears for a while. Then letting them feel a hint of relief before snatching it away. Crushing them under the weight of their terror when it moved in for the kill. As the creature got closer, it could see her trembling under the blanket.

“Always the same,” smiled the creature, “hiding under their blanket as if it could keep out the darkness or shield them from my claws.”

Slowly the creature cut the blanket with its black talons, careful to only graze her soft vulnerable flesh. Its mouth watered as it waited for the inevitable scream to burst forth from its sobbing victim. The creature always delighted in when its victims finally realized at the end, that prey has no hope.  The creature readied its claws for the strike, pausing only momentary, to build and savor the dread in its prey before dealing the first one.

“You think you’re so strong,” whispered the tiny voice under the shredded blanket.

Stunned by her words, the creature recoiled and pulled back its claw as if burned by them. Confused by this unexpected behavior, the creature perked up its ears and listened intently. It wasn’t the first time its prey’s fight-or-flight response triggered aggression towards it. There have been times when a mother tried to protect her children or when a man tried to protect his mate. But even on those rare occasions, it was only done out of desperation, and never from such a tiny morsel.

All those false heroes, filled with their fleeting and desperate courage. They were nothing more than a delicacy to the creature, and their despair was seasoning for its meal. They were merely a plaything to disembowel and leave alive long enough to watch it savor the agony of those they failed to protect.

“You think the darkness you wield as a weapon makes you powerful…,” continued the tiny voice.

It was then the creature realized the morsel wasn’t trembling with fear, but giggling!

“…but darkness is weak. It’s nothing more than the absence of light…”

Desperately the creature lashed out at the girl.

“…and held at bay by the smallest and most delicate of flames” said the little girl, halting the creature’s blow with nothing more than a small spark held in the palm of her hand.

Howling in pain and rage the creature clutched its wounded claw to its chest, frantically looking for an opening to end the girl. This was no longer a hunt or a game, but a fight for its survival. “I am not birthed from the darkness; I am darkness incarnate” raged the creature. Shadows from around the room gathered to suffocate the now growing ball of light in the girl’s hand.

“I have hunted and devoured countless lives, feasting on their fear and despair, from time immemorial. Do you think I fear your simple parlor tricks little morsel” sneered the creature. The shadows now blanketed the light, dimming it, giving creature the opening it needed.

The little girl looked up at the creature and smiled, “You still think of this vessel as your prey? I would think something as old as you would be wise enough to know the difference between prey and bait.”

Light poured from the little girl’s body, flooding the room with its brilliance. Searing pain tore into the creature with greater savagery then anything it had ever experienced driving it back under the bed. Huddled in the last remaining shadow under the bed, the creature shook with terror and pain as the light continued to creep towards it to consume its remaining flesh.

In its last moments of existence, the creature sobbed to itself, “light feeds on darkness… light feeds on darkness… light fe…”

Another time, another place. All though the cast may change but the story is still the same.

After carefully cutting the screen out of the window a serial killer quietly slipped inside the sleeping child’s bedroom and silently crept across the room to where the little boy was hiding under the blanket. The killer smiled at the thought of the parent’s finding their precious child butchered by her hand, and savored the pain she knew they would feel. As she readied her ax to paint the room in the blood of her newest masterpiece she heard a tiny voice giggle from under the blanket “You think you’re so strong…”

Credit : Rob Graves