7days7authors

Saturday - The Dark One - Jacob Martinez

It wasn’t always there, The Dark One, not like the others which had always been, who were attached and could not be forced out. It wasn’t always there, but it came after moons of wishing and wanting and needing. It came, first to her room, and at first was entirely confined there, unable to leave the threshold of her doorway, but soon it grew stronger, and bolder, and was able to follow her completely, although its new power wasn’t so much needed. She stayed in her room most of the day, only leaving for trips so necessary such as school, but even so, she would sometimes dress and walk outside and instead of waiting there at the bus stop, would walk right by it and loop around and enter again through her window, and her mother was never the wiser.
The others hurt them, in that house.
The others clawed and tore at them,
gnawed and flayed and some people
who had lived there before didn’t escape.
The others tore and they bled and lay on the ground
and died there in that house. And they became
like the others, and craved nothing but flesh,
and had no desire but to destroy those who 
dared invade their house, their rightful home.
They could not be heard, though they constantly screamed, and it was the beginnings of this activity that affected her so greatly, and shut her up in her room, curled on her bed, crying. It was then that her wishes came true, and it came. The Dark One, while her mother was downstairs trying to drown out the sounds of their screams (for she was able to hear them), it came, and guided her hand to a blade which pressed against her arm again and again and again cutting, and for that moment she could feel, and it felt glorious, and The Dark One strengthened. It protected her there, in that room. It kept the others out, it kept her mother out, it kept all things out but her and her feeling.
It came, made of darkness, it helped her feel that which she had not felt, and it protected her, until she felt no more.