I squeeze my eyes shut and wrap myself in a tight embrace, slowly rocking back and forth. Right now, that’s all I care about. All I can care about. Not the bloated and begging questions that claw for attention. Bubbles of anxiety and fear that peek out from the shadows of my mind. They can keep their dark corners for all I care. Not the steady pulsating pain in my temples. I think it’s dehydration. I hope so. I did hit the ground pretty hard… I don’t even mind how stupid I must look, shutting myself off from the world, reduced to a caricature of distress. None of it is even worth the hint of distraction they might bring. I can’t afford half hearted attempts at diversion. Everything I have needs to be funneled towards disassociation. Oblivion. Escape.

The wind weaves through branches and grass, whispering an awful tune. Mocking. Laughing at me. I press my eyes even tighter and hunch my shoulders, trying to cover my ears without letting go of my knees. I hate it, the sound it makes around me. I want it to stop and for a brief moment it does. The moment is quickly filled with something worse. Short ragged breaths that wheeze out into the night and the muttering of an intelligible plea.

It doesn’t seem to be coming from me, and for a moment I can bask in the lie. But I know. After my screams ran out of breath and the wind lost its legs, silence reins. It looms heavy over the night and my muffled words ring out like clashing bells. The specific words are unimportant and make little sense, even to me – especially to me. They are just something to focus on, something to hold on to with a bloodless and desperate grip.

There’s an odd comfort in giving into the panic. Leaning into the steady stream of thoughtless words. A mantra for the insane. A prayer for deliverance. A distraction. What I need, for the cracks in my mind are spreading and I can only hold on for so long.

My toes curls in my shoes and I try to forget, but even with my eyes firmly shut, there’s no escape. The scene is burnt into the back of my eyelids, waiting for me with every bid to escape. It creeps closer, not the darkness, but the light. I want to be smothered in the darkness, swaddled and divorced from the world. It’s the light that pumps acid into my blood and ice down my spine. It’s the light that illuminates the shadowy corners and whispers in my ear.

It is only the blind and the ignorant that do not fear. You are neither. So look, long and well, for it will not go away because you close your eyes.

Some deep and animal part of my brain shrieks at my decision, but I have no choice. I know it’s there, dancing in the dark. The truth runs its fingers through my hair and breathes down my neck. I can’t ignore it anymore. I force open an eye and open myself back up to the night sky. My breath catches in my throat before being let out in a halting shudder.

Idiot.

I have to grab a protruding knot of root at my side to help steady myself as the blood rushes from my head. Saliva churns in my mouth, acid churns up my throat and I can’t help it; I vomit violently over the nearby roots. Preoccupied by the bitter burn in my mouth and snot dripping from my nose, I belatedly notice the whimper that escapes my lips. I don’t think I’ve ever whimpered before. I thought it was something reserved for small wounded animals, caught, broken and bleeding.

Stupid.

Yes, that’s exactly what it’s for, prey.

Me.

A nearly full harvest moon hangs large in the sky. A glowing ember that burns a hole in the night. The color of dead desert sand and the smoldering ash of a dying fire. It casts a twilight shroud over midnight shadows, painting the darkness in shaded hues of rust.

Carved into the front of this looming amber orb sits a nightmare. Haunting and surreal, a grinning face stares down at the world. Made up of craggy and too wide features it plucks at the parts of my mind that fears the things that go bump in the night. Wide eyes, large and unblinking. Smile, strained and too full of teeth. It is wrong in the truest sense of the word.

A shiver moves down my spine, making me twitch as I draw my knees closer to my chest. There is something horrid in that dead and hollow grin. Beyond the obvious and strange. A dichotomy between the horror shown and the horror hidden. A dissonance that brings a creeping disquiet, like a smile that never reaches the eyes.

Slowly, and with exaggerated care, I shuffle around the wide trunk of the tree, keeping the moon shaped visage in the corner of my sight. Quietly hoping to escape from the ghoulish countenance.

“You are right to be afraid.” says a soft voice, reaching down from above.

My body freezes and I hold my breath. My muscles clench from the awkward position I stop in, but I ignore the burning ache. Only my eyes roam, frantically sweeping around me. I want to look up but I find myself unable to commit. What if… My chest burns with the need for air and I try to breath with slow, quiet breaths. Too soon, a branch cracks above me and I flinch around from my position.

Long meandering branches twist in the night sky, empty of anything but moss, leaves and the sweeping touch of the wind. I dart my eyes side to side, trying to pinpoint the voice’s owner. Finding nothing but the pounding of my heart, I shuffle a back few steps from the tree, fists clenched and mouth dry.

“Most are not.” The voice continues from above. I whip my head towards the sound. Empty tree and still night are all that greet me. “They are fools for they have forgotten, and they have forgotten for they are fools.” The speaker pauses and I traverse a few more feet in the silence. “There is much to fear.”

A war rages inside of me. A locked struggle between competing fears. Do I pick a direction and run, or remain here? I feel on the verge of panic, but the thought of putting my back to whomever owns the voice keeps me where I am. Barely. I grab a fistfuls of grass and gaze in the direction of the unseen speaker.

There’s a certain method to dealing with fear. Sprinting up the basement stairs after turning off the lights just will not do. You need slow measured steps. Taking your time in spite of the dark. Taking your time to spite the dark. So I take my first step into the dark.

“What – who are you? Where are you?” I try to keep a steady gaze, but my eyes are drawn to every creaking branch and rustle of leaves.

The wind hums through the tree. A dancing tapestry of sound that slowly takes on form. From the soft whisper of a breeze it begins to change. Like the shifting of the seasons, a change of mood and tone over the same unchanging foundation. A song emerges, skipping quietly through the night. A whistling tune, lonely and alone.

My head cocks to the side. There’s something… off about the melody. Something that beckons with a crooked finger, hinting at what should be.

I can almost feel it. A haunting discord in the notes that grabs my attention and spins around my mind. The night stretches and contracts along with the song, along with me.

It should be a happy song – it almost is. The wrong key. An unexpected note. It teases a smile, but never quite gets there. Close, like a song slowed down half a step.

A frown settles on my face and I’m so wrapped up in the music that I nearly miss it. As the tune fades away into the wind, a figure fades into view. On a horizontal run of branch high above my head, legs dangling in the air, sits a masked woman. White and smooth except for two half moon crescents where her eyes should be. They leave her eyes in shadow and dominate the otherwise empty mask.

The masked woman gently kicks her legs back and forth in the air and I get the feeling there is a smile behind the disguise.

“Hello, little dreamer. This is a poor night to be alone.” Her voice has an odd tone to it, as if she were trying not to laugh. The mask moves towards the night sky and her voice takes on a musical cadence. “A poor night to be alone, but a worse one to be lost. Tonight is special. The Amber Lantern is in full strength and it draws us close. Beckoning with one hand and grabbing with the other. Do you feel it? The Heart’s Door is open and calling for blood.”

I follow her gaze and flinch when I see the object of her attention. For a blissful moment, I had forgotten about the looming presence in the night sky. If anything, the small stretch of relief makes the snapback all the more jarring. Its unsettling smile seems wider with strain. It’s empty eyes deeper and darker than before. My heart thuds in my chest, pushing and pulling my blood in grating strokes. I quickly turn back to the woman in the tree, but she’s not there.

“A gift.”

I flinch back when I realize the masked woman is no longer up above. I cartwheel my arms and try to keep balance, but I tip too far and hit the ground. She stands in front of me, leaning against the tree, where I had been only a few minutes ago. Hands behind her back, hair dancing lazy pirouettes in the wind, she whistles a quick refrain. The hair stands up on the back of my neck as she finishes her piece, a mocking tune.

Carefully, eyes never leaving the figure in front of me, I stand up from my seat on the grass. I chance a slow step backwards, but the masked woman doesn’t react. I take another and she moves, but only to move her head a bit to the side.

A sharp whistle threads the air, but not from the woman. The gentle breeze from earlier is gone, replaced by something more insistent. A push where before it was a touch. My hair and clothes catch the wind and blow around me ever so slightly. The branches above me strain and creak while the wind begins to shriek.

My stomach churns and lightning races through my limbs. The air feels heavier than before, laced with anticipation and change. Held tight with a mounting strain.

Movement draws my eye down. The masked women brings her arms out from behind her back. Rusty moonlight reflects off of sharp steel and I turn to run.