The girl faces the setting sun on the edge of the cliff. The ledge dives down sharply into the oceans’ scarlet folds. The sun bled into the water, sinking slowly while casting a cracking bloodred path across the surface. Orange and pink clouds kissed the sky, darkening along the horizon to a spine-tickling midnight blue. The girl stared silently at the falling sun as it departed with its magnificent fading light. Her eyes reflect the fire it leaves behind, her thick blonde hair billowing out behind her, the white cloak following its example. Her simple T-shirt and shorts under the cloak seemed to insult her majestic figure as it turned to walk along the edge of the cliff. Her watchful green eyes scanned the horizon impatiently, anticipatingly, fearfully, searching. As the sun’s greatest rays eventually fade away, darkness slam down on the sky like a tiger onto its prey. The cowardly light flinched away from the never-ending darkness as it took its toll on its side of the earth. The sun’s shift was over, and the night was here for the next one. You watch her silently, not being able to move even if you wanted to. You were frozen in place as freezing cold winds pulsed like a heartbeat across the land. You wish to shiver, to feel those pricks of unease to travel up your limbs, but you cannot do so. You stare as moonlight becomes the only source of light in the shadow-ridden scene. You watch as her hair’s beautiful blonde shades become darker, more menacing, melting into a more black. Her skin pales to a grey, an illusion of the tan peach color simply melting away. The cape-ish cloak became black, burning at the edges all around. She turns around. You finally understand; you finally know why she was fearfully waiting for the sun’s light to die. Your eyes run over her once beautiful features; Her eyes are red, a single slit of black down each eye’s middle. Her teeth, once simply straight and flat, are now sharp and menacing. Two fangs at the front singled out themselves; they went a quarter of the way down to her chin. Her feet leave the ground and she levitates two feet into the air, towering above you. This wasn’t a normal girl. She raises a hand and traces out the letters, backwards to you; A, B, I, K. Abik? No, wait. She raised a finger and twirled it in a circle, the sparking red letters twisting around to spell “KIBA.” That must be her name. She smiles, more of a fanged sneer, and lunges at you; then it was over, and you wake up in your bed, drenched in a cold sweat. You are tangled in your sheets. That can’t have been just a nightmare; it felt so real. That girl seemed to be the very face of darkness. And she had risen. Before that, she’d feared the dark rising. Rising. Now you know. Darkness doesn’t fall;
it Rises.
By Arika F
