Fading Light
From what I was told, it happened on a chill, autumn evening; right when the tip of the sun vanished below the horizon. I can still remember the picturesque sunset: the remaining rays painted the edge of the sky a gentle pink, until the darkness of night slyly consumed the pretty color into a menacing purple-gray. I tried shriveling in my toddler seat, but no matter how low I got, the darkening atmosphere was still watching me.
“Daddy, it’s getting dark out. Can I have your phone to make it brighter?” My sister spoke out in the growing darkness.
“For the fourth time, no. We’re almost home,” my dad spoke harshly. I didn’t know whether to be afraid of the monster that crept around our car or of my own dad.
I peeked over at Mom. Her body laid motionless against the seat and her head was leaning onto her right next to the window. It looked like she was asleep.
“You never let me do what I want!” My sister shouted. My toddler brain couldn’t really tell if she was fully frightened or angry. All the tension in the car made me wish Dad would drive faster and get into the safety of our home, but all I could do was close my eyes and suck on my thumb.
The comfort of my own thumb lowered down my pumping anxiety for a couple of minutes until my seat suddenly held me back from being flown forward. We were spinning in what felt like a big circle. I instinctively let out a scream which harmonized with my older sister’s, our voices bouncing inside the car. The car slammed into something hard on our right and my window was facing the ominous creature that covered the sky. My growing brain knew that wasn’t normal.
The only way I could somehow comfort myself then was crying. Once the tears left my eyes, I noticed that they fell toward my sister, when they were supposed to fall down my face. My tear made the tiniest splat on her cheek. She looked up right at me. I can never forget the traumatizing fear that filled her vivid green eyes.
“Mommy! Daddy! Help!” I screamed at them.
I watched as my father carefully shook Mom, who still seemed unconscious.
Her body slowly moved, and her eyes opened. Her brown eyes—that were different from Dad’s, Stella’s, and my green irises—appeared exhausted with fatigue, but leisurely gained consciousness from the growing horror that pulsed in the car. “What’s… going on?” She asked, moving forward. She still sounded groggy, but not as much as when Dad had to pick her up earlier. Her movement made the car wobble, tipping us back and forth over the cliff.
“Nobody move,” Dad said sternly. I couldn’t understand the rest of his words over my crying. He looked over at me. Through my blurry, tear-filled eyes, I stared into his. They were completely concrete. They penetrated my shaking soul with a wave of reassurance, just how an anchor can secure a ship in the middle of a storm.
His calm, determined face hushed my crying. “Sweetie, calm down. Everything will be okay,” he spoke to me softly. It’s fascinating how he was stiffer in a calm situation, but soft in a dangerous one. He looked at the rest of my family. “We’re going to be alright. I’ll call 9-1-1, and they’ll tell us what to do.”
As I watched him press the bright buttons on the screen of his phone, a car door slammed shut on our left. A gasp escaped out of the throats of me and Stella. My heart was racing a million miles an hour. I swear I could feel it thumping against the skin of my own chest. A bright light illuminated the sky, followed by a soft boom that echoed across the land.
Raindrops began falling onto my window, making soft tink sounds as they landed on the glass above me. Just above my tilted window, I could see a balding head with patches of white hair. The person approached the car and stood a couple of feet before us. I wanted to lean up to see who it was, but I was so afraid that if I made one slight movement, I would be sending us down.
“Dad! Help us!” Dad shouted out in desperation from his lowered window.
The figure came closer to the car. Once I was able to see more of his features, I immediately recognized the stranger’s face. It was Grampy. He appeared as though he was about to approach Dad’s door but stopped.
“Dad! What are you doing? Why are you just standing there?!” My father yelled. The confidence in his voice from earlier evaporated.
“You knew you were going to get this one day,” Grampy’s familiar voice rattled into my ears. Another boom cracked across the sky; it sounded louder than the last one.
“What the hell are you talking about? Just help get us out!”
“Why should I help you when you’re still putting my granddaughters’ lives in danger?”
“Pop, we talked about this multiple times,” Mom spoke to him, gaining awareness of what was occurring. “Once Franklin and I were out of rehab, that’s when we would be able to take the girls back. You did everything you could to watch over them, and we appreciate it.”
“You had your chance to become sober before you went to rehab. You were both told by your therapists to at least go one week without alcohol. But no, you couldn’t control yourselves. I saw how drunk you were when you picked Stella and Larissa up from my house. I practically screamed at you, Frank, to hand me the car keys, yet you acted like a selfish brat and beat me to a pulp, all from your drunk stupidity. I’m surprised I even survived.” Grampa seethed.
Stella whispered to me, “Daddy beat up Grandpa,” and made the motion of her fist meeting her face.
My fear toward my father came rushing back. He appeared to be a two-faced person. He was self-assuring and friendly some days, but others he was aggressive and could easily knock down anyone who stood in his way. The rich scent of alcohol would fumigate the house often. There were times Mom acted loopy as well, but she wasn’t as malevolent as Dad, though there was that one time they got in a colossal argument and Stella and I saw her smack a bottle of the red beverage she would always drink against Dad’s head.
“Plus the fact that I can obviously see you’re buzzed, Tanya. Not even seeing your own husband beat me up didn’t stop you from your drinking. I can still smell the horrific stench of that poison in your car. You two are hopeless.”
“Dad, I’m sorry. Tanya and I admit we have a destitute of a habit. You were trying to help me, but I acted like a complete jerk. I promise we won’t crawl back to alcohol after this. Please, get us out of here.” I never heard my father so frightened before.
The car gradually tipped more to its right. Everyone gasped and instinctively grabbed onto each other. “At least save the girls,” Dad said.
Grampy remained silent. The only sounds that reflected his response were the angry booms that thundered all around us. More rain fell onto my window. As the lightning lit up the ominous sky, I could spot the amount of drops growing, giving me the feeling that the worse was yet to come.
Looking back at Grampy, he raised his one arm toward Dad, as if he was holding something, but my view was blocked. I glanced at Dad and his eyes grew wide. Just that slight movement made my heart increase its speed tenfold.
“You had your chance, you were just too stubborn to take it.”
I never knew so much could happen in a split second. In that one and final moment, a bang rattled the car so much I thought the noise itself would push us over the edge. Dad’s head flew back and laid against the seat and Stella and Mom let out screams.
“POP!” Mom yelled. But before she could say anything more, the same BOOM flew in and shattered the air in the car. Blood poured out from the hole in her forehead and she laid motionless against the window.
Stella and I looked at each other. Tears ran down both our faces as our lungs grasped for the pieces of oxygen that were broken from the blasts.
Grampy lowered his arm and headed for my door. He opened the door, I started kicking at him as hard as I could. I even tried throwing punches at him. He put his hands on me, but not in a rough way. He tried speaking over me, but I interrupted every word he said with a frantic scream.
“Larissa…Larissa.” Before he could continue, he was forcefully pulled backward and was punched in the face. He fell to the ground and the person who loomed over him had long, flowing silver hair. He pulled out a weapon that looked long and sharp and threw it downward. Grampy screamed in bloodcurdling agony. My heart couldn’t take in everything that was going on.
Suddenly, the car was pulled forward and dragged back onto its side. The tall, silver-haired figure was staring down at my fidgeting grandfather. I saw Grampy utter a few words that I couldn’t understand.
The stranger stared at him so intensively, it was as if his eyes were the real weapon that slowly killed Grampy. He pushed the sword deeper in his chest, and spoke similar words Grampy said, but I still couldn’t comprehend.
Grampy peeked over at me one last time, gave me the biggest smile I have ever seen him wore, and I watched as the light in his green eyes faded away.
“Grampy!” I shouted towards him.
The stranger pulled the sword out of Grampy’s chest and held it in his hand. He then glanced over at me. His irises were the same shade as my grandfather’s. Once our eyes met, my body wanted to do anything it could to get away from him. I wanted to escape. I wanted to run. But the only thing I could do was cry.
Before I knew it, I started whimpering and cowered as much as I could in my seat. Though I was desperately trying to impossibly shrink myself away from this monster, his grassy-green eyes didn’t hold the same anger that penetrated Grampy.
They were soft. And full of light.
He placed the sword back in his holder and casually, yet cautiously approached me. “Stella!” I screamed at my sister.
She did nothing but cowered in the corner of her seat. She didn’t dare to get near me.
I looked back at the stranger and tried pushing myself out of my seat, but the seat belts were locked tight. He stood before me and gently placed a finger onto my cheek, wiping away a tear. His voice was so heavenly comforting, his words immediately lowered my anxiety.
“Ceri– ú- nifred. Everui nad na– okaui.”
He undid my seatbelts and picked me up into his arms. There were other people who looked just like him. Long silver hair, green eyes, and brownish-green outfits. They were standing all around the car. He spoke to the others in his foreign language, as if he was commanding them. One of them opened the door and took Stella in her arms. Within the next few minutes, he was taking both me and my sister into the darkest depth of the woods.
I glanced back at the car where they left behind my Grampy and parents. I reached my tiny arm out to my disappearing family. “Mommy. Daddy. Grampy,” I whined for them.
The stranger hugged me and whispered foreign yet soothing words into my ear. The darker it got around me, the tighter I clung to him. He spoke the same words my father told me, “Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.”
