The gloom that follows
The whispers began at sunset, slithering from the spaces between skeletal trees. It was a language of dry leaves and scraped stone that crawled under Lavera’s skin, a sound the rest of the village mistook for the wind. She clutched the woolen blanket her grandmother had made, a useless ward against a cold that didn't come from the air. Her grandmother had heard the whispers, too, right before she disappeared into the long dark of last winter.
Everyone knew the coming months of failed light would be hard. But Lavera knew it wasn't the encroaching dark or the silence of winter they should fear. It was what filled it. She saw the shadows detaching themselves from the trees—tall, impossibly thin figures with claws like thorns and eyes of burning, predatory purple. It was the same unsettling glow as the quarry crystals that had cursed their village, and it was getting closer.
The creatures were always drawn to the community garden. After Lavera had tried to warn everyone, the garden was abandoned, but it refused to die. If anything, it flourished. An unseen force tended to the fruits and vegetables, making them look juicier and more inviting than ever before. Her stomach growled, a hollow ache of true hunger.
She knew the garden's secret. Those who ate from it were marked. She didn’t know how or why, but she had seen it happen over and over. A neighbor, then another. Some people, starved beyond reason, would sneak in for a single, perfect tomato and would never be seen again. It happened to her grandmother. Her father. And her little brother. The last thing she had from him was a hurried message, a single smudge of dirt obscuring his final words.
Now, she stood at the edge of the overgrown plot, a stolen tomato cool and heavy in her palm. The air grew still. In her peripheral vision, she saw the shadows gathering, their glowing purple eyes fixed on her. They were waiting. She raised the tomato to her lips, its skin taut and gleaming.
Lavera took a bite.
As the sweet juice flooded her mouth, she stared directly at the nearest creature and whispered, "I see you."
