(If you haven’t read the first parts/posts, read it before this! If you already read the last two, enjoy this one!)

Candle 4:

Half-dozed, something touches me. I’m too melancholy and tired to turn over. The finger urgently presses my shoulder again. “What,” I whisper. I brush the cloudiness from my eyes.

“I see a something in the dark,” Moore frets in his ordinary quaint tone. He urges me up, and he points me beyond the candle’s light. A shadow prowls. Boxes shuffling at its feat, the creature slobbers horrific wheezes.

Wriggling back into the comfort of my area, I murmur, “Just ignore them… And keep the candle lit.”

He frustratingly sighs, “I can’t ignore them, not those atrocious things. Ever since society’s fall, It’s all I could worry about.” I know he turns to me even though I’m curled up clearly trying to sleep. He continues, “The darkness wasn’t so bad. I got used to not feeling the sun anymore, and, then 4 years till my retirement, those monsters show up. What a shame I didn’t make it; It would have been great. Not having to worry about sunburns you know.”

“Where did you work anyways?” I say, accepting he won’t let me sleep.

He regales, “An Ice cream company’s factory in the mid-west. I can’t remember the name because the sign out front didn’t light up; They had some trouble affording electricity throughout the first few years of the darkness. Anyways, I worked with a team that came up with new flavors. Pumpkin Pie, Cinnamon, and Sunshine were some of the best ice cream we concocted.” Bathing in the glory of his past for a moment, he asks me, “Come to think of it, what was it like growing up without light?”

Begrudgingly, I sleepily told him, “I was only five when the sun went out. I don’t really remember before then, but I was used to the darkness. It was just like any normal childhood I think? Up until college it was pretty smooth. The chaos happened and all that. I think Warren was in the same boat, just at another school in Pennsylvania.”

He seemed satisfied with my answer, and I began to drift asleep. I could hear him continue his personal stories, but it didn’t bother me. It almost felt comforting.

I snoozed.

I could not recall how much time had passed when I was shaken back awake. My eyes open to the all too familiar sight of darkness, frightening darkness. In the dimness of the room, I can hardly see Warren tries to relight a fresh match; It’s no use. The match won’t take.

A gargling noise caught me off guard. It sounded just behind us. Quickly jumping to my feet like many times before, I stuff my backpack full of all the materials we used. I look over at Warren still attempting with the match. The creature behind us stalls closer. Whispering out at him, I growl, “Stop that; there’s no use. We need to go!” He looks at me, and I rapidly ask, “Where’s Moore?” Warren throws up his hands.

Because of the motion, the shadow snaps it’s jaws at us. Excreting a foul mucus, we hobble through the maze of the shopping mall. Warren continues to fumbling with the match and it’s box, but every consecutive failure brings our hopes down. The creatures in the darkness make mind numbing noises all around. I fear we have reached our end, but I do not give out hope.

A match finally catches on.

Candle 7:

Warren holds the small stick with trembling fingers, and he hands it to me to light a candle. Plunging my hand into my backpack I pull one of the few I grabbed. Out of breath, I hold the match to the candle’s wick. Silhouettes of monsters creep on all sides; Their growls and sneers echo through the malnourished halls of the mall.

I hold up the candle high above my head, It’s flame radiates the darkness. The grotesque figures around us flee away, and we recuperate only for a second when we here a scream: Moore’s scream.

We stand in eerie silence, Moore’s painful yells reverberating very far off in the distance. I stumble forward, but it’s already too late. His horrific, ghostly cries die to a gargling. And, there is stillness. We just look at each other, grief in our eyes, and cradle the flame.