Zero

The darkness breathes; it writhes; it wriggles; it comes to life and claims the innocent to feed its incessant gluttony for expansion; it manifests in horrid hideousness; it breeds creatures of horror; it gallops on the screeching cacophonies of terror that torment the Night.

I know.

I have seen it.

And, tonight, I fight it!

One

There’s a universally overlooked truth, an unknown truth, a truth that explains all that has forever been without explanation; one that rules, powers and balances the world; a truth that must forever remain unspoken, unuttered, never bestowed.

The One truth.

You know it. You’ve sensed it. You’ve felt it. You’ve imagined it with every aching molecule of your otherwise negligible, rudimentary brain. Every man and every woman, every society and every culture that has ever been, they have all known that there must have been one uniting truth; they have all hinted at its existence; they have all tried to explain it, without any knowledge of its nature whatsoever.

Myths, stories, tales – these were the first attempts to formulate believable explanations for unbelievable situations. Traditions, folklores, worldwide laughable codices of beliefs – ironically, these were the efforts that hit closest to the one superimposed, container truth. And then, science happened…

Scientists: these self important professors, the worst kind of blind shepherds to lead a flock of misinformed, overzealous to be misdirected, sheep; because, who doesn’t like to be called “the pinnacle of evolution”, “the king of nature’s kingdom”, “God’s chosen creation”?

You walk on the surface of this world that you have created, ignorant of what’s underneath, of the lives that buzz under, over, and around you. You make up a language that comforts your ignorance; you attribute properties of sentience ad hoc; you explain the world in its only subset that you can raise yourselves to be its ruler. Pathetic, quail, creatures of mud…

It sickens me that I have to fight your battles, to secure your salvation, to ensure your preservation, when you so gladly ignore the basic elements that make up the world that you inhabit.

You self-centered, arrogant species; you, distasteful disgrace to your own potential!

However, I have no choice. For we, the Contained, from the lowest levels of radiance, to the mythical, fabled One -who is one with the One truth- we obey the Threads that have weaved the Veil of the Cosmos; for such is the obligation that comes with the enlightenment in the vastness of the absolute ken.

How sardonic that the One is to be one of you? A mocking example of the will of the Threads.

Two

I wonder if my illumined brethren feel the way that I feel, if my ancestors felt the same way, if my successors will feel equally disgusted, assuming that they too will need to continue this duty. But, it is a duty we cannot, and will not, betray! For the One truth of unity is nothing without order; and, order is nothing without obedience.

There is no place for this human free-will rubbish in the world of symmetry, in what is the essence of Luminance.

Three

Dealing with the hatred that comes with the realization of one’s superiority was part of my training. Pride, judgment, these are things I was expected to be able to control. To a degree, I understand why duty outweighs desire; but, to say that I have managed to control my utter disgust towards the most unproductive species, that would have been an unjust inaccuracy.

I do see the value in protecting the disgraced, however. The belief in the coming of the One has been engraved to my radiance. In fact, accepting the proportion of the absolute ken that the Threads have allocated to the newly illumined is impossible without the scarring of the newfound radiance with the Codex of Light; and, the Codex of Light foretells the emergence of the One.

Protect all. Protect the One.

Fail one. Fail all.

Four

So, here we are, tonight. I have been assigned my prospect, like so many other Dims have; I have traversed the Threads and summoned the light in the name of Lumina; I have weighed the battlefield and claimed my bastion of last defense; I have found solid ground to materialize in the innocence of this peacefully sleeping boy; and I have prepared for whatever atrocities the Dark is about to spurt into the Night.

Conjure the creeps, I wait.

Five

There is a human myth that explains all that is about to take place tonight. Only the gullible believe in it, only the innocent.

Such a shame! It is the innocent the Dark demands. It is the innocent the Night claims.

There are severe rules that govern the Cosmos: none of your physics, none of your maths; rules that fall within the One Truth that cannot be uttered. With the Dark conquering outside its allocated share however, if Lumina will not illumine you, you need to fulfill your potential unaided. If the Light is to survive.

The Dark can invoke terrors out of the fabric of the Night.

The illumined can only enliven inanimate warriors.

The stories about the teddy bears protecting asleep kids from the monsters under the bed, the stories you grew up to, the stories speak of us!

Six

The Threads have been ripped, claws clench through the void of the Cosmos and into the boy’s bedroom!

No one ever spoke of the shrieking screams… Unbearable cries, millions of lost souls weeping from beyond, as the horror crawls through the wound in the Veil.

Holy light of Lumina, look at the size of that thing! How could anything ever prepare anyone for a fight with such an incarnation?

“Move…”

Look at those nostrils flaring. The size of spit dripping from his fangs is just about the size of the teddy bear I live in.

“Or, don’t!”

Look at those claws, they ripped through Night herself! She didn’t allow him in. He tore out!

“The boy is mine.”

To the last sparkle of the last candle of the last remembrance of Lumina, the boy must live one more day. I live and die tonight!

“YOU – CANNOT – HAVE – HIM”!