I feel it circling us out there in the dark, and I pile some more wood on the fire. It cracks and pops, sending tiny embers careening up towards the sky, the trees around us casting dancing shadows as the flames climb higher and hotter. I peer out under the branches and try to convince myself that every glint I see isn't a glimpse of firelight on eyes or teeth, that the hungering dark can be held back for one more night, a few more hours, until the dawn comes, gray and cold, but bright, and we start to run again.
I look down at you, curled up facing the fire, and watch the light play across your features. You've always slept better than me, bundled up in furs and scraps, immune to the wind and the rain, sleeping the sleep of the just, your slow, steady breathing ticking away the hours as I watch over you and tend the fire, keeping my promise by keeping you safe, for however long I'm able. Tonight's no different: a black sky broken by the shattered moon, the silence of the tomb hanging heavy over the woods, oppressive and suffocating. But we have fire, so we have light. We have our health, or you have yours, anyway, so we can run. And we have each other, so we have a reason to.
I put another log on the fire, the thin white bark flaring up quickly as the wood slowly blackens. I reach over to you and brush hair from your face with clumsy fingers. You frown slightly and mutter your dreamspeak, half-formed syllables to go with hazy visions, worlds, I pray, unlike our own. Never could I escape into sleep and dream as you can, slipping into comforting obliviousness with an ease that I can't even hope to match. There you find freedom, where I remain a prisoner: ever observing, ever marking, ever fearing.
Poking at the fire, I stir up the embers and coax new life from them, their heat slowly consuming the stubs and ends of the burned logs and branches that have served us through the night, morning still a long way off.
My poker flares up and I douse it in the ashes before, thinking better of it, lighting it again, the flame growing quickly. Standing up through aching knees, I step over you and walk towards the edge of the light cast by our fire, holding the makeshift torch out before me. I raise it up and look out into the darkness, trying to, but hoping not to, catch a glimpse of our pursuer. I hear the groaning and cracking of some ancient tree off to my left, and before I can even turn, I hear another, right before me, just beyond the feeble light of my torch, and I swear I see that glint, that predatory malevolence lurking out there in the night, that which has dogged our every step and turned our nights to terror. Never had I seen its face, though long have I lived in fear of it. For miles and years, it seems, we've fled, and I've done all I can to keep you safe. There is, perhaps, one last kindness I can perform.
I turn and walk back to the fire, casting my torch into the dying flames. I ease myself down to the ground and curl up behind you, feeling you burrow into me as I wrap my arms around you. I watch over your head as the flames sputter and die, bit by bit, and the circle of light surrounding us shrinks and shrinks, and they close in. I bury my face in your hair as the last orange flame gives way to embers and I close my eyes rather than watch the end.
12 December 2018
