She took his hand as they walked home in relative silence. Not that neither of them minded it. The fresh air had made him tired, and he was sure she felt the same way since she could fall asleep so easily. He envied she could do that, as he needed a little more help than that. These days, the drinking was spilling into his daytime activities, and he knew it wasn’t good. His hands shook for a moment, just thinking about having a drink.

Stop it. He thought to himself, pressing his fingers into the palm of his hands to bring him back to the present moment. With them.

The forest was looking foreboding, and he was eager to get them home. Traveling at night wasn’t his favorite thing to do, though he had a lantern hanging from the backpack just for this instance.

They approached a clearing and planned on stopping for the night there as they had agreed earlier when starting out. It was there; they saw a girl and a... creature. He wasn’t even sure what it was. Though he noted her fearful face in the campfire as she stared off into the darkness. Her eyes were wide and white with fear, which made him suddenly have a protective streak run through him.

He saw the creature that lurked on the edge of the firelight and immediately put his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Head for the fire as quickly as you can.” His firm tone making her look at him for a moment and nod upon seeing the look on his face. With that, she slipped from his hands and did as was told while he removed a small revolver from his side and moved towards where the ghostly eyes were floating.

He waited for a moment to see if it would try to move before he gathered his courage and jumped into the clearing with the revolver at the ready. His heart was thumping in his ears, but that didn’t erase the dull bark of the gun as it went off into the night, causing him to flinch at how loud it was.

When he looked back up, all he saw was his wife running out of camp with tears streaming down her face, and could only think one thing to himself.

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“Oh, shit...” speaking out loud before he realized his mouth had repeated what his brain was saying over and over.

The creature had moved faster than thought possible, and had made contact with the fire when the bullet pierced the darkness.

Its large shape was ringed in light when it made a keening noise and contacted the fire. The fire itself flashed bright in almost an explosion, and the girl sitting there screamed when it collapsed into a pile at her feet. She jumped up and back, scrambling to get away from it. In her wake, a small lizard-like creature rose and made an even louder keening noise, fire belching from its mouth in bright white and blue over the collapsed figure.

The figure rose slightly, but when the flames overwhelmed it, what looked like arms reached up plaintively. A low noise pierced the darkness. He couldn’t place it until ghostly eyes pierced the darkness, hundreds of them, and realized it was coming from the forest itself.

After a few seconds that seemed to stretch into infinity, the wail subsided and the forest became still once more.

He quickly thrust the revolver forward then quickly drew it back, but he was too late as another set of blue eyes moved forward, though it was slow and deliberate in it’s approach. These eyes had long narrow black pupils instead of round ones like they had seen before.

His hands shook, but brought the revolver up and pointed towards it. But these new creatures didn’t seem to be interested in attacking them, so he stood his ground. The strange creature crawled out into the light, its hands and knees on all fours, and stretched its neck around, looking at each member eerily, before standing up on two of what they could only see as legs.

It creeped closer and looked at the figure on the ground reaching up towards it. A finger reached out and poked it with curiosity until the arms lowered and went limp. A large sigh came from the surrounding forest, which was almost unreal to him. He put the sidearm away, convinced there was no good it was going to do with these things.

The shadow creature looked at him and what looked like a mouth opened to speak, but a shrieking noise emitted from it. He covered his ears, as did everyone with the noise, as it was piercing and painful to listen to. After a moment, the noise stopped and they could hear a voice speaking to them.

“The Shadow King requests your presence.” And with that, it reached out and grabbed the girl’s arm, which sent her into a clear panic. “Come with me or face the consequences of killing one of ours.” Flat and toneless, it was hard to discern whether it was threatening or just speaking what it was told.

The three in its presence all seemed to look at one another at once and before they could even speak, other shadowy hands reached out to grasp them in a chilly grip.

And with that, the shadows led them through the forest, staring up at those thousand lights and wondering if he would see them again.