Whiteblack

He rose from the dark, certain, that no one had noticed. Black mist slowly breezed into the cool night sky and finally disappeared somewhere in the darkness. His field of view grew clear and he looked at the large rose bushes growing rampant in front of him. A little way down lay Acorn Alley, lit only by an old rusted street lantern. It was the only light as far as he could see, a failed attempt to fend of the blackness.

Nobody can stop the darkness. Nobody.

He focused on the light as he remembered the past centuries.

All the killings, the suffering, the terror...

All of it... magnificent....

The darkness came back, surging inside his soul, giving him a feeling of unmeasurable power. He thought of a cloud made from the blackest black and finally set his memories and feelings free into this new world.

A barely visible cold haze left his fingers. The thing flew down the alley, ominously heading for the street light. Letting out a faint growl, it encased the lamp. With a screech the haze finally sunk into the light bulb and burst its glass, emitting a muffled bang.

The alley had turned pitch black and he enjoyed the stench his creation had left behind. Slowly, he began floating through the rose bushes, almost as if they were made out of air. He heard the plants rustling wonderfully nastily, shortly before they sunk to the ground, where their rotten leftovers remained.

Continuing along his path slightly above the street that blurred beneath him, he finally came to rest below the broken street light. The shards of its bulb were lying on the ground, covered in a beautifully black substance.

Suddenly, a crackle echoed through the night. Lurking, he scanned his surroundings. Like every one of his kind, he had the ability to see perfectly, even without the faintest light present.

In the distance, he spotted two squirrels. They seemed to feel his presence and hurried off.

Then, he saw him.

At the end of the street, where Acorn Alley and Cathedral Street met, a man appeared, tall and clothed in black. His gaze felt piercing. The blue eyes shone through the night, almost like two giant fireflies. The man turned his head to make sure that no one was listening in and finally started to move towards the street lamp as well.

This man did not fear him as all the other creatures had before. There would have been no reason to. He had made it possible to walk this new world.

Soon, a new age would dawn. Soon, the last light would fall, plunging this world into darkness.

Horrid and eternal darkness.

The man started to smile just as he had reached the lamp. His face became grotesque; the blue eyes got bigger and bigger, his mouth widened. The skin was pale as that of a corpse but his teeth were without a dent on them, white and perfect.

“Good evening, Sclair. The time has come to call your followers. We can not and must not wait any longer. Winter is at its way and the days grow shorter already. If we let this opportunity pass, we would have to wait for another year and I assume that would not be to your liking”, the man remarked.

His voice was quiet but clear and... menacing.

“Yes, I will make haste”, Sclair was quick to say.

Sclair. A name like any other. He had had many names. But this had been his first.

“You have to proceed at a quicker pace! How many did you already kill? The two I recommended as test subjects?”

“Three. Before those, I killed a child that I found in a dark room. Afterwards, I attacked the boy. He screamed for help-...”

„What? I told you to be careful! If he had taken a photo, you could have gotten into real trouble!“, the man hissed.

His nose started to tremble, while he was baring his teeth.

“Don’t worry. Only the father was present. As you told me!“, Sclair tried to calm him down, fearing the man’s rage.

“When he got into the room, I turned myself invisible and walked through the child.”

At the first glance the man seemed to get uncomfortable. But his eyes gave away that he did not care the slightest about this revelation. He probably just tried to emulate a human from this world.

Sclair however doubted that the man had more in common with a human then he did with a butterfly.

He hastily continued:

“That was a big shock for the poor man! Witnessing me taking his son! Luckily, he did not have to suffer for long. My hand was a claw and...”

Sclair let out a noise that sounded like the mixture of a roaring waterfall and a buzz saw.

His way of laughter.

“I don’t think that the police has found his head yet. But however long the will look for it, no one will ever see it again.”

“The crime scene was interesting. I took the liberty of visiting it right after you left. The authorities are suspecting the child as his progenitor’s murderer. It is... astonishing how simple humans think.”

The man spit out the word ‘humans’ as if he even a thought about it disgusted him. Sclair was a bit aggravated because the blue-eyed man had spied on him, making him unable to boast about his work, but then he remembered something.

“How about this: We simply ask the boy himself, or do you have any objections?”

Before the blue-eyed man could make a sound, Sclair opened his mouth. A long, high-pitched scream escaped his transparent throat. Curiously, Sclair waited for the man to show a reaction. He did not.

“When will you have absorbed him completely?“, the blue-eyed asked intrigued.

“It will only take two more days until my darkness will have swallowed the last bits of his. Afterwards, nothing wil be left of the poor Harvey Smith”, Sclair explained with a wide grin.

“We shall see. Nonetheless you should hurry to get the others of your kind. You have to start! Oh, and Sclair, I have got another present for you.”

The man whispered something towards the shade.

Slair let out a final laughter and disappeared in a cloud of black mist that had suddenly drifted onto the street. The Blue-eyed remainded beneath the lantern for a short while and silently disappeared into the darkness, just like Sclair had.