Push

The torch light held just a moment or two longer... Then, the embers held just the slightest crevice against the darkness... After that, they were plunged into darkness.

It didn't matter, though. The darkness was inevitable. After all, no matter what you did, the darkness always found a foothold... then it took over a corner... and then, once there was no more resistance, it flooded the room.

It didn't so much attack the light as just envelop it... leaving those who weren't prepared scuffling for purchase... until they could find their matches, lighters... or prayed like hell someone would come along and drag them out into the daylight.

That's where death was.

Yet, for them, it wasn't. Not yet, anyway. And if it were? So be it. They'd found plenty to die about over the last few years... plenty to sigh about over the last few decades... plenty to cry about since they'd been born.

Sure, words were the casual woman's way of attempting to give meaning to the world around you. However, it was during those placid moments... just before the tears hit... when words lost their meaning and the breath the darkness stole was absolute.

Absolute nothingness... and a dread that capitulated itself, forthright and absolute.

It might as well have been death—to be carried off like carrion into a pit so black that the soul had no way of finding its way into the light ever again.

The pain, she thought to herself... was unbearable.

From somewhere in the void, again... she heard a voice yelling...

Push.