the mirages in the dark

When the moon was over us, our eyes twinkly gems in its reflection, we knew that night light exactly would pave out the road for us. I was the figure in the sill, stirring up fear with swaps and double-takes on the bushes just below – there was shadows in them. Sharp moving and messy beings; I wanted to believe that, just like any creature, those cloaks spun out from the porch-light to illuminate a tiny bunny into a ferocious nether-wraith.

The door shook and something scratched at it, with that little peel of light from under the door going blank. Blank, then reappear, then blank. There was, for the strangely first time, total darkness - the moon, me, and the window-sill.

And so, my terror bashed at the glass, the form of my fist cannoning outward blindly in a flat need to escape. Glass crashed down, slamming the rafters and sinking like stabs into the grass from the drop; bushes move again, and I promise myself that nobody is watching me leave.

And, walking out the window, dropping, the floor fell out under me. Terror burst at my heart as a world closed in one big slam. The ground disappeared.

I woke up in the same darkness, and the window was left open.