It was always about music. A mournful hum hit the walls, gently reverberating until it found its way to their young ears. Usually that call was a mere whisper, slithering through holes of the cloth but this time it reached a much wider audience.
Pink-skinned feet slipped against slick green floor in an endless tunnel as it ran and ran and ran and ran. Darkness doesn't need to chase, just follow.
Stitch the notes together and watch as a sweet hum turns into a song. Its sound is enough to keep memories on the edge of unreal, the melody permeating the souvenirs.
Soon, a pink, five-fingered hand of a god tries to grasp around, attempting to anchor itself in something, anything. Such irony.
Sweet little snippets of memories, spun into small little objects. And for what? You open the album and you can hear a hum, curling around your frame, slithering into your brain.
A gentle, shivering touch followed, readily removing anything the light brushed one of its five fingers against before darkness touched the hand itself, grasping it, imprisoning it.
You watch the photos change, you watch smiles twist and turn and curl into malicious smirks and hungry grins. Their teeth turn sharp and black. It is enough to close the album to make it all stop; memories, though, persist.
Magenta shuddered and screamed, but the darkness swirled closer and closer, the emptiness wiping the light away, dissolving it until it was gone.
They haunt your thoughts, colours oversaturated, even if the photos were black and white. They are bright, ringing in your head like a static noise you sometimes hear when things become too quiet.
Pink was light, and darkness was its void, a lack, steadily penetrating unknowable yet shivering body. Know the prey before you devour it.
In the end, though, something always will distract you from this. Humans can't live focused on one thing only. Variation is where they thrive, and so soon the memories dissipate. But all you need is a reminder, a push. A trigger.
Five would scream, but darkness was the silence absolute and it found its mouth, so instead, it let out a quiet, mournful hum, a song that was a cry for mercy.
A sound.
Many heard that weak hum in cracks where mauve seeped through, before darkness found its throat and settled it's silence here as well, shoving it up to its seventh vertebrae.
Senses are such a whimsy creatures. Anything can remind you of things old gone. Time is cruel and unforgiving for your focus, but memories turn your body into a vessel of records.
The shivering still lasted but even then a dark swirl crossed a pink slick skin, exploring the unknowable from the outside as well.
Doesn't it scare you, how everything that surrounds you can push that little button and make your brain replay what is hidden inside?
The unknowable was by its nature a mystery in everything it was. But now it did a thing understood for all - it feared.
You avoid meds, you avoid schoolbands, you avoid things that many find a little funny. They humor you, though, and you are grateful for that. People do have illogical fears, right?
The light understood fear.
Allegiances and musicshops. You were never one for music, not anymore, at least. Trashing out old cassettes brought relief. Idea of karaokes brings a mild panic. Your throat exists only for talking.
In any other situation, maybe fifth would welcome the attention. But this was too much.
One text message and a person you barely know name of digitalising what they could get their hands on online was enough to bring memories again. A push of a little button of a laptop. You spend next few hours browsing all the posts they posted and reminiscing.
The light was appealing to the monstrosity. Dark and curious tendrils turned sharp and probing.
Some memories resurfaced again and you sunk into them, remembering. You cried, even when you tried not to. The taste of those memories was fresh, and you heard everything again as when you heard it for the first time, except now reliving old life was oversaturated with nostalgia.
Darkness was nothing but lack of light, and it never stopped, even after it counted seventh tear falling from a magenta eye.
You didn't avoid lakes before. You could swim and you stared into a face of yourself from forty years ago doing exactly this.
Spikes thrust deeper into a star. The silence was almost perfect when darkness slowly bit into it and the star's struggles grew weaker.
Internet was an amazing tool, as you don't have to remember exactly what you are looking for. Satellite photos were blurred, and you couldn't see how much things have changed from comfort of your house. Pity, but magic of retirement is that you have a lot of time on your hands.
Magenta was not only the sound and light. It was smell and sensation and thousands of things for all to feel.
You went there. Airplane ride, rented car, it was easy, all things considered.
A pink star could no longer shine. Light exists but it is devoured by darkness - does it still exist if there is none to see it?
You didn't know, but any other day you would have heard a call by now. But today, it was quiet.
Can a light die, if it was never a light nor alive?
Bodies gently bumped against each other, as a light mist-like film covering them swirled away into a white fog. It was quiet. You entered the lake because you wanted to see who they were, as you simply didn't see their faces from the shore. You left your phone, with intention of calling the police after you were done.
Fifth was silent, and darkness moved onto its belongings.
Halfway through your swim to the beach, you sunk. Your memories are fragile things, after all. It was again that little button, this time not pressed but pried out of machinery of your brain with dark pliers.
They held its attention as well and the darkness sunk into them, spreading inside their substance. Light grew more and more dim.
Something told you there was supposed to be something else down below. You breathed water into your burning lungs and You do not recognize the darkness swirling beneath the bodies.
In the end, Darkness dissolved in the water as well.