A Minute After Midnight

         Amar bolted into a sitting position on his bed while letting out a deep gasp. The dream he had just experienced was an odd one, it had all the vague qualities dreams usually have. This one conformed into a particular nameless group of dreams, the kind in which it seems completely real, but the details of it slip away at a rate which makes it impossible for your mind to piece together the whole thing. It was different somehow, in that he could almost feel the terrible pain from the car hitting him, this part he would remember, the rest of the dream, however, had already escaped into the dark world from which dreams originate. The coming day would be a busy one, not going back to sleep would only make things more complicated, so he did the sensible thing, he laid his head back down, released all thoughts of the dream, glanced at the clock, and slept.

      He woke again. After a good nights rest, Amar was always ready to face the day. He was an oddity amongst his own species, he was a morning person. Stretching in his bed without really opening his eyes, he turned his head towards his digital clock with its red LED letters standing out against the black, and opened his eyes just enough to absorb this information. His eyes widened, for there was something odd happening, the clock, which had read 12:01 AM when he had went back to sleep, read the same now (he did not, however, notice that the colon between the numbers did not blink as it should have). Naturally he assumed that he had not even really gone to sleep, although the idea that he had slept a whole 24 hours passed fleetingly through his mind before being shot dead by Common Sense. Wanting to get back to sleep he didn't move, but stared at the clock while waiting for his body to sink back into the stupor of sleep. During this time he counted the seconds go by, hoping to somehow prove to his clock that it was wrong in its timing. Well over 60 seconds later he reached over to the bedstand and picked up his charging cell phone, and flipped the digital face towards him and read the time, 12:01:00 AM. The column for counting the seconds stood still.

      Having every right to be slightly concerned about the condition of reality at the moment, Amar climbed out of his bed, dressed only in his pajama pants, and set off to investigate. The first place to go seemed logical enough, Amar shared his Condominium with a friend from college, so he would simply go and wake him, to find if he found the same thing to be happening. He stepped into the hallway, with his friends door no more than 10 feet away, he took two steps towards it, then stopped. The darkness seemed tangible, and not like what's normal at all. The pure black of it somehow seemed to cast shadows of its own, and inexplicably seemed to taunt him, as if trying to coax him into trying to reach the other room. Having managed to survive this long, Amar trusted his intuition and decided to investigate elsewhere. The pure fear and superstition practically radiated off of him, and I chuckled silently.

      He pursued another path, and went into the Den, where a lesser version of the same unnatural darkness persisted. Turning away from it, the next place for him to investigate was the world outside his little Condo. He went, opened the front door, and stepped outside. What he saw out there made him freeze in disbelief, although he could not have been aware of it, it had been raining. Every individual sparkling rain drop shimmered with the light radiating from the street lamp, all of it suspended perfectly in mid-air. It is one of the most beautiful things that one can see in the world, although the only real situation that a person can experience it in is not one they would like to be in. The porch light shone, attracting the usual night insects, such a moths. It took Amar some time to overcome the initial shock of seeing the time suspended rain, but his curiosity overtook him. He reached out and gently tapped one of the moths suspended in the air surrounding the light. As if life had suddenly been breathed back into it, the moth came back, and resumed its regular nighttime activity of repeatedly ramming straight into the glass surrounding the light bulb. He repeated this several times with the same results. An odd feeling came over him, an uneasy one, much like he had felt when he saw the unnatural darkness in front of his roommates door. He spun around to see if there was anything behind him which could be causing this, and there was. It was the same darkness that had been inside the home, now though, it followed him. His frightened scream was loud enough to wake everyone in the neighborhood, not that there was anyone able to hear it. Not being an idiot, he did the one thing any sane human would do in such a situation, he ran. The darkness chased him of course, it was what it was there to do, and it wasn't going to let its prey escape so easily. However, the darkness had not left its defense over the roommates door in place, and because of this, the prey was able to escape. By touching another sentient being, normal time flow can be restored, the darkness, however, cannot exist during normal time flow, and this is how Amar was able to escape that night. The display of emotion as he tried to explain what happened to his bewildered roommate was entertaining, but was not the way I would have preferred for that evenings hunt to end. Amar called in sick the next day.

         Though I was not able to be there during the day to see how it went, I don't doubt that everyone has a good idea of how the rest of the day was for him. Night fell. At 11:59 PM Amar was wide awake, having developed a slight case of Nyctophobia, or fear of the dark, from the night before. It was raining again, and it was solely because of this that he knew time was still flowing normally. Then it became 12:01 AM, the rain froze in midair instantly, and he knew what was happening again as well. To his credit, Amar was not an idiot, he stayed in his little ball, curled up in his bed for a long time. It was not until I sent my hounds, or rather, the darkness in that he came running outside, trying to escape from it. Once again I was able to feel the terror practically taking physical form around him. He ran past me, of course, seeing as how nothing can see me, and into the street. A car that had been driving by when time froze was in the street, headlights on, rain splattering on the windshield, driver frozen with a cellphone up to her ear. Unthinkingly, Amar brushed against the car in his attempt to escape the darkness. Time returned to the car instantly, Amar was struck and crushed beneath the wheels. The woman in the car, having had time returned to her slammed on the breaks, and fell out of her car, while screaming. She rushed to Amar, and tried to call 911, but to no avail. It was in her arms that he died. Somewhere the story that I am only visible during the last 5 seconds of life came about, and is apparently true. The fear and suddenly understanding came into Amar's eyes during those last five seconds, the whole time in which he was staring straight at me. Then he was gone. His soul, essence, whichever you prefer, rose from his body, and begun to move towards wherever it is the dead's souls go. It didn't get very far before I grabbed it and ate it whole, it was delicious. I ate the womans soul as well, then returned the world to normal time. Now I wonder who i'll choose next. It has to be someone that will be entertaining to toy with, after all, for me there's no point in eating if I can't get some real fun out of it.