Eliza Foster

Grade: 8

Rocky River Middle School

Instructor: Melissa Stickney

The Void of Black

Flash Fiction

The Void of Black

Once upon a time, a girl lived. In a house, on a planet. Nothing more in the vast scheme that is life. Her body lays limp, curled onto its side like a helpless fetus, weighted down by the many sweltering blankets that litter the bed. Clothes scatter across the room, torn paper and family photos of meaningless things along with them. The only sound heard is the sound of a pitiful someone's sobbing, and the ticking of the clock. It sits on the wall, glassy and gorgeous in its white, and blatant and malicious in its void that is its black. The hands— they look down on her from its perch on the matte black walls. The heat from the equally as black blankets push her down, gravity in of itself gluing her to this blank and endlessly deep bed. She sinks lower to the ground, yet the cold wooden floors of the room seem so far. To move her legs would be a feat of its own, let alone to reach the relentlessly bone-chilling cold of the floor. She is safe, in this bundle of black blankets, black room, black house, and black world. The only light that emits is one that flickers off the clock's glossy white, its hands ticking away to no avail.

Sniffling is heard when she opens her crusted red eyes and looks around. Black and gray glower back at her, and her eyes are shut as quick as they open. A place awaits her, in her dreams. So close its painfully tangible. The dream blinds her unworthy eyes with its unreal gregarious qualities. Not only does she see herself, she sees people. Bathed in sun and bright natural lights, versus the gloomy muck that mocks and riddles everyone's faces in this world. Their bright faces and smiles beg her to join, and she hears a hiccup of a sob as she wishes, so hard it hurts her heart, to be with them.

As soon as it is dreamt, it is gone. She is alone, yet again, with the endless ticking of the clock. She shuffles beneath her blankets, beneath her safe space, and opens her eyes once again. Nothing has changed, and the clock reads the same time it always does. The noise of ticking never ceases, yet the hands seldom move. They are stuck sitting at one time. Stuck in a period, in a moment, and unable to escape. Her body aches with pity for the clock— pity for herself. She hears another sob breach the void of deafening silence in the black room and reaches her arm outwards, out into the nothingness that is the black room that consumes her.

"Help…" Is all that is muttered as the beautiful white of the clock mocks her from its perch, from its distance. Her body spills over the bed from her reach of vain hope, and she crumples helplessly onto the black, freezing ground that is the floor. The cold, it consumes her. It eats at her soul, her heart. The black laughs at her from its walls, floors, blankets, bed, pictures, and the clock that has never striked past twelve once. She shuts her eyes, allowing little solace in this time of need. The dream— it stares at her. Judges her. She is alone, bathed in light. The sun beats down on her pale skin, illuminating the bags and shadows onto her face and under her eyes from weary and restless nights.

A cloud wafts towards the orange sun maliciously and menacingly slow. She watches in her mind, in horror, as it slowly ruins the light that once shone so bright. It moves with grace as its powerful dark gray begins to consume the sun. Soon, she is alone in darkness. She sees the faint outline of herself in the dream, standing in front of her. So close she hears herself breathing hotly onto her face.

"Pathetic."

The faintest murmur, almost incoherent as any light there once was fleets away, and she is alone again. Crumpled onto the cold, unforgiving ground of the room, of her mind. Alone.

The end.