When Everything Fades to Black...

Chapter One: Intrinsic Mediums

Like every parent, Tryst’s mother only wanted the best for her three kids. The finest schooling, the most coveted accessories, expensive clothes, and anything else their hearts desired. Never, ever in her life did Torrance Redgrave want her children to be deprived of something as mundane as sleep. "The privileged have the right to every luxury." Torrance would always quote, proudly.

As she watched her youngest daughter growing up, Torrance was deeply pained. To hear a toddler crying every night was gut wrenching. Even as Tryst got older, she’d wake up screaming. Her nightmares so horrible, she was afraid to be alone. From ages six through ten, Torrance insisted Tryst stay in her and Tryst‘s father’s room. But, Torrance admitted to no one that when her daughter spoke to the shadows in the room, it scared Torrance shitless. Beyond a doubt, it wasn’t that Mrs. Redgrave didn’t believe her father in-law, her husband, or her daughter. Who all attested to having similar predicaments. She just didn’t want it leaking out of the family.

Mrs. Redgrave’s elitist friends and colleagues would shun her, had her family not lived up to the status quo. The group had competitively high standards for one another. Her husband, Jonathan Redgrave would joke that being friends with them was "more taxing, than relaxing." God forbid they spare their parental affections, because of Torrance’s bitchy friends.

Help came to Tryst at thirteen. Her mother hired the best shrink money could buy. Doctor Reuben Ezra. He was Salem’s most beloved child psychiatrists. His approaches were sincere. Guiding the children’s behavioral complications out the door indefinitely. Tryst, however, was his special case. Her imagination was an enigma. He would reread his notes on their family history, the girl‘s nightmares, the names she called some of the shadows. Evaluating her as "fascinating" to say the least. Tryst’s conviction of things seen and heard were so believable, that at times, Doctor Ezra found himself inadvertently questioning reality. In the three years he had been picking Tryst’s brain apart, he and Torrance Redgrave were in a conundrum. Call them extremists, they didn’t care. There was only one way to solve the teen’s "night terrors". They both agreed, sleeping pills were her best option.

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No matter the dosage of Tryst’s addictive pill, her mother so irresponsibly consented to, the whispers always woke her. Tryst’s brother, Javan found humor in his sister’s accounts. Joking that the girl could be woken with the drop of a pin. Therefore, her judgments were always the soundest to go upon. Howbeit, Tryst’s gift was no joking matter. It was a family curse. "No one could ever understand what we few go through." Tryst’s grandfather would insist. Being opened to anyone who would listen. "Only those few with the sight…know." Indeed, his foreboding emphasis resonated in Tryst‘s mind, as clear as the day he said it. The sage was right. Those closed off to the otherworld were the walking blind. But worst off. For there were things skulking through the human world, that it’s inhabitants could never dream of. Making them invariable, unknown victims wicked predators. No matter how whimsical they appeared in fairy tales.

Streets away, Tryst could sense them. Even with her eyes closed and her hearing impaired. Her sixth sense grasped every dark being that existed in the town of Salem. From as early as Tryst could remember, she could feel the voices tracing through the air. She compared them to a swarm of locus disguised as animated music notes. The sounds sent a chill through her. She could do little about the cold sweat that followed, as the refrains landed at her window sill.

The Redgrave family had lived at three story, foursquare, Victorian inspired home for generations. But it was only recently, that the ‘things’ outside knew that Tryst was there. The thick walls were no longer as safe as they once were. Now that ‘they’ could sense her, sensing them. The only way the beings could reach her were through shadows. As spring exploded in full force, the ’things’ came in hordes. Setting in her town, as the newly blossomed foliage seemed to energize them.

The bolder encounters started on the first of April. Tryst took it as a joke, at first. Hoping that it was just her nefarious friends, playing a prank on her. When the "April fools!" never came, she began to truly worry. Those very shadows she swore were just a trick, beckoned her to come to them. Urging her to give in to her curious whims. On Sunday, ’they’ mused, ‘What harm could a peek do?’ Tuesday, ‘they‘ innocently pushed, ‘Come to the window and see.’ More enticing still was the next Saturday‘s allurement, ‘Such haunting songs, aren’t you curious who sings them?‘

Even in her deepest sleep, Tryst was always haunted by the-things-that-went bump-in-the-night. Should this evening have been any different? Tryst didn’t think so. Especially on school nights, the sixteen year old would take extra precautions. She’d put her headphones in, turn the volume of her iPod up as high as her eardrums could take, and hope the night would fly by quick. Tonight, night she could not hear the shadows pray to her.