As it's Samhain, or Halloween, here's a wee story for the season...


Samhain
 
The light is fading. Burnt orange, matching the leaves, the sun sinks closer to the horizon. I almost believe it will hiss as it kisses the water of the loch; my lips curl upward as this fails to happen.
There is a vague shape in the sky, sort of an anti-shadow, as the moon begins to assert its dominance. A shape wheels across the sky, flitting through the light.
The air has a greasy feel to it. The static charge is high, causing the hair on my arms to rise as though in response to an ancient calling. I feel the pull inside me, hooking into every fibre of my being.
The sun passes its limit, disappearing below the waves. For a few moments, stray ripples of light remain to colour the water; then it is gone, leaving only blackness behind.
Darkness falls, an absence of light punctured by pinpricks of starlight. The temperature falls, cold drawing in close. I can feel it, the closing in of…something.
It is Samhain, you see, the night of the year when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest. I can feel it, bulging in places and stretched almost to breaking point. It reminds me of a plastic bag that is overfilled, the material stretched taut and almost transparent, ready to tear.
Like now.
A soft splash murmurs across the water, some unseen fish breaking the surface. Ripples spread outwards, mirroring the ripples I feel in the surface of reality.
I stand there, allowing the night to wrap me in a velvet embrace. I can feel…things…moving just outside my perception. Hunting, searching, looking for a way to bridge the divide.
I shiver. The moon is full now, casting silver light across the waters.  I feel a tear begin in the veil and close my eyes. A presence leaks through, liquid and alien. It settles on me and soaks into my being, imposing its will on mine.
Calmness suffuses me. I am expecting evil, inhumanity, something; not this.
My innermost desires and thoughts are laid bare. Stripped of all obfuscation and examined, I almost cannot feel the pressures that are applied.
It is over almost before I know it has started. The presence is gone, leaving behind nothing but a hollowness inside.
I feel my smile grow without it touching my eyes. I know how to fill that emptiness the presence has left behind. I feel a purpose suffuse me.
I start to walk. Away from the loch, back towards the town. My smile grows as my steps quicken. The hollow feeling is soon to be banished, at least for a while.
As I walk, the knife drops from my sleeve and into my hand.