Flash Fiction: The Destroyer of Worlds

This was written for the 1 May Flash!Friday competition and received an honourable mention. The prompts were the photo and “catch 22”.

The Destroyer of Worlds

Build a door to keep the Darkness out. To keep the Darkness in. Call it simply Darkness. Not worth a name. Too scared to name It. 

Hide the keys and act like you aren’t afraid of It escaping the room you built from the chemicals with the strange names. The only thing that can bind it.

But still afraid of Its return. The Secret that can choke and kill. 

Try to see the tendrils escaping the room before it’s too late.

But Its fingerprints look like yours.

Its voice sounds like yours.

You are a puppet, It the master.

Or is it the other way around?

A piece of yourself?

A dark entity?

A liar, or not?

Lock it away and kill a piece of yourself?

Let it out and find Its true nature?

Perhaps this time you’ll be able to control It.

Perhaps this time It will kill.

Perhaps this time It wouldn’t steal memories.

Perhaps you’ll forget yourself.

Will It always find the keys?

Will Its prison last?

Will you live with fresh wounds meant to draw the darkness out?

Will you live with scars that trap tendrils of darkness?

Do the Darkness leave a choice, in the end?

Is twilight trapped in darkness or in light?

Keys. CC2.0 photo by Apionid

Here’s what the judges had to say: