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Reply To: Monthly comp – December 2018

About Forums Den of Writers Monthly Competition Monthly comp – December 2018 Reply To: Monthly comp – December 2018

#3603
Xander Michael
Participant

The Longest Night

Every year on this night she took a walk. Winter solstice was important to Hanna. She hated the endless dark living in Tromsø, but tonight she knew that the light was returning to her, even if it wouldn’t arrive until mid-January. True the northern lights were spectacular when they appeared, but usually the days and nights were overcast keeping everyone in the dark.

She found people different in the dark, they were colder themselves as though the winter seeped into their very beings. She’d thought of leaving, but the summers of endless light were what kept her in Tromsø. The light was magical and filled everything with vibrant life.

Loki, her elkhound, pulled on his lead jolting Hanna out of her daydream of summer and imagining how busy this beach would be in the summer months. Which are on their way, she thought with a wistful smile. Loki kept straining, trying to take Hanna down to the water. It was well frozen over now, but when they reached the shoreline there was a cylindrical object lying in a small clearing, half on the sand and half in the water. Loki sniffed at it and Hanna squatted down to examine it. She wanted to take a closer look, but was hesitant. It didn’t make sense that the area around it had thawed completely. Sharing her curiosity, Loki took it in his mouth immediately dropping it with a yelp. Loki barked at the object, but seemed otherwise unscathed from the heat of the object.

Picking it up Hanna could feel the heat of it through her thick mittens. She turned it over investigating it, but it was unnaturally smooth except for a small button at either end. She pressed them one at a time, but nothing happened. Then she pressed them at the same time.

It was as if the world had reached the far side of the sun and she was standing in its eternal light. Startled by the blinding light she dropped the cylinder in the snow and the world returned to darkness. When her sight returned, she recovered the object and pressed both buttons again and again the night turned to day. It was as bright as a cloudless day at noon, but there was no sun, just a vast and beautiful blue sky, but oddly no warmth in it.

“What kind of trick is this Loki?”