Star Light
I remember the first time I witnessed that gruesome sight, right in front of me. It had been all over the news for the past week but until that moment, I was still unable to take any of the stories seriously. I guess that’s what happens in a world where the media exaggerates every little story they encounter, to pull in more dull-minded viewers. It first started in the icy wastelands of Russia, back in 2012, hikers passing through on their travels discovered bodies half-buried in the snow, their abdomens mutilated and the occasional limb removed, only to be found a few meters from the body. At first these finds were put down to wild animals desperately searching for food in the lifeless tundra, they barely even made news on Russian broadcasting networks, only the locals to the areas (of which there are few in such a desolate place) really heard the stories. It’s strange, now that I think about it. The attacks had been happening all through late December and simply went unreported until February when things became more severe. Heck, maybe those Doomsday lunatics were onto something after all and no one noticed. As the days went on, after the initial attacks, panic in the Russian wilderness began to spread as more bodies were found in the wild, remains scattered in the snow and yet an even larger amount of people became reported as ‘missing’. It wasn’t until mid-January that the first body was discovered in a public area. In a small rural town, sitting on the edge of the wastes, two disfigured bodies were discovered by a few poor citizens on their way to work, their limbs scattered all over the streets. This was the first case that managed to work its way into the mainstream media outlets. Everybody just dismissed it as a murder case, the sort that you hear about in foreign countries all the time. What kept my attention was something the autopsy reports discovered: The murder hadn’t even happened at night. It seemed to have happened only an hour before the first poor soul discovered the freshly broken body. I mentally gagged at the thought of finding a body strewn across the floor, still bleeding. As the days went on, more and more reports came in of bodies being found in small villages across Russia, completely destroyed and with no clue as to the cause and just like the original, all of them had happened in broad daylight but with no witnesses to recall how it happened. It was February when the first ‘big incident’ occurred. I remember it distinctly because it happened to be my birthday. Breaking News all over the world, insane stories coming from Russia, it seemed impossible to believe at first. The anchorman on TV spoke quickly in an urgent voice, of barricades being erected in Moscow as people from outside ran screaming to its walls, begging to be let in. What he said next made my heart jump. People in cities and towns all over Moscow were being eviscerated in plain daylight. The attacker? Nothing. People were being cut to ribbons, in their homes, in the streets, all over Russia, in plain daylight but there was no visible attacker. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it. It had to be a hoax, it didn’t make any sense. However, my curiosity overpowered me, I had to see it for myself. I loaded up my laptop and began my trawl of some of the ‘darker’ parts of the web, in search of videos of the insane claims. As it turned out, there were thousands of videos on the subject, so I clicked on a random one. It was being filmed from a rooftop and involved frightened people of all ages, running through the streets in a panic with nothing noticeable chasing them. I remember moving to click another link after thinking nothing would happen, when suddenly a random man in the group seemed to scream and then… Explode. It just happened. There was no warning, no sign of attack, the man wasn’t even at the back of the group. It seemed as though fate had picked a random person and just decided he would die, there and then. I sat in shock as the video ended abruptly. Moving the mouse up again I clicked on another video, this one was being filmed from behind a barricade to hold back fleeing citizens. I guess that was their idea of ‘controlling’ the population. Various men in military uniforms lined the barricade with large rifles, looking on at the crying, begging people with little emotion. Then out of nowhere, one of the women at the front of the crowd was ripped apart by the air and thrown across the military’s front line. I gagged a little at the sight, despite having been reinforced against this sort of thing. In a panicked response, the soldiers sprayed their guns at the point of the attack as if trying to hit the invisible assailant but their bullets went through the space and took out the civilians behind the remains. People scattered as the soldiers unloaded their rounds into the crowd and then spontaneously, one of the soldiers burst apart. The cameraman seemed to panic at this point and the feed went dead. My mind was struggling to get to grips with itself. I honestly didn’t know what to think. I always imagined myself in these situations before, acting like I was in a movie, analyzing every mystery and saving the day by solving it but this… this just made no sense. I was scared. The next day, Russia entered lockdown, as did many other countries, in hopes of keeping this ghostly threat out of their nations. News from Russia dropped as a result. It was completely cut off from the rest of the world and we could only hope they were okay. And then… life continued. Of course, people talked of it but everyone just seemed to stop fearing it. In reality, it seems, we were just trying to put it behind us because of our fear. Humans fear what they don’t understand so it seems ‘not thinking about it’ was a suitable way of combatting that fear. It wouldn’t last. The year moved on and days became longer and then that day came… the one I wish I could forget… It was a bright day in the middle of May and I was out with a group of friends, celebrating the completion of another year at University. We were walking and laughing to the in-jokes we had created over the last year, trying to remember them all before we retreated to our home towns. At one point we stopped while a few of our party went to buy food from a shop and I began talking to my closest friend, Ryan. We were midway into a conversation about what game to play online next and then… It was so abrupt. Just like in the videos. He was halfway through a word and his body just… burst into pieces. Blood and entrails splattered across my body. I stumbled back in horror as my mind processed what had just happened. Around me, people ran away from the area, screaming for help but I barely noticed. Where my best friend once stood was now just a bloody mess and my mind was never given a chance to prepare itself. I dropped to my knees and vomited on the floor, crying. It was at least fifteen minutes before I was able to take control of myself again and actually get up. By that point, the police had arrived and were telling me to remain still, as if they thought I had done this unspeakable act. I remember sitting in that gloomy room, barely being able to answer any questions the investigators had for me, simply replying with a nod or shake of the head. They told me that this wasn’t the only place it had happened. In fact, it had become a worldwide pandemic. The brief period of peace had just been the calm before the storm. What we thought was sealed in Russia was now everywhere and it wasn’t even spreading from a single point as it had been at the start. It was a full-scale attack… nowhere was safe. We were evacuated to military bases and defense points in hopes of holding back this invisible invasion but we all knew it was no use. My family and I were taken to a military installation in the countryside where we stayed for a month. No contact with the outside world was permitted, in fear of giving our location away to the creatures. A single analog TV was our only view of the outside world, it seemed a few rogue pirate news stations had popped up to keep those locked away, up to date with current events. The quality was terrible but in a time like that, it was better than nothing. We heard reports of strange lights being sighted, not in the sky but closer to the ground. We were told of countries falling one by one, their entire populations being wiped out. There was also one report of scientists discovering ‘something’ in the sky. The report said that they couldn’t ‘see’ it but whatever it was, it was giving out a lot of energy and it was big, the size of a small moon, in fact. Images of Russia came in from aerial photographs. Moscow was ablaze, towering buildings reduced to rubble and in their remains, shook large shimmering waves of fire. A close up of the streets showed roads bathed in red with human remains dotted around in several areas. The video feed switched to another aerial clip of a gigantic crater. The host went on to describe the location as a former Nuclear Power Plant that had entered a meltdown two months ago due to no one controlling it. At the end of the clip, the camera quickly moved upwards, to focus on a second helicopter that was now spinning out of control. Against the window, flashes of that all too familiar red color could be seen as the video suddenly cut out. The last broadcast on that channel was the most disturbing. We switched the TV on to find the man in tears with streaks of blood down his face. He looked extremely scared and spoke with a weak, trembling voice. “Oh God, they’ve come! The angels have come for me, Lord! They’ve taken everyone here and now it’s my turn. Judgement Day is here, loyal viewers! There’s nothing left for me on this Earth anymore but… for those who might be left, I think I know how to survive against them.” He let out a loud, sharp laugh. “Just my luck, hey? To find out when it’s too late. All you have to do is stay out of the-” His sentence was cut off by a scream as his body was ripped in two, right before our eyes. The channel didn’t shut off though. It’s still there, in fact, but all you see now is the decaying corpse of an insane man, one of his eyes limply staring at you through the camera lens. Since then, there were no more accessible channels. Our last view of the outside world was gone. It didn’t really matter anymore, to us. We were a small group of people left amongst what must have been less than a million humans on the Earth. The ‘what’ and ‘where’ was no longer our concern. For a while, everything was quiet. The soldiers kept us in line, we fed off of what rations the base had, we stuck to strict curfews and attempted to socialize and keep ourselves entertained in our new little personal world. We were somehow quite content with our new lives, with no outside world to bother us, no responsibilities or concerns for anything but our little community. On top of that, the lack of news about outside events allowed us to almost forget what had been happening. Until one night at the end of August, I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a scream. I was on the floor of a large room containing hundreds of other sleeping evacuees, the realization still startled me every time I woke up, even though I had been sleeping in these conditions for the past month. My vision was blurred somewhat as I attempted to focus on my surroundings and my body appeared to be mildly damp and slightly sticky. I didn’t think much of it, I had had many restless nights here and we were in a cramped humid bunker. On the far side of the room, there were two dim lights creeping in through the doorways. Someone must have left the light on in the corridor I thought to myself. It was rather puzzling, the thoroughness of the soldiers here would have never allowed something like this. All lights had to be switched off at 8 pm and they checked every night. Surely by now, a guard would have found this and switched it off again. Maybe it was one of them doing a midnight check on us all? That’s when I noticed something odd. One of the lights was… moving. Not moving behind the doorway but it seemed as if the doorway itself was moving. It drifted silently across, closing in on the other door, at first I thought it must be a soldier with a torch. I winced and rubbed my eyes, attempting to focus on the object then, just as it merged with the light of the door, I managed to focus on what seemed impossible. It had the shape of a tall, disturbingly thin humanoid but where the body should be, there was nothing. No abdomen, no limbs, no head. The outline of the mysterious being seemed to just drift across the wall in an area of light. The first thought that entered my mind was ‘inverted shadow’. I know it sounds crazy but it was as if, instead of creating a shadowy outline in a lit room, something was creating a bright outline in a dark room. Unfortunately, this was the best view I could get of the entity as it seemed to literally merge with the light from the doorway and disappear. My body was frozen at the sight and out of fear, I chose to lay down and try to get to sleep again, hoping that whatever it was, it wouldn’t notice me. It was another long, restless night. I woke up at 8 am, light peered through the small slits in the top of the bunker and kept the room bright enough to see wall to wall in the giant reinforced mass of cement. I wish I hadn’t seen it though. Blood covered the walls. Where once had been sleeping bodies, now laid the remains of a silent massacre. What I thought had been my own sweat from the night before turned out to be the remains of my parents who had once slept beside me. I screamed. Not a single person was spared that night. Well, save for myself. Walking through the base, it seemed these things had made short work of every human on site and yet, the gates still remained firmly shut, guards posted on the watch points had their destroyed bodies hanging over the rails. It was quiet. I sat in the middle of that compound, alone, sobbing to myself. I was alone in the world. These things had killed everyone I knew and loved and I was lost. I didn’t know what to do. I slept in that compound for 3 days until I saw him again. That man of light, eerily and slowly drifting through the darkness and merging with the light once again. This time, I could’ve sworn he noticed me. He stopped and turned, till he was head-on with me and just stared at me. I couldn’t move, my body just refused to listen… and then the being left. I don’t know why they keep sparing me. Is it for amusement? Because they pity me? Or something more? I just can’t get my head around any of it… After that night, I took as many supplies from the base as I could and journeyed towards the nearest village which is where I now reside. I managed to find a house with a basement and locked myself in there with the supplies… but I never turn the light on anymore. For three weeks I have been living in total darkness. Not because I think they’ll find me but… I think I know what these things are now. I once read a science fiction book that detailed a possible route a species may take in its evolutionary course. This species would evolve beyond the simple realm of the physical and became a being of pure energy. When a species would reach this point it would obtain near-omniscient knowledge and have no care for life or death anymore. What the intentions of such a hyper-powerful species would be are impossible to predict since their minds are so much more advanced than ours. It seems in our Universe, a species has gotten there before us. They ARE the Light. Where we always feared an alien species abducting us in the middle of the night, it turns out that darkness is our only safety from the real threat. The Beings of Light. Two days ago the Second Star appeared. A Red Giant that now sits opposite our Sun, bathing both halves of the Earth in light. And now there is no longer night in this world. There is no place to hide on the outside. I don’t know what they want with our planet or why they chose to kill us all but I know this: They have killed everyone here. If you’re out there, don’t go into the light. Stick to the shadows if you want any chance of living. Darkness doesn’t kill them but it sure slows them down. There is a light coming from beneath the basement door. I have to go now. Good luck. – Thomas Everick | 18/10/2013 Credit: Ben Cook This story was submitted to Creepypasta.com by a fellow reader. To submit your own creepypasta tale for consideration and publication to this site, visit our submissions page today. Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.