Chapter 1 The high mountain air was dense with darkness and eerily devoid of life. If anyone had been around to witness the almost suffocating embrace of the deep moonless void of space as it draped itself across the mountains, it would have been breath taking. Sadly, no one was there to witness darkness as it seeped into the valleys and filled every crevice with darkness. The animals who lived in the forested mountain had already fled the encroaching darkness. They could sense the evil lurking in the shadows. Only the bravest insects, bats, and mammals ventured into the night world, risking their lives by doing so for a scrap of food.

A single orange tent was perched near the back of a glacial carved cirque which looks like a broken bowl. Inside the small tent was a sleeping boy named Kodiak who had fled from the valley. He left the safety of the valley because people around him started to disappear. He was not sure why the village people had left. Was it because the villagers made too much noise or simply decided to leave? He would never know, but the trouble of disappearing people often seemed to follow the boy.

Just as it seemed that the darkness could grow no further, it enveloped the tent, which caused the air surrounding it to quickly drop in temperature. Kodiak woke with a start. His brain retreated from its dreamland a bit sluggishly, he’d been dreaming of the starlight night sky again. As he began to pull himself back fully into the moment he remembered where he was and that he should be utterly alone in the high mountains.

Kodiak assumed the cause of his startled awakening was Ni-Kuk, the night’s terrifying companion. Kodiak had been taught that Ni-Kuk was the reason that night was so dark, and all the lights in the sky had disappeared. The village elders taught that Ni-Kuk was the reason why people disappeared. They also taught that Ni-Kuk would fill up any room left open to it, which is why everyone had dark curtains for their windows at night. Stories were told of places where a window or door had been left ajar and Ni-Kuk had entered and everyone inside had simply vanished. Personally, Kodiak thought it was just a bedtime story to keep little kids in bed at night. Despite this, the stories still kept him up at night and forced him to obey every rule about noise and light pollution.

He was afraid that Ni-Kuk had tapped his shoulder to awaken him from him his chaotic dreamland, to take him away. Kodiak did not get up because he was scared; he preferred to stay wrapped tightly in his warm bundle of blankets and sleeping bag. He knew the air in his tent was safe and warm. Before sighing with relief, he checked to make sure the black fabric covering the rain fly peep-window was secure. ‘Good,’ he thought, ‘the Ni-Kuk cannot really get in.’ As he pondered this thought of safety, a slow realization poured into the forefront of his mind and the hair on the back of his neck began to stand on end. ‘If Ni-Kuk had been shut out then what caused me to wake up?’ His stomach tightened as adrenaline coursed through his entire body.

Suddenly, his ears began to pick up faint sounds similar of buzzing. Then he heard a single cricket as it chirped off in the distance. ‘Impossible!’ he thought as he recognized the sound. He had never heard it before in nature but he had read stories about the sound crickets make. There was even a recording of their sound in the natural history museum he’d been to as a small child. He even recalled what the placard in the museum said about crickets and many other creatures.

Many generations ago, there used to be places that had glowing bugs that would zap around the night sky while the sound of chirping crickets echoed thicker than the grass they inhabited. Frogs used to create cacophonous melodies with their bulbous throaty voices as millions of insects filled the starlit night with the sound of their industrious buzzing flight. Coyotes would howl to one another in distant hills, their voices sounding more like irreverent balks than the soulful wailing howl of wolves. Large owls could be seen flying through the darkness, their white bodies appearing like ghosts fleeting above the trees as they searched for the ever present field mice.

All of that night life and more was a thing of the past. Most people weren’t even aware that such things had ever existed. They were so wrapped up in their own survival that they chose to simply forget. But Kodiak could not forget. He’d been fascinated with the past, the wild animals, and the empty night for as long as he could remember.

His mother had told him that he was a special child, unique because of his unquenchable curiosity and for the circumstances of his birth. He was one of the few children to be born at night out under the thick lightless cold sky who had not disappeared by sunup. Most children were born in underground birthing centers or special hospitals that had sound and light barriers. Ni-Kuk did not tolerate the light or sound and those who broke the only two rules of night were often gone by the time the sun came. The rules were fairly simple. Rule 1. Make no sound.
Rule 2. Make no light.

Though the rules seemed simple enough, many things had disappeared during the first nights of Ni-Kuk. Even the stars were gone. A select group of scientists believed that the stars and moon were still there, but that they were somehow dark at night. Others theorized that Ni-Kuk actually covered the entire planet in a shroud of darkness that blocked out any visible light during the night reign. The majority of people held views based in fear and superstition. It was commonly said that Ni-Kuk was a powerful being, someone to be feared and obeyed without question. Nobody seemed to care that not once had Ni-Kuk ever been heard or seen, in fact there was no proof that the entity existed at all – except for the dreadful void of darkness.

‘Those problems cannot be solved tonight,’ Kodiak thought to himself as he directed his mind back to the present moment. He needed to figure out what had caused him to wake.

Kodiak strained his ears as he listened intently through the darkness. The cricket had gone and everything was still and quiet again, except for the slight buzzing sound that could just be the silence ringing in his ears. He couldn’t quite place the sound; it was not something that he’d heard before. Sitting up, Kodiak looked in all directions around him but there was only the usual darkness. He shut his eyes for a moment and opened them again, hoping this would help his already accustomed eyes adjust further to the weary darkness. At the very moment he opened his eyes there was a tiny flash of light outside his tent that seemed far away and impossibly tiny, but bright enough to see through his lightweight tent. He caught his breath in shock and tried to remain as quiet as he could while uncurling his legs from beneath him. Kneeling now, Kodiak stared into the darkness, studying the place he’d seen the light.

Quick as lightning it flashed again, right when he inevitably blinked. ‘I must be going insane,’ his mind was racing in excitement and dread. ‘The elders said this would happen if I wandered off alone.’ The community elders made sure that all sounds and lights were as low as possible and enforced rules with these two goals in mind. One such rule was that everyone had to stay together. They told stories to the young kids about going insane from lack of light and being alone at night.

Kodiak hated the stories that the elders used to create fear and compliance among the children because he liked to wander off on his own.

--------- What will happen to Kodiak? Will he follow the light? Is the light even real? You will have to tune in to the next installment to find out.