A candle burns to light up the dark. What if there was a candle that could disperse darkness? It might not be photonic, not like a cloud hovering over your head on a dark rainy day. It is not even the like the dark black liquid that might flow through your vessels flooding the brain. Not even the slimy black mass that oozes through the grey matter. It is the scathe of smoke, ash and the charcoal that’s been burning the light to emit darkness that is found covering your skin like a scale, inseparable. Like the salt residue of hard water. It needs too much effort to be taken apart. It has to be ripped apart with the skin and yes it is terribly painful. But leaving the black dry matter there unperturbed doesn’t seem to hurt but presents you with a sense of pleasure. Not from within, but superficially. Like a protective coat, a knight at arms to defend you. Keeping you warm from the cold and cold enough on warm sweaty nights. It spreads like a second skin and eventually becomes one. It grows upon you and before you know it engulfs your inner self, but you’ll hardly notice. Slowly you become the dark mass, a black matte covered monster emanating darkness from within and around that it is indistinguishable. You can’t tell apart the monster from the dark mass. You become the black mass, though you physically exist within. You become invisible and with it your persona. You become one with the dark mass without even the knowledge of being. Oh for the monster you are, you are not that bad looking. You just lost the organic curves of your body and the black keratosis had seemed to crystallize and formed like an armor around you. They just keep growing. What is the need to stop growing when there is no reason not to? They cover your face and neck and body like single coat, it is hard to say how you move around in that thing. May be you don’t even find the need to move. They cover your arms and fingers too. And they keep growing around the edges and protrudes from the tips of your fingers, pointy like a sickle, hardened. Sharp as though you can stab with them. It wouldn’t need that much force, just a gentle poke could drive it deep into the stones. No wonder you go around poking people with it. Like it was its only purpose it needs to serve. And the people, your friend and family and strangers alike are unaware, stand mute as you approach. They are not blind to you, but the unnerving darkness around them emanating from you make you invisible. And it may seem as though they were waiting there just to get your fingers slicing into their body and get their heart infected with that black salty substance you carry. They don’t seem to be in pain when you cut through their bones. Oddly they seem to be experience an extreme pleasure. Like the orgasm they never had and never will. It seems the malice caused was providing the pleasure, that they know they’ll never experience again and would end up searching for it their whole life. But there are other plans that would make this look like lick rather than a bite to the neck. The touch of the darkness in their heart slowly spreads from within. Very different from how it started out with you. But nevertheless they ended up the same. The same dark black mass emanating darkness around making it unrecognizable. And slowly the darkness spreads by what looks like a gentle touch. No one is aware of any of it though. It all seemed to be part of normalcy, an everyday act, and you go around and poke other people in their hearts until they become one with you and your darkness. The people with the black hearts, and that’s everyone by now except you, are not self aware anymore. No one was even aware of the transition. It was not as fast as a blink, for a blink could be caught easily. Rather it was gentle, slow and engulfing the soul bit by bit and every part of it without leaving any memory of their living. As though as the transition completes they don’t exist anymore. Just a monster like you. But nothing like you. You still have flesh underneath. You still have that beating heart pumping that blood through your veins. You still move around looking for some living heart to poke with, as if it’s your purpose. And then one sacred day, you stumble upon a mirror. You are facing yourself in a long time and the monster, the demon, is staring right back at you in the mirror. But you can’t see it with your eyes as it is dark all around and you are one with it. Only thing you can see is your eyes. It’s not as pale as they used to be. Just a black mass. But you know something is staring back at you and you recognize your own eyes. And you look within hard to identify what you are, and you realize what you’ve become. You see yourself in the back of your eyes. You see the demon within it. And now there is just one thing left to do. You just drive your fingers forward towards you, your heart. You have no control over the action. Not like you want it to stop. You didn’t have any opinion attached to it. Void of all instincts. And as the black fingers sliced through the glass of the mirror and cut through your bones, for a moment you become aware. And then you cry.