I just wanted a peaceful night.

Transcript:

It’s 2:47 am. The 1st of August. You might be wondering how I got here, atop my shed roof.

A few hours ago I had been drawn into the yard feeling like I needed to watch the stars. It was a nice break from the 4 walls I had been looking at for the past couple weeks, even though the sky was never quite right when I did look at it.

Luckily tonight, it was a normal stary sky, just how it was supposed to look like, like the ones I saw in books or movies. Tonight, it wasn’t empty, it wasn’t following me, it wasn’t another roadway. Tonight, it was just bright dots, some twinkling, some faint.

As I sat down on the grass, soaking in the wet night dew, I laid back knowing that tonight was going to be different. It was going to be Peaceful, even.

Boy was I wrong.

An hour went by watching the stars trail across the sky, minding their own business, existing where they should be.

Then one of the stars grew.

I tried to ignore it. To hold onto one more night of calm.

But it just kept getting bigger.

Then from somewhere near the end of the yard came some rustling.

I sat up just high enough to look past my feet to see a skunk wedge it’s way under the fence.

Only that’s what I wanted to see.

Instead, I saw the fence bend around the creature.

It was a skunk, it had to be! Except that it definitely wasn’t. It was just, off.

Its legs were longer but it stood the same height. Its stripe vibrated left and right ever so slightly. Their eyes glowed and shawn cones of cyan light onto the ground. Its fur was deep like the darkness of a cave.

It wandered up the garden, stopping to chomp on a leaf.

It looked over to me paralyzed in the grass.

I swear it shrugged.

The thing wandered farther up the yard.

Loosening up from my frozen state, I slowly rose to my feet.

It gave no care until I took my first step.

It snapped it’s head to my position, drowning me in light.

The Skonk looked away again. I took another step. Again, it snapped back with an unsettling precision.

We played this game of Wax Museum for longer than I wanted but at least the fae didn’t hit me with whatever their defence weapon is.

I made my way over to a ladder, out of view of the creature, and climbed up to the roof of my shed.

At this point, the Skonk stared up at me, casting it’s glow. And that’s where it stopped. And that’s where I’ve stopped too.

I pry my eyes away from the gaze of the creature to take another look at the star that got too big. I could make the details out now. The solar flares looked close enough to hit the earth.

I glanced back down at the Skonk. It too was entranced by the growing star.

Now I could feel the heat from this celestial body on my skin at the same time the creature returned eye-contact.

A final glance back to the sky revealed that the star was no more and the heat disappeared into a cool breeze.

It hasn’t blinked.

My only hope is that the sun rises soon.