Flee Dark

    We are the shadow.  We are the mist.  We fear the sun and love the dark, wet places where even the moon and stars are hidden.  We are the fearful; we hold our secrets tightly.  The darkness is our domain.
    I say this with much sorrow for I remember life as it used to be.  I remember green days, when the sun shone hot upon our backs as we lay in the grass.  The birds sang and all around us we could smell the world coming to joyous, vibrant life.  No sorrow could touch us as we drank in the light.  I remember white days with the sun reflecting off the snow, its brightness overwhelming us with the crystal laughter of the wintertime.  The air was so cold we could hardly breathe and everything was fresh and clean and waiting for the springtime, when the green days could begin all over again.  Every night was just an interval during which we anticipated the coming of the light.
    Green days are now of moss and murky sunlight that, barely filtering through the thick, green foliage, cannot warm our everlasting chill.  All is death, sinking slowly in the morass as a miasma of rotting things surrounds our heads.  There are no white days, no clean days, only the moon-pale mushrooms peeping out of the dankness underfoot.  There is only the moisture, seeping slowly into our bones; only a chill we can never shake and a despair that grows with each breath of the musty air.
    I am old, far too old to go back into the world.  I was old when we came, fleeing from some exaggerated fear, and now I can never return.  The feel of the place has soaked right into me and I will soon become another rotting part of the swamp.  I pass my hope to the younger generation.  Fight the fears of your fathers.  Return to the life you were meant to live.  You are our only hope.

The Lament of an Elder
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    He was born on a cold and murky night; born to parents that remembered the sun.  His father named him Ray.  It was a name that spoke to him of quiet moments in the warmth of the sun.  He did not want to forget the light, but he was afraid to return to it.  He was a timid, scared man and would not lead, even if there were others willing to follow.  He waited for the day when one would come that could save them from their despair but, until that day, their destiny was the darkness.  Ray grew up in the swamp.
    Ray's mother was a terse, thin-lipped woman.  She was not one to show affection or warmth.  She did not look with regret on the life she had left behind.  She was happy to grow stagnant, to become another part of the scenery and to contribute to the penetrating chill.  She knew that warmth and sunshine would appeal to a boy like Ray, but she could not bear to lose him to a place she did not dare to go so she dominated the home, protecting Ray.
    Ray became a dreamer and happy with his own view of reality.  In his own way, he was content.  His mother despaired of ever making him into what she thought a proper boy should be but he refused to be sensible, but she would tolerate his dreams so long as he would never leave her side.  She loved her son, in a cold and lonely way, and she would keep him forever.
    At the age of eleven, Ray was not a strong boy.  He had dark hair and dark eyes that seemed much to large for his thin, sensitive face.  He was much too pale and drifted around the swamp like a phantom.  Yet his face was happy.

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    There was something strange about the world Ray was in.  The colors were so bright and it was full of orange, trailing vines.  Dark forms swung toward him in the distance.  Ray stood his ground, armed by nothing but his courage and determination.  He waited for the nameless shadows that hunted him, knowing they would find him before long.  He thrilled to the rush of adrenaline in his veins.  He was ready to feel the power of victory once again.  The darkness could never overcome him.  He heard a rustling in the trees behind him.  He whirled and watched the shadows.  Something was approaching.
    Ray's mother watched him from the trees.  Ray stood in the clearing, stock still, barely moving a muscle.  He blended into the swamp around him, no more than another moss-covered rock.  He peered intently into the gathering gloom.  His mother saw nothing beyond him.  She knew he dreamed again.  She stepped quickly in front of him and touched his shoulder.  For a minute, she thought he would fight her, then his face cleared; the last haze of dream dissipated from his eyes and he smiled sweetly at her.
    "Hey mom, what are you doing here?"
    "Ray," she began softly. "You have been out here for hours.  Supper has come and gone.  I was worried, worried that you had. . ."  Her voice began to rise.  "Don't ever do this again.  What have I told you about your dreaming?  It does you no good.  Look around you, this is your world, and it is the best one we could give you.  It will never change, no matter how much you try to dream it differently."
    "Gee mom, what else am I supposed to do?  I've read all your books many times.  I learned how to draw.  I even tried learning to knit.  All that you have given me, I can dream it better.  I can be the hero or the villain, in any place at any time.  I can escape from the cold.  If you take away my dreams, what do I have left?"
    "Ray, we are going home.  You will go straight to your room without any supper and you WILL stop dreaming!"
    Ray faked his tears.  He did not want her to know how much he hoped he would be banished to his room for the rest of the evening.  The kitchen was always dark and crawling with worms, beetles and disapproval.  It was haunted by sneaking shadows and the shelves were covered with strange herbs and dried mushrooms of all shapes and varieties.
    Ray did not worry about going hungry.  He knew his father would sneak up a plate of leftovers to him after his mother went out to pick mushrooms and embrace the darkness of the bog. Sometimes she would stay out for hours, just walking and discovering the secrets of the dark until long after Ray and his father had fallen asleep.
    Ray's father was, in many ways, a weak man.  He never dared to stand up to his wife openly.  His only defiance were when he crept up to his son's room to escape the despair of the swamp, if only for a short time.  He would sneak up, plate overflowing in his left hand, and walk into the room where Ray waited for him with anticipation.  They would sit together on the bed, sharing the food.  Ray's father could never eat in the kitchen either.  Their silent fellowship as they ate together was one of Ray's favorite parts of the day.
    Ray's most favorite part of the day came right after supper.  Ray and his father lay back on the bed and closed their eyes and his father told the stories he had learned as a child.  They were mostly adventure stories.  There were stories about pirates and stories about knights and many damsels who always seemed to be in a state of distress.  There were epic battles between good and evil and the good, the light, was always the victor.  They were always stories of hope and truth.  Ray didn't care what the stories were about, so long as it was completely removed from the death and cold of the swamp.
    He craved stories about a world he had never seen.  He did not believe he would ever see the sights his father related with such excitement, but he always wished and dreamed he would.  The stories and pictures would fill the room until he fell asleep.
    "Follow your dreams, my son."  Ray always heard a soft voice as he drifted off.  Many times, he thought it was the beginning of his night-time dreaming.  "Lead us back to the light."
    So Ray's life went on.  It never changed.  Ray skipped supper and heard the stories and he kept wandering off into the swamp to dream of far-off places.  His mother kept telling him to grow up and understand reality, but he was not ready to give that up.  Six years passed.

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    Ray lay on his back in his favorite clearing.  He could see the brightness from behind his closed eyelids.  He felt the penetrating warmth shining on his face and the soft breeze playing in his hair and embracing his body.  He smiled, nearly drifting off to sleep.  He was happy here in this peaceful place.  Could he ever be happy anywhere else?  A dark memory pushed insistently at the back of his mind, but he angrily shoved it away.  There was no room for sadness when he lay here in the sunshine.
    "RAY, WHERE ARE YOU?"  Cold, musty air returned in a rush, memory followed like a sledgehammer.  His dream was gone and his shirt was soaked.  He rose shakily and realized he had been lying there for hours without even moving.  His mother walked slowly toward him, trudging through the rotting vegetation that covered the ground.
    "Don't look at me that way, Ray," his mother pleaded.  "It had to be done."
    "You killed him!  You don't know that he would have died.  He spoke to me, mother.  He was awake.  His fever was breaking.  How could you do this?  It was murder!" Ray yelled.  His mother shrank back from his anger.
    "People don't survive the swamp fever, Ray.  I had to feed him the mushrooms.  He was suffering."
    "You killed my father like he was a pet cat.  How can I not be angry.  He was the only one who ever loved me.  You never did, you only wanted me to love you and you couldn't bear it that I loved him more.  I no longer have a father," he whispered brokenly, tears streaking his face.
    "I do love you." She reached out her hand, to comfort and to hold.  Ray slapped her hands away angrily.  He glared at her and she was shocked by the hatred in his eyes.
    "I no longer have a mother either."  He left her standing, alone in the swamp she loved.
    He ran after he left her.  He ran for a long time.  The swamp was all around him.  He wondered with a queer sort of despair if his father's stories were even true.  Was there really a place where the sun shone, or was there only the swamp, covering the entire world?
    He glimpsed light.  It wasn't the filtered, watery light of the swamp, but a clear, almost yellow light that he had never seen before, save in his own imagination.  Ray ran faster and then, he was out.  He smiled and ran on the green grass.  It didn't shift and sink under his feet.  The sun was much more beautiful than he had imagined it.  The first thing he did was to look for a grassy hilltop where he could rest and fulfill his favorite daydream; where he could forget his father.
    It didn't take him long to realize that the sun was not as benevolent as it appeared.  It was so bright that it hurt his eyes and gave him a raging headache.  Also, he had not been there for very long when he noticed that his skin began to get very red and very hot.  He had never seen anything like it.  He had already come far from the swamp and he was getting very confused.  He did not know where he had come from and he had nowhere to go.
    Ray's head swam.  He was getting dizzier by the second.  In what seemed like no time at all, he collapsed on the grass and his mind flew away into fevered dreams.
    Ray felt movement.  He tried to open his blistered and swollen eyelids but every movement brought him excruciating pain.  For a moment, he managed to open his eyes to see an elderly face hovering above his own.  A cool hand touched his forehead.
    "His fever is bad.  I haven't seen sunstroke like this before." A warm voice spoke above him.  For a moment, Ray was awake and lucid, but he soon began to sink back into the hallucinations that flitted through his fevered imagination.  He fought hard to stay out of the blackness of unconsciousness, but there was nothing he could do.  He floated away into dark dreams.
    He lay like that for a long time.  Sometimes he was cold, colder than he had ever been in the swamp, and other times he felt as if we was being held inside his mother's hearth fire at home, sometimes both.  In the group of blistering heat and icy cold, he hovered between life and death.
    He cried often for his father; not remembering that he was gone, but his mother's name never passed his lips, except to blame her for the torment that had been placed upon him.  Even when his mind could not recall anything else, the flame of hatred burned strong.
    One evening, Ray woke up.  He was fully conscious for the first time in many weeks.  He could now recognize that he was not alone.  Their were strange faces at his bedtime.  One was of an old man.  His hair was white and his wrinkled skin was spotted and hairy.  He looked kind and a youthfulness shone out of his faith that denied his great age.  The other was of a young boy, carefree and unlined.  His white-blond hair stood up like a shock of wheat on top of his head and his skin was darker than any Ray had ever seen.  The boy smiled at him and Ray felt an immediate kinship with this boy, even though he could be no more than twelve.
    "Hello, my name is Aidan, and this is my old man.  His name is Emrys."  The boy said.  Ray looked up at him curiously, still confused as to where he was, how he had come there and why.  He felt an unbearable itch in his left arm and reached over to scratch it, then stopped and swallowed hard, looking at the masses of peeling skin that covered his arms.
    "Don't touch it," said the old man.  "You have a nasty sunburn.  It is best if you leave it alone."
    "You would think you had never been in the sun before!" the little boy laughed.
    "I haven't," said Ray.  Aidan sat and looked at him, surprised, as if waiting for an explanation.  Ray did not want to speak of his pain, but the open faces of the old man and the boy seemed to open his mouth and slowly, bit by bit, his story came out, except for his hatred of his mother.  He managed to hide it from Aidan, but Emrys could sense the underlying emotions of his narrative.
    Ray grew tired as he talked.  Soon, Emrys sent Aidan out of the room, but he remained, sitting by Ray's bed until Ray fell asleep.  For a moment, he heard a familiar voice echoing in his mind.
    "Well done."  He pushed his eyes open for a moment and looked at Emrys, but he had not spoken.
    When Ray woke up in the morning, the fever had left him completely, but he was still weak.  It had been a long time since he had eaten anything, and he hadn't left the bed since Emrys had found him in the grass.
    It was a while before Ray got up the strength to leave his bed.  But as soon as he could, he was following Aidan around as he played in the meadow.  At first, Ray went around completely covered up, but he soon could expose his skin to the sun for short periods of time.  His skin adjusted rapidly, although he had never been in full sunlight before.  He no longer looked like a pale ghost and he was filling out now that he was no longer living on a diet of mushrooms.  But the biggest change was that he was really happy, no longer needing the dreams that had sustained him during his childhood in the swamp.  He was not the hero of some great adventure like in his father's stories, but there was peace in the warm sunshine that hadn't been in the swamp, under the cold eye of his mother and watching the fear of his father.
    Ray laughed often, with Aidan, with Emrys and alone.  He and Aidan often laughed about how stupid he had been to get so burnt right at the beginning.
    "We will protect your mother from the sun when she comes to join you."  Aidan giggled.
    Ray's face changed immediately.  "We will not speak of my mother.  I have none.  She is dead to me."  Ray whispered tersely.  Aidan was stunned; he had never witnessed such pure rancor toward another human being.
    "Surely you don't mean that.  You cannot hate your mother that way.  I don't believe it."  Aidan was trembling.  He had never known his mother and he couldn't understand how Ray, growing up with one, could ever think of her with hatred.
    "She murdered my father.  I can't do anything else.  She has never done anything to deserve my love or forgiveness."  Ray left Aidan lying in the grass.  He could not stand his company anymore.  It was too painful to remember.
    Emrys watched Ray as he stormed into the house, but he knew his interference would not be welcomed.  He knew Ray would grow tired of his solitude and seek him out eventually.
    Ray brooded in the one chair in the house.  His thoughts smoldered in his mind; by some great effort of will, he prevented them from bursting into flame.  He had never loved his mother, but she had given birth to him and tried to raise him.  Didn't he owe her something?  His father had loved her, at least at one time.  Wouldn't he want her to be delivered from the swamp? Would his father hate her now, or would his forgiveness be greater than his desire for revenge?
    He finally stood from his chair, stretching, and walked outside to find Emrys.  Ray had already begun to view him as a leader whose voice could replace that of his father's.  Emrys waited nonchalantly outside the door as if he knew Ray would search him out.
    The words poured out of Ray's mouth in one continuous stream.  He told him about all his mother had ever done to him and what his father had meant to him.  He spoke of his doubts, fears and uncertainties.  He knew he was babbling, but he couldn't stop.  Emrys did not stop him; he just listened.  Coming out of the darkness of the swamp had not changed anything deep inside of him, only his outward circumstance.  Dwelling in the light had not prepared him for life any more than living alone in the swamp had.
    "I look at my thoughts and my motives and I don't like what I see.  Would it have been better if I had never left?  Would it have been better to go on believing that the swamp was all there was?  I never would have seen the darkness I took out with me, the darkness in my own soul."
    Emrys did not answer any of his questions.  "Forgive your mother," he said and then he left Ray alone with his thoughts.
    "Wait," Ray said.  "Why did the people leave?  Why did they run to the swamp?"  Emrys was already gone.
    Later, as they sat around at the dinner table, Emrys finally spoke.  "In the beginning of the world, all was light.  Even the darkness was filled with joy and happiness.  There was no fear.  There was nothing to fear.  Then, a man came along, speaking of the wisdom of fear.  People knew they were frail and that they were not perfect, but it had never bothered them before.  Suddenly, like you, they began to come face-to-face with the darkness that had always dwelt in their own soul.  It frightened them.  They became ashamed of it and, instead of remembering the light that had always been there, they began to embrace the darkness, cherishing it and causing it to grow.  The darkness they loved and hated, and the shame they dreaded, began to consume them until there was nothing of the light left.  Many grew so afraid that they fled into the swamp, craving the darkness and aloneness they would find there.  They felt the light would expose the darkness they tried so hard to deny and so they ran as far away from it as they could.
    "Life was different in the swamp.  They scattered.  There were no more villages, instead, they moved away from each other into small, isolated farms.  The people were left alone, nearly crushed under the weight of the secrets they dared not share.
    "I wanted to flee, but I loved the meadow.  It has always been such a beautiful place, untouched by the darkness of man.  I loved it from the moment I was born.  It was such a hard decision to stay; I had secrets too.  I was well acquainted with my own darkness."
    "Why did you stay?" Ray asked, spellbound.
    "I learned something.  If you walk in the light, you don't have to fear it."Emrys' words were cryptic and Ray did not understand them.
    "Do nothing that will condemn you.  Let your secrets be known.  If there is no darkness, the light cannot reveal it.  There is nothing to fear if you live in truth."  Emrys fell silent then.  Ray sat, pondering his words.
    "I am going to go back for her." Ray said quietly the next morning.  He looked nervously at Emrys until he saw the light of approval grow in his eyes.  Aidan smiled too.  He did not understand what had been in Ray's heart.  As a child of the light, he knew nothing of darkness.  Yet he had hoped to see the same light burn brightly in Ray.
    "Ray," Emrys spoke quietly.  "I am proud of you."  Ray smiled joyously and turned to prepare for his trip.  It did not take him long.  He had no belongings and he only brought a little food.
    "Can I come with you?"  Aidan seemed disinterested, nonchalantly looking up at Ray, but he could see the desire that burned in his eyes, the desire to see somewhere new.  Ray was about to discourage him, the swamp was a terrible place, but he could see Emrys nodding slightly from his place at the table.
    "I might need your help," Ray relented.  He was rewarded with Aidan's look of instant delight.  "Well, come on then, you have to keep up."
    Aidan was a good traveling companion.  He didn't chatter too much.  Ray appreciated it; he was still not sure if he was doing the right thing.  They made good time.  At first Ray thought he would never find his way home, but he soon found a part of the swamp that he recognized.
    They were tired by nightfall.  Aidan did not complain, but weariness reflected in his eyes.  They stunk of swamp and their legs cramped from slogging through the endless bog.  Ray fell asleep immediately.  Although he loved the meadow, the ways of the swamp were still as familiar to him as his own name.  Aidan hardly slept at all.  He was inundated with unfamiliar sounds, smells and feelings.
    They woke to the eternal dampness of the swamp.  They had slept on a relatively dry hill, but their clothes were sticky and heavy from the humid air of the swamp.  They pushed on, heading farther away from anything Aidan had ever known, heading into the heart of Ray's home.
    Finally, around midmorning, they reached the house that Ray grew up in.  Aidan was all ready to rush in and make himself at home.  He was cold and tired and he couldn't wait to dry off.  Ray held him back, watching for his mother.  She was not outside and he couldn't hear anything from the house.
    "Mom?"  Ray called.  "Are you here?"  The place seemed even more dank than he remembered it.  It seemed more overgrown with moss and it was harder to breathe than it had ever been.  It was more than just the fact that he had been gone for so long.  The place was darker without the small cocoon of light in his upstairs bedroom.  Now it was filled with the oozing blackness of the swamp and the light was swallowed up by the gloom.
    Ray's mother shuffled out the door, bent and twisted, her face lined with bitterness.  She carried the familiar basket of mushrooms.  His stomach tightened in answer.  He remembered the mushrooms she had fed to his father and he struggled hard to keep from retching.  Aidan stared at her and wondered if he should have come.  Ray's home was not at all inviting and his mother was a living nightmare, anathema to all Aidan knew and loved.
    Her face twisted in a grimace that Ray remembered as her smile.  "Ray, I knew you would return to me."  She reached out her frail, gnarled arms to him for an embrace.  He turned away.  The grimace disappeared, to be replaced with a look of hopeless disappointment.
    "Who is your friend."  She said.
    "I am Aidan and I am very cold."
    "Come in," her face relaxed and she looked normal for a moment.  Ray felt the chill of the home.  The walls still crawled with the substance of nightmares.  Yet Aidan walked in without hesitation.  Ray followed him through the door. 
    "What is the reason for your return?" She asked, her face a gross caricature of pleasantry.
    "I won't leave you in the dark anymore.  I have come to take you with me, so you can stop hiding and stand tall in the light once more."
    Ray's mother lowered her head, both in shame and fear.  She grew more and more uneasy with each passing moment.  She often glanced toward the door, as if anticipating the time of their departure.  There was a new look on her face that Ray had never seen there before.  He hoped it was a sign of softening, but it made him apprehensive.
    "Mushrooms?" she offered.  Ray took a few from the basket in order to please his mother.  Aidan would not.  The day had been long and he did not want any more strangeness.  Ray's mother did not either.  Ray choked down two, but he could not eat any more with his mother right there, staring at him with that same look on her face.
    "Will you stay here tonight?"  Ray's mother asked.  Ray was tempted to refuse and leaving his mother behind, flee once more to the meadow, but for Aidan's sake, he agreed.
    Ray woke in the middle of the night.  His throat burned with thirst, but he could not find the strength to sit up and go to the kitchen for a drink of water.  He tried to call for Aidan, but the words stuck in his throat.  He finally dragged himself out of the covers.  The room spun around him.
            "Aidan."  Ray's voice was only a hoarse whisper.  His strength gave out and he collapsed on the cold floor.  The sound of his fall woke Aidan out of a troubled sleep.  He rushed into the room.
    "What is it?"  Aidan was afraid.
    "It's the mushrooms."  Ray realized with dreadful clarity.  "It was the mushrooms Aidan."  Ray could hardly speak.  Aidan leaned over Ray and flipped him on his side.  He shoved his finger's down Ray's throat and made him vomit.  Aidan left him there on the floor and ran from the room.  Ray felt a coldness and stillness settle over his limbs, binding him to the floor.  He was barely conscious when Aidan returned.
    "Drink this, it will help."  Aidan lifted Ray's head and held a glass of brackish water to his mouth.  Ray managed to drink almost all of it, but soon he couldn't fight it anymore.  Everything disappeared into the darkness of his silent mind.
    Ray woke, still on the floor, still weak.  His mother's repentant face hovered above him, her eyes haunted by the fear that he would reject her again.
    "I am sorry.  I was too afraid to return.  You must forgive me."  She moaned, growing hysterical.  "I was afraid someone would find out. . ."
    ". . .that you murdered my father?"  Ray was sorry for his harsh words the moment he said them.  When he spoke again, he softened his tone.  "You must return with me.  I. . .I forgive you Mother.  Please come back with me.  As terrifying as the light may be, the dark is no substitute."
    She nodded agreement, but the fear still shadowed her eyes.  Ray drifted back into sleep, slowly growing stronger as he slept.  Aidan had gotten to him in time to save him and he had not eaten many mushrooms.  He would live.  He slept in peace, dreaming of his success.
    His mother sat at the table, her head down, cold and stiff.  The empty basket of mushrooms lay at her elbow.  Her hand rested on a piece of paper.
    I am sorry, Ray.  I couldn't do it.
    He stared at her body in horror and ran from the house.  Aidan ran after him, overtaking him quickly. 
    "She is dead, Aidan.  She is dead and I have failed."  Ray wept.  "She killed herself and there was nothing I could do.  I wanted to bring her back.  I wanted to forgive her, to love her.  I thought perhaps that once she let go of the darkness, she could forgive herself and live fully, unchained by the memories of the swamp.  I failed.  My father told me so many times as I was falling asleep that I must save our people and bring them out of this accursed place.  I failed him and I failed my mother.  I have failed Emrys and you too."  Ray hunched down on the damp ground and he cried.  He had not cried so much at his father's death as he did now, at his father's betrayal.
    "Get up!"  Aidan said sharply.  "If you sit there and give up then you have failed.  Your mother is not the only person living in darkness in this horrid swamp.  You could not save her, but there are many others who live in the same darkness that consumed her.  You cannot allow these others to be claimed by the darkness just because you were unable to save one.  Your harvest is out there, in other dark hollows of the swamp."  Ray looked up at the light, burning in Aidan's eyes.  It filled him with hope again.
    "You're right."  He stood and wiped the tears from his face.  "We will begin there."  He pointed into the darkness, past twisted trees and croaking frogs to where he knew another little house lay.  Ray began to walk into the darkness.  Aidan followed him with a smile.  They walked into the darkness, carrying their light with them.

Reviews

[Ruth Carter]

Ooops! I just checked this again. Thought I'd inadvertently posted my critique twice. Deleted one and both disappeared. Thankfully, I saved it, so here it is again:

Leah, it took me an hour to read through this. the following are comments I wrote as I read through, so you will get a sense of my thoughts as the story progressed.

"His mother despaired of ever making him into what she thought a proper boy should be but he refused to be sensible, but she would tolerate his dreams so long as he would never leave her side."
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Awkward sentence. Could you make it into two? I'ts the 2 "buts" that bother me.
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"All that you have given me, I can dream it better."
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I love this sentence!
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"crawling with worms, beetles and disapproval"
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brilliant!
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"His only defiance were"
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Ahem! Shouldn't that be "was"?
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"Ray's most favorite part of the day"
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The "most" is superfluous. Actually, "most" modifiers are!
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Your segue into the father's death is a little abrupt. An idea to help this would be to strengthen the sense of wanting to escape an unpleasant truth as Ray lies dreaming in the "sunshine".
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Again, the sunstroke happens perhaps a little abruptly.
One of your challenges in this piece is to distinguish between the dreaming and the reality. Using italics helps, also you've got a change in language between the two. But you know what they say about story telling. Show it, don't tell it. You say Ray is confused. That's telling. Is there some way you can show it?
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"In the group of blistering heat and icy cold, "
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"Group" is too benign a word. It doesn't convey the violence. Is there another word you can use? I came up with "battering".
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"the flame of hatred burned strong"
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This is why the segue to the father's death is too abrupt. Oh, you've established the mother killed him, but for me, you didn't give it enough play. I'm making these comments as I read, so I don't know what comes next. Do you want me, the reader, to hate the mother as Ray does? You have painted her as a dark, sorry creature who, misguidedly or whatever, sought to end her husband's suffering with a death that was inevitable anyway. So why is that enough for the strength of Ray's hatred? Or does this hatred foreshadow a lurking evil within Ray? I guess I'll read on!
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"Their were strange faces at his bedtime."
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Ahem. "Their"? And don't you mean bedside? Oh! another thing. I got distracted by the spelling there. That was a passive sentence, therefore rather weak. Maybe strengthen it to "Strange faces surrounded his bed." I suggest you analyse all your passive sentences to see if they would be better strangthened into active voice. You wouldn't want to do it with all of them, but too many sentences in the passive voice leaches from the whole piece.
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Okay, I've got to the end. I have to chuckle at some of my earlier comments, but I'm leaving them, so that you can get a sense of how the story took me. It's a story with wonderful potential. I think the growth factors in character need to be defined more clearly. I think you could use this as a kind of outline for a novel, because it takes time to identify the character motivations. That's all I'm going to say here, but I think you and I can have a good discussion about storytelling. You have a talent that runs deep, my dear! And you have a bright intelligence that'll help you wade through the challenges.
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with much love, your auntie!

[Rebecca Chamaillard]

First I must say that I love the fashion in which you told the story. The time lapses are wonderfully done, and they don't disrupt the flow of the story. I can really feel the emotion in the character's dialogue. I think the premise of the story is enthralling, and I can't wait to read the next installment. Please tell me there will be another installment! Great grammar and choice of words throughout, too! Aidan sounds like he'd be such a cutie!

[Phill Oz O'fee]

A very creative and captivating write. I could picture an almost biblical theme and imagery developing, as I continued through the text. Your references to good and evil metaphorically highlighted, by the contrast of the dark and the light confirmed this scenario. But more importantly, the journey of the boy's own self awareness and discoveries, were originally illustrated.

Great composition and a wonderful share.

God's Blessing
Phillozofee

[An owl on the moon]

Love the character development, the movement of the story, the use of colors... So much depth in the darkness. Excellent work!!!!!