A bit over a kiloword this year...
"Try pushing harder," she said, fretting as she shined the flashlight around the tiny closet.
He braced and pushed on the door enough for the damp, ancient floorboards to creak and snap a little, but neither floor nor door gave way. "It's no good."
"Of course it's no good!" a tiny, glowing thing exclaimed as it flew out of the keyhole. The girl screamed and swatted at it with the light, nearly clocking her boyfriend. The little sprite was far faster than the two humans could hope to be, and danced around merrily. "Now you are trapped here, and when complete darkness falls, you're ours!"
"What do you mean?!" the girl demanded, finally giving up on swatting and drawing back into the corner of the closet.
"We've lived in this house since the human owner left it abandoned," the sprite explained. "We get sooo few visitors, and even the few we get are during the wrong season or during the day. Ahhh, but now… now while the veil is thin and the night shrouds everything, we will claim you! Only the light reaching your eyes keeps you from us. Oh, but not me! I glow, glow, glow! So I can enter the light." She giggled merrily as she zinged about, dancing just out of reach. "So I locked you in! Your silly light maker will die soon. See how it fades already? When not a single beam of light meets your eyes, the others can come in…" She rubbed her hands together in anticipation. "We will take you, and your human lives will be GONE!"
"No way!" the girl exclaimed, swinging the light again, but the sprite dodged and the light flickered when it hit the wall.
"Hey," her friend exclaimed, grabbing her wrist. "If the thing is telling the truth, don't break the light!"
"It's gotta just be a trick. Maybe?" the girl tried to justify.
"Yes! A treat or a trick! That is what we do when the veil is thin! Ah, but silly humans… They bribe us to not trick them with treats. But you have no treats, and that is a silly thing anyway. Now… I could just break your light," the sprite said, and used magic to yank it from the girl's hand.
"Oh my god, no!" the girl exclaimed, realizing that there was no trick she knew of that could make a flashlight float around like that.
"But I won't!"
The light fell and the guy snatched it before it hit the floor, then he looked around for the sprite, but it was nowhere to be seen.
"We should've stayed in the room. Or at least brought our clothes in here," he said sullenly.
Their mutual friend dared them to have sex in the darkest part of the abandoned old house on Halloween night. They made it into the closet, but their clothing with stuff like his pocket knife still sat in the dusty room on the other side of the locked door.
"Even if it's fake, if we don't get out of here, we'll starve, or die of thirst," the girl said.
"The way the light flew around, I don't think it's fake."
~Just turn the light off… You'll be happier when you're ours…~
The girl screamed again. The voice didn't seem to come from anywhere, or even really be a voice. It was literally in their heads. The flashlight was dimming rapidly though as the cheap batteries gave their dying all.
"Matches!" the guy exclaimed. He grabbed the matchbook and opened it hopefully, but found only three matches. "This… This is not good. No way the wet wood of the building will burn and even if it could, dying in a fire is bad too."
"What about this?" The girl blew the thick dust off an old oil lantern.
He didn't even question it, barely able to see in the fading light of the bulb. He ripped a match out of the book and tried to strike it. The tip broke into pieces.
He was much more careful with the second one and managed to get it lit.
"Light the lamp!" she exclaimed, shoving the lantern in his direction. She hit his hand and he dropped the match with an yelp of pain. The flame didn't survive the fall to the ground.
~Humans suffer and die. When you are with us, you will never suffer or die…~
He hunted for the matchbook in the last gasp of the flashlight's power and tried to strike it. Once… Twice… then it fsshed into a flame just as the flashlight's bulb went completely dark.
"Whew," he said, letting his breath out. He winced and held it again when that almost blew out the match. In the flickering light, he carefully pulled the glass off the lantern and held the flame above the wick. It took until the heat was threatening his fingertips for the girl to realize the wick was down and turn the knob to raise it.
A hiss of pain left his lips and he dropped the match, his fingertips singed, but the flame caught the wick and ignited it.
~Douse the flame and we will take the pain away…~
"The wick is burning. It doesn't have any oil," the girl said sullenly.
"Can't even scream for help. There's nobody for miles," he said, sinking to the ground as she turned the wick up a little higher to have more to burn before it ran out.
She settled against him and snuggled. "At least the sex was good," she murmured, turning the wick a little more. Then after a moment of silence, "I… we're doomed, so I want you to know, I love you."
He didn't reply at first, then she felt a tear hit her shoulder as she turned the wick a little more. "I thought you just wanted to screw around."
"I didn't do that though. I was just afraid of my feelings," she admitted.
He took a deep breath as she turned the knob again and no more wick was there to come out. Then he hugged her. "I love you too. I'll miss you when we're dead."
~You will not be dead. You will be so much better. You can be together forever…~
The flame sputtered as it consumed the last of the wick, and they both braced as it went out.
"You two should not be sad," the sprite said matter of factly, glowing from beneath the girl's hair. It flew in between them, its light keeping the full darkness away from their eyes. "It's time!" she exclaimed, and zinged toward the keyhole.
A pair of hands somehow managed to be faster than the sprite this time.
"Ha!" the guy exclaimed as he caught the tiny, glowing creature tightly between his cupped hands.
The last words the humans heard in their lives were a giggle and, "I bet you wish my glow could reach your eyes through your hands…"
~Welcome…~
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*Sneaks off*