Disclaimer: Harry is not my character, but the Comptons are, Ok?
The Compton Diary
Sunday, 17th March 1998
Such were the events of the previous night that I simply could not write further.
We had another visitor.
This one was foul, though. This came unhurt, unshaken, unfeeling, unbelievablely through our door.
I sat down to write about yesterday's events at approximately ten o'clock last night. As I wrote, the lights suddenly mooked - went out. I felt around me in the darkness, wondering what had caused this.
The wind, surely?
No, the air was quite still. I rose, moving blindly through the thick black, with the intention of checking the fuse box in the loft. As I moved through the living room, I realised it was bitterly cold, a cold that went through my dressing gown causing goose-bumps to rise on my skin. I took the box of long matches from the mantlepiece and lit one. It sparked up and the flame settled, causing a glorious heat to swell around my forefinger and thumb.
There was now some light about me.The few feet ahead of me visible, I proceeded in my duty.
I made my way to the corner by the door of the kitchen, then up the wooden stairs to the loft. I looked down carefully, my legs stiff as I dragged each foot up over the openings in the stair.
I reached the loft, the railing looking onto the kitchen below.
I could not see below me however, as the kitchen was still engulfed with the night. I hesitated, thinking that perhaps the fuse box could wait until morning. I gave myself a shake, remembering the cold of the house and how we needed the electric stove to keep the kitchen warm.
I walked as quick as I could across the loft, the flame casting long shadows on the roof as I went. I reached the fuse box.
Suddenly, I heard a crash from the room below. I in my fright dropped the beloved match to the floor where the flame promptly died. Now, shrouded again in the musty dark of the loft I chided myself for being so foolish. I listened again.
Curious, I shuffled to the loft rail, where I looked into the dark kitchen. I then saw to my great surprise that the front door had opened. It had been split down the middle, I noticed, and in a strange sense of calm realised that it was this that had caused the crash. Moonlight spilled in through the doorway and the kitchen now had a shimmery glow to it.
A shadow ran across the kitchen tiles and looked about. I realised then -though he was blurry without my spetacles - that it was Harry. He appeared to be staring at something I could not see. He stared blankly at a space in the middle of the kitchen, beside the cabinet where I keep my needles. For a second, I saw from my height his form turn rigid, as if frightened, and then the entire space was thrown into abrupt dark again.
I have never experienced a more suffocating thing. I could see nothing around me, not even my own clammy hand that had grabbed at the rail in front of me as I sank to the ground. I knelt, and were it not for the hard floor beneath me I would have thought I was taken some place entirely new.
Then I was.
I could hear things, in my very own head. Things I wished I would never think of again.
I could hear a strange whistling sound - bombs dropping, I realised...
I heard things fall about me, I could hear my arm snap as I fell on it....
I heard the silence of my first-born, never to be heard - the silence- the death of something that never had lived...
I heard, I heard the groan of something beneath me - the groans of someone beneath me...
I remembered where I was. I thought I was going to fall. Someone was breathing short, shallow breaths. Someone was hyperventilating. That someone was me.
I felt lost in a world of darkness. I would never be happy again. The very notion of happiness in this realm seemed so far fetched I wanted to laugh.
Then I cried.
No-one saw me anymore.
There came a light. A pale, silvery light that instilled hope in me, something not lost but found. The light flickered, and then I was plunged into darkness again.
No.
I wanted to scream, but my mouth wouldn't move. Come back, light. Please. Don't leave me here alone.
It came again, stronger this time. I heard my own sobbing stop. I, frozen on the loft floor, peered through the railings. I knew by now that the light was coming from below me. The light grew dazzling and even when I shut my eyes the light still burned my lids. In all my years I have never seen such light.
The magnificint light left. It left forever, and I felt hollow, as if that light held everything joyful, and was in one second lost.
The floor was warm again. I lifted my head from the floor, and saw that moonlight had returned. It once more streamed innocently through the empty doorway. I moved, and with every effort rose from the floor.
My body stiff from fright, my face stiff with tears.
I turned to the stairs and placed my hand on the rail. My eyes adjusted to the weak night and saw that my hand was white and my arm shaking. I tried to overcome the nausea in my stomach. I closed my eyes, trying to think of better things.
I opened them.
I saw Harry again, standing in the middle of the kitchen. He was holding in his right hand his long stick. I, grabbing tight hold of the banister, descended slowly to the kitchen. When I drew closer to him he looked at me. He did not seem surprised to see me there. Rather, somewhat relieved.
I noticed though that he too was shaking, and his face pale, and when I embraced him he was as cold as ice.