A Storm of Light and Shadow

De: Darlene Zagata

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

The lighthouse keeper's log was found three months after the storm, sealed in a waterproof pouch and wedged between two rocks on the mainland shore. The final entry, dated October 1947, read simply:

"They come with the storm. Not in it—with it. As if the weather itself births them from the dark between lightning and thunder. I've watched them take seven souls this year. Always during the autumn gales. Always when the light fails.

I've tried to warn the mainlanders with signals, but they think I've gone mad. Perhaps I have. But madness doesn't explain the footprints that appear in the mud outside my door—dozens of them, circling, circling—yet never leading anywhere.

Tonight the barometer is falling again. I can feel it in my bones, that electric charge in the air. They're coming.

If you're reading this, then I am already gone. Do not come to Blackrock Island when storms gather. Do not trust the lights you see from shore. And if you find yourself stranded here when the wind begins to scream—

God help you. Because nothing else will."

The log was dismissed as the ravings of an isolated man driven to paranoia. Blackrock Island was officially abandoned in 1948, its lighthouse decommissioned, its history quietly buried in maritime archives.

Seventy-seven years later, a storm was gathering.