Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Spirit of the Lonely Places

The deserted moon spanned hundreds of miles of blank grey surface, the light of the distant star had long since faded into night. The grey landscape had grown dark, an ominous wash of black streaked across a star-dotted canvas.

Firelight roared and churned, not unlike the ethereal and otherworldly movement of human dancers thrusting sparks upwards into the sky to fade, dim and vanish against the silent and fathomless blackness of space. There were no nebulae here, no arm of the spiral galaxy, only the stretching vastness of space.

The human sat huddled together around the fire propped on camp chairs speaking softly Sunny hunched some distance from the fire mesmerized by the dancing flames to fearful to draw any closer, Likewise, Krill hung towards the back of the circle in fear of the cold resting out in the darkness and the heat that roared so close by.

At that moment, Captain Vir stood the firelight casting eerie shadows across his face, flames licking across skin, tinting his otherwise human skin orange with fire.

Those around the fire quieted. Sunny sat up head cocked to the side, dog sitting next to her as the fire crackled.

He turned to face Krill and Sunny, single eye sunken deep into its socket by shadows cast form the flames, "The spirit of the lonely places.... Do you know the stories?" The fire crackled and died low for a moment casing the man's eyes into even deeper darkness. Sunny shook her head, Krill shrunk back, the humans voice had dropped low hanging barely above a whisper, "It goes by many names including, 'the devourer of mankind' and, most notably, 'the wendigo'." More dancing flames, "The Wendigo springs from legend, a nightmare of the Algonquian people said to the embodiment of hunger and greed. A giant of a creature many feet taller than a man, with wide eyes, sharp claws, and an emaciated body often depicted with the head of an unholy stag."

He turned around the fire in a great circle dark sockets lingering for a long time on Krill and Sunny, "There are many stories of how the wendigo came to be, some say he is an evil spirit, some say he was once a man, but all agree upon his insatiable desire, his unquenchable hunger. The most popular story depicts a hunter, a man lost from his tribe in the cold reaches of the mountains, starving, and near death he is driven by his insatiable hunger to consume..... human flesh." White teeth glittered at krill over the fire. "By breaking one of the most Taboo laws humankind he is cursed to wander the icy reaches always hungry.... Never satisfied. A metaphor on greed? Or something more?"

Sunny Sat back a little where she sat, Krill hid behind a chair, "Regardless, to this day, natives of that land still blame their disappearances on this creature warning against wandering the forested reaches..... Alone."

"But these aren't the only stories that haunt humankind. Across Earth hundreds if not thousands of legends have appeared, and none so gruesome as that of Teke, Teke." Above the blackness of the sky seemed to grow deeper to Krill, "Originating in Japan in the year 1969 the legend goes something like this. A young school boy, walking home late in the evening wanders lost in an unknown part of town. The street ahead opens into a wide courtyard building complex, and there he sees the silhouette of a young girl in the window. Elbows on the windowsill, she leans her face against her hands staring out into the night. Long, dark hair obscures her face."

Krill found himself oddly close to Sunny.

"Thinking he might get directions form her, the boy approaches through the rain. A train rumbles by in the near distance. As he grows closer, he can see the look on the girl's face.... a sneer of pure hatred, before he can move, the girl leaps from the windowsill, and to his horror he sees....."

Nothing but the sound of the fire.

"She is missing the bottom half of her body. A horrible gash is rent across her torso spilling her internal contents out onto the street from her dangling torso. She stands to full height on her hands dark hair covering her face with nothing but the glittering of her hate-filled eyes. The boy runs, and behind him he can hear teke-teke-teke as her hands slap the pavement. He races past buildings, through puddles across the street listening as all the while teke-teke-teke."