The night air was nothing to him. In waves, it flowed around him, leaving him in a void of pure blackness. The lights stopped their bobbing and centered on him. He knew it was the end. Searing whiteness stung his eyes and although he could barely see, he could hear the overlapping voices.

Men, quite a few men and women. Dozens? Who? Mark had his arms shielding him from the immensely bright lights all centered on him.

"Takakura! What's going on? Why is he out here?" A voice snapped, a woman's. He knew that voice but the memory of its source evaded him.

"He's not supposed to be out here" another voice rattled.

"He woke up and got away from me" Takakura quickly explained. Mark though, was leaning far back into the wooden rail of the fence. Shining away, Mark tucked his head into his shoulder as the lights beat over him. Only through a crack between his outstretched fingers, did he squint to see silhouettes of legs.

Adrenaline draining, it had just become clear what the lights were. Flashlights. In that realization, he felt even more frightened.

"What's going on? Why are there people out here?" Mark hollered with a shake, clearly aimed at Takakura. He couldn't see anything beyond the grain and dust floating in the lights. Takakura's details disappeared beyond the filter of night as Mark shifted his arms.

"Mark" he began in reply, "It would be best if you went back inside and remained there until morning" Takakura's voice was still. The rest of the people there were also still and quiet. Searching around in his property he saw more sets of legs, one in the doorway of his home.

His heart sank. This wasn't right. Something was off.

"What's going on? Takakura! Tell me!" He yelled.

"Mark you need to go inside" A voice spoke for him. Then he knew that tone but still it was futile trying to recall it. He lowered his arms now but the people were shining the lights in his eyes so he couldn't see faces. But he could see other things. Details like shoes, white-sleeves on one, something reflective- sunglasses on another.

"Tell me! Why won't you just tell me?" He shouted back and dared to move towards them.

"Don't do anything you will regret" Another voice chimed in.

"I don't think I can regret anything after all you've put me through!" Mark did halt though. The night was old but the wind was still hot. There was a scoff in the darkness. He heard it and felt the tide changing in the midnight rustle. The evening cicada's chatter echoed the silent chatter among the members of this midnight mission.

"Mark"

It was an unknown voice, one he's never heard before.

"We really think it would be better if you went back inside" The voice was young, a male's.

"Why though? What are you guys hiding? Just tell me!"

A noise from the house like a creaking came from the front. He turned frantic and found what looked to be someone exiting his home. This angered him all the more. "What are you doing in my home? What are you all out her for?" he yelled. This time he went running. Running straight for whatever happened to be in his path. Between the lights scattering like birds on the land and the pervasive night, what he could see what nil. But what he did hear was shuffling of feet.

"Hey! Mark don't go there" Takakura shouted, going towards. There were crowds of people now crowding around the house behind him and around the tree that stands out front. Mark didn't even allow the person to fully leave the home, just a footstep out the door and Mark came barging in. Forcing his way in, the person- a woman- was halted right in her step and forced back. This got the crowd bursting.

"Hey! Mark stop!"

The woman in front of him moved back quickly. In the scarcely available light, her blonde hair was made visible, puffy in the darkness. She diminished into the midnight home. He didn't give her anymore chance, he reached out into the darkness and felt an icy wrist. This did startle him. Her form disappeared into the chalky black. Even in the darkness he could see that. All the lingered was the eye of enthrallment. In that brief moment, he forgot of everything surrounding him as he saw the eyes that remained long after her presence seemed to vanish. His stomach sank to its pits. Like a magnet he felt drawn to her and then suddenly, like turned to the wrong pole, he was repulsed by her. This sense was fleeting and he once again stumbled into the woman, solid white reflecting off her block glasses as he came to her. His foot rebounded off something on the floor and he almost lost his momentum as he tripped. The woman ran through passed him to the door way.

It all seemed to happen so fast to him. As she was running out the door he came up behind her reaching a hand outstretched.

"Get away from her!"

But he wasn't the one who grabbed her. Like a yo-yo on the upward coil, as she descended to the ground in her hurry to escape, she was whipped up by the hair. She screeched like a banshee being ripped straight-vertical nearly a yard upward.

"Stop!" In an instant the men were at the front door to take her. Mark stood in the door way and was going into silent hysterics. He had known that he hadn't done that and that he had heard the rip of only what he could assume by the sound of it and by the blood under their flashlights now on her that it had been her scalp ripping.

"What did you do!" One man- still unknown to him- came charging as a maddened bull. The flashlights all razed him, with white baggy sleeves and frenzied eyes rushing him. Smoke like a cold fog on a lake rolled in from behind Mark dark and deep. It was so sudden and rose to the shape of something big, something unnatural, and enveloped around Mark like a thick blanket and rode right through him to the speedy man.

Not enough time to heed the screams of the others, the man was sent ricocheting off the processing building some ten yards away in a deafening crack. The entire assembly made way throughout the farm to the river on the far side.

Not even the most horrifying part to Mark, he saw many more scurrying from the field, from the coop, from parts hidden from any sight, from all over the land.

He didn't have time to agonize, the murmuring of his heart most certainly audible to him as he shook in the door frame. The ghost of blackness when right through him. He felt nothing but the icy coolness of winter.

Their screams did not end when they escaped the farm. He heard them from where his home stood on the end of the plateau. Lights in the distant homes flickered on throughout the valley and that's when he caught a most interesting sight.

Down from the plateau he could see through the trees that the screaming persons were all collecting at the inner inn.