The Night

“Take off your mask.” her soft voice asked in a whisper. She put her hand up to his covered face and he backed away.

The two stood staring at one another in the dark street.

“Why do you hide from me?” Her pale face tilted as the light of the streetlamp shone shone behind her, outlining her slender figure.

She reached again for the masked figure that stood outside of the light. Her hand finding only the widening space between them.

“Do you not trust me? Do you not love me?” she questioned.

The eyes behind the mask stared intensely through the dark and melted the icy anger that had begun to grow in her.

“Please.” she begged once more as she took a step towards him, out of the boundary of the light.

The darkness seemed to lurch out for her, but the masked figure leapt back, keeping the dark at bay behind him.

“You mustn't.” He whispered in a rasping voice that was thick with the night.

The young woman stopped and clenched her fingers in futility.

“I do trust you.” The masked man spoke in his dark whisper. “And I do love you.”

The light around her swelled and her eyes glowed at his voice.

He moved his gloved hand up to his masked face. She put her hand to her mouth in anticipation as he began to lift off the mask that had hidden him away from her.

“I hide myself away from you,” his whisper grew softer, “only, because I do not trust myself.” He removed the mask in a swift motion and his form vanished into the darkness; only his eyes lingered for a fraction before disappearing as well.

The young woman, her breath taken away, stumbled forward; away from her lamp light.

As she did, its light was swept out, and she was enveloped by the darkness.

Her breath trembled in the pitch night, and a voice whispered in her ear, “For I am the night.”