Mr. Dark is a game my sister and I would play to scare each other. I don’t remember who told me about it, neither when it started. We started playing the game because we loved to scare each other.
It was the way we bonded I guess. Most siblings like to eat certain things, some like to play certain games, but we always loved to scare each other. Being scared was never something bad in our eyes. Or at least we never thought it would…
The game was simple; We would go inside our garage and turn off the lights. The place had no windows or any form of natural lighting, so if we closed the door it was pitch black. You couldn’t see anything two feet in front of you. But we had basic knowledge of the surroundings. Most of the place was open except for a few boxes. My family never uses it for their car. The only form complete cover was an area used to store my father’s tools and machinery. Things like work benches, table saws, crates, and his old creaky lawnmower. The area wasn’t exactly safe, but we never really cared. It just made for better hiding spots.
The game would start with one of us being a made-up character “Mr.Dark” who never liked the sunshine. The other person would search for Mr.Dark using an old, dying flashlight that didn’t provide any real support in seeing better. I always loved to be Mr. Dark, the role was fun since you were allowed to throw small pebbles, whisper, and knock things over to scare the searcher until they found you.
I would carefully move across the floor and cause distractions in other places. My sister thought it was less scary with a flashlight in her hands, but she was wrong. Being Mr. Dark was the best, I just never told her. I always had the perfect spot behind a large trash compactor. It was a tight squeeze against the wall and the heavy machine. It seemed to go on forever. Enough room to stretch my legs out.
It took her hours to find me, I constantly would leave it to throw some pebbles or sometimes scratch against the wood walls around her. I even made her jump a few times. Finally she found the spot and shined the light on my face.
I yelled “boo!” Right as she noticed me laying there. She screamed and almost kicked me in the face. After that she wanted to try and be Mr. Dark. I told her it was worse but she didn’t buy it. She handed me the light and I walked across the room to begin counting.
I heard her scurry around while I counted out loud. She went dead silent as I reached zero. It felt weird searching. I always thought it would be less scary. The flashlight only made it worse, giving you a false feeling of safety. It was creepily quiet, she made it difficult to track where she was. I jumped when I heard a bang from behind me. Only to find a pebble had been thrown against the metal of our bikes. She was smart and learned from me.
That is when it happened. I heard a shuffling noise coming from my favorite spot. I assumed she had chosen the same place to hide. When I approached the area I heard even more shuffling.
It was my advantage to jump scare her. I got ready to surprise her and turned the light off. I jumped around the machine and clicked on the beam of light, making sure to shout out “found you!” Loudly.
Some how she had managed to lodge herself even deeper under the machine, only allowing me to spot her fleeing arm duck out of view.
“I said I found you!” I yelled louder.
She doesn’t move out from under the machine, so I decided to reach under and try to pull her out. My hand grabbed around, looking for an arm to cling to.
I managed to grab her small wrist and began to pull her out.
“I got you now !” I yelled playfully to her.
But she decides to fight back by dragging her long nails into my skin. I screamed out in pain and cursed at her. Releasing her slender arm.
“Why did you do that?!”
I hear a voice behind me, “do what?”
It made me jump as I looked behind me. There stood my sister, two feet behind me, with a confused look on her face.
I didn’t understand, how could she be…
I looked at my arm covered in blood and froze. Small shuffling noises continue to come from under the machine.
Realization hit us hard with a chill flowing down my spine. We both stood in the dark petrified by fear. My fingers gave out and the flashlight dropped to the floor.
It cluttered on the ground before resting in a posistion with it’s beam towards the spot.
A horrible hissing sound shook us out from our trance, we ran fast. Towards the door that led to the outside world.
I remember hearing a loud crunching sound followed by some more shuffling.
We didn’t stay any longer, running to our front lawn and checking behined us to make sure nothing was following us.
The two of us gasped for breath, too terrified to talk about what happened. We tried telling our parents about what we found. It was no use. we were kids with wild imaginations.
I knew what I saw, It was not a dream, I had the scars to prove it.
We told them about it over and over until finally my dad had enough of it.
He walked to the garage and went to the spot we told him about. After a couple of minutes he came back to us with nothing to show.
My sister and I ran over and checked for ourselves, he was right. No traces of anything being there. We were scared for nothing.
Until I saw something gleaming out from the dark. I used a broom to sweep it out to us. I grabbed the object and instantly realized what is was.
A completely crunched up, old flashlight. Large claw marks ran up the side and covered the glass.
We never told anyone about what we found that day. We never told anyone about the hole we found in the wall beside the machine either.
What ever was living down there had escaped. And it’s probably is looking for a new home by now, somewhere away from the light. Somewhere in the world it exists.
and we call it Mr. Dark…