DYING LIGHT

The room smelled of hot wax and old dust. The candle on the wall had burned low, its weak flame flickering like the last pulse of a dying heart. Shadows crawled along the cracked walls, stretching like skeletal fingers, retreating, then creeping back again.

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Jason sat on the edge of his bed, the old mattress sagging under his weight. The pages of lyrics he had tried to write lay crumpled on the floor, scattered like dead leaves. His guitar leaned against the nightstand, untouched, the old strings patiently waiting.

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The world outside was silent. No traffic, no laughter from the bar down the street, no hum of the city. Just the slow, rhythmic ticking of the clock, reminding him that time still moved even when he no longer wanted it to.

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He had made this cell. Built it with regrets, locked it with despair. Once, music had been his lifeline. Now, even that had abandoned him.

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His eyes drifted to the candle again, hypnotized by the way its light wavered, struggling, fighting. Just like he had—for years. But a fight that never ends isn’t a fight. It’s torture.

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He reached for the notebook on his nightstand, fingers trembling. He knew what he needed to write. The final words. Not for a song. Not for the fans who had long since forgotten his name. Just a note. A whisper on paper before he stepped into the silence forever.

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He pressed the pen to the page. The ink pooled, but no words came.

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The shadows shifted again.

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A chill ran up his spine. It wasn’t the usual creeping cold of loneliness. This was different. Heavy. Thick. The room felt smaller. The air felt tight.

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He turned his head slowly.

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The darkness in the corner of the room wasn’t just a shadow anymore. It had depth. Movement. It was watching him.

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Jason swallowed hard.

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He had been alone for so long. But now, something was here.

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The candlelight flickered, weaker now. The shadow stretched toward him.

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A whisper. Soft. Just behind his ear.

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"Time’s up."

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Jason’s pulse pounded.

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He shot to his feet, knocking over the nightstand. A glass of whiskey shattered against the floor.

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The shadow loomed larger. Taller.

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The candle was dying.

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He stumbled back, heart hammering. “No,” he whispered.

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The darkness surged.

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Jason felt it wrap around his neck, cold and suffocating. His knees buckled.

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He couldn’t breathe.

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Somewhere, in the drowning void, a voice whispered again—this time inside his own head.

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"You built this cell. You locked yourself in. And now… you don’t get to leave."

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The candle gave one final flicker. Then, it went out.

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And so did Jason.

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Dying Light — Part II

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Jason woke with a sharp gasp, as if he’d been pulled from deep water. His chest heaved, lungs burning, hands clutching at the sheets. For a moment he didn’t know where he was—only that he was alive, fortunately, undeniably alive.

 

The room was still dark, but not that dark. Moonlight slipped through the thin gap in the curtains, painting the walls in soft silver instead of crawling shadows. The candle on the wall was gone. No hot wax. No whispering corners. Just the quiet hum of night and the distant sigh of a city that had never truly stopped breathing.

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He lay there, heart hammering, waiting for the cold grip to return.

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It didn’t.

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Jason swallowed and slowly sat up. His hands trembled as he ran them over his chest, his throat, his face. Solid. Warm. Real. “I’m here,” he whispered to no one. “I’m still here.”

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The dream clung to him like smoke. He could still feel the phantom pressure around his neck, still hear the voice telling him his time was up. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, half expecting the floor to dissolve beneath his feet.

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It didn’t.

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The clock on the wall ticked steadily. Time, moving forward again. Not dragging him toward an ending.

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Jason stood and crossed the room, his bare feet cold against the floorboards. He pulled the curtain back an inch and looked out. The street below was quiet but not dead. A car passed in the distance, headlights sweeping briefly across brick and glass. Somewhere, a siren wailed and faded.

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Life, imperfect and noisy and stubborn, was still happening.

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He rested his forehead against the cool glass and closed his eyes.

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It had felt so real. The darkness. The certainty. In the dream, there had been no fight left in him, no doubt that this was how it ended. The light had gone out, and so had he.

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But it hadn’t.

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The realization settled into him slowly, like warmth returning to numb fingers. His light—dim, battered, barely flickering at times—was still burning.

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Jason stepped back from the window and looked around the room. It was the same place he’d fallen asleep in, but it felt different now, as if the walls had loosened their grip. The guitar still leaned against the nightstand. The notebook still sat where he’d left it.

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He picked it up, surprised by how light it felt in his hands.

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For years, after she left, the notebook had become a place of accusation. Blank pages staring back at him like judgment. Once, he’d written songs that made people feel good. Once, his music had been his pulse. Then she was gone, and everything inside him had followed.

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He sat on the edge of the bed again and opened to a clean page.

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The pen hovered.

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This time, his hand didn’t shake.

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He didn’t try to write a song. Not yet. He wrote about the darkness instead—the way it waited, patient and quiet. He wrote about the cell he’d built brick by brick: regret, silence, self-blame. He wrote about the voice that told him there was no leaving once you’d locked yourself inside.

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The words came fast, almost desperate, as if they’d been trapped for years and were finally being let out. He wrote about the candle going out. About believing, for one terrible moment, that his life had ended in that room.

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And then he wrote about waking up.

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Jason paused, breathing hard, ink smudged across his fingers. He looked down at the page and felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time.

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Purpose and hope.

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He thought of her then—not with the sharp ache that usually came, but with a softer weight. Her laugh. The way she used to sit on the floor while he played, her head against his knee, listening like the songs were secrets meant only for her. Losing her had been like losing the language he used to understand the world.

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But maybe loss didn’t mean silence.

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Maybe it meant translation.

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He set the notebook aside and reached for the guitar. The wood was cool, familiar. When he strummed the strings, they buzzed slightly out of tune, but the sound filled the room anyway—imperfect, alive.

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Jason closed his eyes and played.

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At first, it was clumsy. His fingers stumbled, memory rusty. Then the notes began to find each other. A slow progression, minor and aching. He let the melody breathe, let it linger in the spaces between notes.

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Words followed.

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Not polished. Not perfect, but honest.

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He sang about the dying light. About thinking it was gone. About waking up in the dark and realizing the dark hadn’t won. His voice cracked a little, but he didn’t stop. He sang about love that leaves scars and about scars that don’t have to be endings.

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When the song ended, the room felt different again. Fuller. Like it had been waiting for sound.

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Jason rested the guitar against his knee and stared at the wall, tears slipping down his face without warning. He didn’t wipe them away.

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He thought about the people out there he’d never meet—the ones sitting alone in rooms that smelled like dust and regret, staring at their own flickering candles. The ones who believed, as he had, that once the light dimmed enough, it was only a matter of time before it vanished.

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Maybe his songs could sit with them in that darkness. Not to save them. Not to pretend everything was okay. Just to remind them they weren’t alone.

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Just to whisper: You’re still here.

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Jason stood and opened the window, letting the cool night air rush in. Dawn was still hours away, but he could feel it coming. A promise, faint but real.

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He picked up the notebook again and wrote one final line on the page, beneath everything else. He then set the pen down and smiled—a slight, tired smile, but genuine.

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For the first time in a long while, Jason wasn’t afraid of the dark.

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Because he knew now that even when his candle flickered, even when it even seemed to go out, the fire inside him was still there waiting to be written about and sung.

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Written by Mark Gammill

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Dying Light (Poem)

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Verse 1

Unbendable bars

dim and falling stars

isolation kills 

better where you are

words of a new song

lie crumpled on the floor

unable to find the strength

to write of this no more.

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Verse 2

A candle on the wall

begging more and more for life

losing its steady burn

losing its winless fight

dark shadows move across the room

knowing that its time

the end of all, the war of it

never will I find.

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Chorus

Dying light, dying light

I'm losing all the will to fight

dying light, dying light

only darkness and the night.

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Verse 3

In a cell of my own making

having lost the will to fight

now thinking of the final words

I know I need to write.

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Written by Mark Gammill