Being Alone in the Dark

Vampire Bat and Vampire Owl awaited the return of Uncle Dracula after his meeting with his daughter who was having certain problems related to faith, belief and courage. The rest of the vampire team were playing football, and Vampire Owl was eating more and more potato chips, but Vampire Bat was really worried. Vampire Hamster was sitting idle though, as he had forgotten why he was there. The scene inside was actually of another level.

Dracula: No, Mavis. You don’t need to be afraid. I am here, and all your uncles are outside. You are the daughter of the greatest and the most feared vampire to be born or rather re-born on the surface of Earth.

Mavis Dracula: But I am really afraid of the dark, daddy.

Dracula: Let me make one thing clear, dear Mavis. You can be afraid of many things because it is quite natural, and darkness is not one of them. I don’t really get the point why you ever had to be afraid.

Mavis: Actually, I read this newspaper, and there was a night which had a terrifying incident at this capital city…

Dracula: What? How many times do I have to tell you not to read these bloody newspapers published by humans? They are full of the stupid or evil deeds that they do to harm themselves or their fellow creatures. We don’t need to learn from these people who have absolutely no mutual respect. I used to read these regularly and one day, I had a heart attack due to the overdose of human terror. Then I realized that this doesn’t really matter as I was already dead and everything became “vampire normal” again. Do you know that there are terrorists who ask for one’s religion before shooting people? It is really a new low. Did those terrorists from Somalia shoot people at night in the darkness? Do humans need to wait for darkness to fire missiles or throw bombs at others? Then, even at this age, people are afraid of darkness? What did darkness ever do to them? They have actually done all the injustice to darkness by declaring it scary and evil.

Mavis: But I have heard about bad things on darkness. I can only switch off the lights as long as you are with me. When you are not here, I sleep with the lights on. Sorry about the electricity bill, but can’t help it.

Dracula: Let me tell you something. Darkness has always existed with light coming much later, and before inventing fire, do you think people had the chance to see beyond the darkness at night? You are also going to have a better night vision soon; you are only growing up.

Mavis: I have known that bad things happen to good people at night. It is what the humans say. They talk about getting home early before the night becomes too young. I guess that night is the worst when it is at the youth stage. There might be human monsters waiting to catch us. They shall search and hunt us and say that we shouldn’t have been walking around at night.

Dracula: Walking around at night, is what we do. It is your right as much as of any human. This fear of darkness comes from a time when there was not enough light available. But we have unlimited options these days. The real darkness is in the mind of the people, and the absence of light is actually a phenomenon of the soul.

Mavis: But it is real bad at night. Darkness is like their big friend, and it supports all their evil deeds.

Dracula: That is a misconception. No, darkness is not an entity itself. There is a limit to the darkness and its shadows in our city, as it has enough lights to prevent darkness from completely taking over. It is your right to go out at night and the darkness that it provides. You don’t need anybody’s favour to walk out there in full or partial darkness. Don’t let what the others say get to you, especially those humans. They are like the worst creatures on the surface of planet Earth, or rather they have transformed into the same.

Mavis: There are shadows out there, and they won’t hunt me? What if they come after me right when I go out?

Dracula: They are the shadows of humans. Let me tell you one thing; there is evil everywhere, but to change that, some of you have to become the force. And my dear Mavis, you are more powerful than you can imagine. Have you even seen your fangs and claws? They are almost as good as mine. Do you know how fast you are, and how powerful your body is? You are better than them all, and soon, there will be no limit to your abilities. You are like the fire and the wind, all powerful. You don’t need to worry about the monsters out in the dark, but be careful about the monsters within yourself and those monsters who wear the mask of friends.

Mavis [to herself]: I am afraid of the dark, but that doesn’t define me. I have the right to go out at night with all its darkness if there is the need, and there is no bloody human with a ridiculous set of ideology who can dare to stop me.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

***The images used in this blog post are from the Official Facebook Page of Hotel Transylvania.

TeNy