EDLP: The story + how it came to be

Photo by Joy Marino: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photography-of-candle-stick-holders-3052648/

Engulfed by Darkness, His Light Prevails

The blackout in Charlatan City is doing what blackouts do best: exaggerating everything that’s already broken. The drip pan hisses like an unhappy animal. A single candle trembles on my nightstand, its flame more of a relic than a light. Next to it is my old Christmas photo of my husband. His grin is too big for his face, and our two adopted kids, Ryan and Skylar, all caught mid-laugh. I flip it face down because guilt is an accessory I can’t afford right now.

Footsteps crawl down the hallway like they know the house’s weak spots. The wood on the bedroom door groans. Then the scratching starts, nails playing a slow snare across the panels, and the things in the dark start to sing.

“Mike.” Their voices are velvet with poison. They scrape the door with hungry laughter. “We know what you’re feeling. We mean no harm. Just put. It. Out.”

I’m not heroic. I’m stubborn. I’m also tired and utterly exhausted in a way that aches my bones. “Leave,” I say. My voice sounds thin, even to me. “Get away or I’ll—” The threat dies on my tongue because threats sound stupid when your hands shake.

They keep talking, all smooth and silver-tongued. “We can taste it on you… the anxiety that’s gnawing through your ribs. She struts through life adored for nothing but her face. He fattens himself on money he never earned. And Jason, your so-called friend, snatched the promotion you bled for. You choke on their laughter every day, and still you smile. Pathetic. Let us fix what you’re too weak to claim.”

That word fix digs in deep. They only repeat what I already know. I keep grinding myself down while everyone else seems to coast by. I’ve swallowed my pride just to cover the medical bills. I’ve sat awake at three a.m., begging the numbers to stretch when they never do. No one throws flowers when I make it through the week. No one cheers because I kept breathing. And yet, somehow, I’m still here.

Tears track their way down my cheeks and taste like wax. I cup the candle with both hands, ridiculous and panicked. “Please,” I whisper, and damn it if my voice doesn’t curdle on the word. “I need this.”

“You don’t,” they hiss, voices layered like broken glass. The air curdles cold as they press closer, breath crawling down my neck. “Remember their smiles? How they laughed, careless, as the world bent to them? They never fought for what was given. And you—” their tone fractures into a rasping chorus, “you reek of envy. It drips from you. Sweet, thick, and intoxicating. Let it spill. Put your hands down, Mike.”

Their breath is a lie that feels like truth. For a second, I almost give in. My fingers twitch. The candle sputters, a fragile hiccup, like it’s begging me not to let go. Then, it all becomes steady. In that flicker, I see him again. Not the hospital, not the goodbye, but the way he’d lean in close, palm warm against my jaw, smile so ridiculous it could shatter every shadow in the room.

Your smile alone is enough to illuminate the world, he’d said, like it was law, not opinion. Promise me you’ll keep smiling. I had promised. I’d just forgotten how heavy promises can get.

I grab the photo because when you’re about to lose everything, you reach for what’s left. The glossy paper presses against my lips. My mouth trembles into something halfway between a sob and a smile. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I love you.” His laugh echoes inside me, soft, impossible to forget. For a moment, I swear I feel his hand again.

The monsters snarl, recoiling, but I barely hear them. Something inside me cracks open, and the light isn’t just the candle anymore it’s me. It rushes out in waves, brighter than anything I’ve ever seen. It isn’t fire. It’s every birthday morning with the kids, every clumsy dance in the kitchen, every quiet night where love filled the silence. It’s him. It’s us. It’s me.

The flame surges, and the shadows scatter like frightened animals. They scream as the brilliance burns through them, their voices ripping into nothing. The room exhales. The whole house seems to breathe with me. The blackout breaks. Lights hum back to life. The drip pan is still, the photo warm against my chest.

I sit there, hands sticky with wax and tears streaking my face, and for the first time in too long, I know the truth: I am still here. I am light. Not because the world handed me anything, but because love lit something in me that the dark can’t touch.

Maybe the shadows will return. Maybe they’ll wait at the edges, whispering. But tonight, they lost. Tonight, his light… no, my light shines, and it is enough to carry me forward.

Behind the Story

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-pen-on-opened-book-beside-lit-taper-candle-207700/

This story didn’t come from a plan or outline. It came from sitting with those heavy thoughts—the ones that press on your chest at 3 a.m., the ones nobody sees because we’ve all gotten good at hiding them.

I kept thinking: what if the things we hide like our envy, anxiety, or depression had a voice? One that whispers you’re not enough, that maybe the darkness has all the answers. That’s where the monsters came from. They’re depression and anxiety made real, the quiet lies that gnaw at us when life feels unfair.

The candle in the story became the opposite of that darkness: fragile and barely enough to fight back, but still there. That little flicker is survival. It’s not about grand heroic battles. It's more about refusing to let the smallest spark die.

My creative process usually works like this: I take an emotion I can’t shake and I give it a shape and a voice. Then I put it up against something small or human. That tension is where the story really comes alive. We all carry battles nobody notices. We smile, we keep going, we survive. Writing lets me take those hidden struggles and turn them into something real.

This story is about depression and anxiety, yes. But it’s also about finding the light we forget we even have until we have to fight for it. It’s about realizing that even when everything feels broken, there’s still something worth holding onto. We often fight for so long against our problems, trials, and tribulations that we forget why or what we were even fighting for in the first place.