I could see it at times, piercing through the clouds and rising forebodingly into the air. It seemed to staple the heavens to the earth, impaling the starry night sky.
It only appeared at night, and even then, nobody was sure when that night would come. It was always once a month, always after the sun had completely set, and always appeared for three nights in a row; but the specific time and date of its appearance seemed to be random. Perhaps it operated on a different time scale than ours.
I was born in that small Colorado town and lived there until I was 13. Never once did I hear anyone question what the Spire was or why it came. All I knew was that on nights when it was seen, word spread quickly to lock doors and windows, stay inside, and keep quiet. In my own house, I was always told to keep the curtains drawn and to not look out the window.
One crisp autumn night in September, I struggled to sleep. I must’ve been about 7 years old at the time.
I tossed and turned for a few hours, watching my bedside clock as the minutes ticked by. 12 AM, 1 AM, 2, and then 3. At 4 in the morning, I sat up, unable to take the tedium any longer. I left my bed and went to the window. Filled with trepidation, I cautiously slipped my fingers between the curtains, and peeked through the gap.
I still remember it vividly.
A huge full moon shone directly at my bedroom. It was haunting, but more haunting still was the thing which stood before it.
Out past the edge of town, I saw the enormous, needle-shaped silhouette of the Spire.
It rose from the Earth like a stalagmite, and seemed to spear into the moon, as though it were the tine of a fork penetrating the white of a boiled egg.
And paired with this daunting sight was a sound. The faintest sound of a song.
Though I don’t remember its tune, I remember the way I felt as I heard it. It was like a gentle tenor voice crooning a soft lullaby. It was deeply melancholy, mournful, regretful. As I heard it, I was filled with a deep and impending dread. My mortality was suddenly apparent, and it felt so very near.
I was only 7, but as I heard the quiet serenade, I was overwhelmed by the feeling that my death was fast approaching.
Out of pure fear, I let the curtain fall closed and dashed back to my bed. As I draped my blanket around my shoulders, I realized I could no longer hear the song.
As the uneasiness left my body, I finally drifted off to sleep, but my dreams were to be far more disturbing than reality.
I woke up - or at least, thought I woke up - gazing upward at a starry sky, which was colored a deep purple. I sat up, finding myself in a meadow, dimly lit by the multiple moons that filled the heavens.
As I took in my surroundings, I once again heard the song from the window. It was being sung by a dark-haired woman who sat with her back to me. I was again filled with mortal terror, but in spite of myself, I called out to the woman, who abruptly stopped singing and turned to me.
Suddenly, something about her changed… she became… different. It was as though she was simultaneously near to and far from me. She shifted, and I got the impression that she was turning her featureless face toward me. My surroundings dropped away and the amaranth sky was replaced by a feeling as though I were surrounded by a thick sludge which prevented me from moving.
Everything faded into nothing more than a feeling… I felt the faceless woman merge with the sludge… she became the environment which I found myself in…
She was around and in me, consuming my mind. I heard many thoughts which I can no longer remember. Thoughts filled with anger, hatred, and longing. Above all, I felt a sense of time, as if I were remembering something ancient.
I abruptly awoke, staring directly out my window. I lay in bed, but my curtains were open. Through the window, I saw a silhouette, backlit by the moon, with luminous round eyes staring directly into mine… I knew that it saw me. I knew that it knew I saw it.
I heard the sound of chimes…
And suddenly, I was waking up again, light seeping in through the gap in my now closed curtains. I had only the faintest impression of the events of the previous night.
It has only been in years since then that I have come to remember all that I do now about that night…
Since I left that small town, I have undergone regular therapy, and though my therapist is skeptical of my memories of that time in my life, she advised me to tell others about them. I know nobody here will believe me, and many of you may dismiss this event as either paranoid delusions or the overactive imagination of a 7-year-old boy. Trust me when I say I have other memories like it. Still, it’s been somewhat therapeutic to write this memory down. Assuming I’m not run off this platform by those who disbelieve, I may recount other stories of the Spire and the misery it brought me in later years.
After all, it would be a few more years before the Singer made itself known to me.
I only hope that I don’t have my old nightmares tonight. It’s been almost a year, but still, maybe reliving these troubling events will cause them to resurface.
Thank you for reading. Even if you think I’m full of shit, I appreciate any who made it this far.
Goodbye for now.