Sight-Singers

Harrien had never stayed awake this late before. It was exciting, in a way. Seeing the world in an unfamiliar light, or lack thereof, through his upstairs window. He could tell the sun would soon rise, as the two moons sank and darkness was beginning to release its grip on the fields surrounding his cottage. It was normally quiet around his home, small and simple on Frostrow Ln. in Midnest, east of The Diplevri Hills.

Grey began to replace the black on the horizon of rolling hills and trees, though only barely, as Harrien saw something he didn't know how to explain. Three shrouded...things... slowly made their way up the path to his home. They seemed like a fine mix of men huddled over with age and wraiths, both hobbling and floating over the stone, casting no shadow, making no sound. Harrien ducked quickly to peer over the sill at the beings. There would be no way to know they were there had he not seen them approach. Their movements were mechanical at times, graceful at others; a harmony of quick, disjointed ticks and slow, almost melancholic dips forward. Rags of grey and brown hung over their bodies, shrouding any distinct details of their anatomy from the eye. The only details Harrien could steal were that of their feet and faces.

The feet were spider-like, narrow and articulated far more than a human's. They were black, but less in the way that something can be painted black, and more in the way something is black when no light hits it. The faces, on the other hand, were vaguely human. The most striking feature was the eyes; like the eyes of a festival mask molded onto the face of a long dead human teen. They were dark but reflected light like a lens, and were somewhat askew and asymmetrical. The area where a nose might be found on a person was relatively blank, save two slits like an equal sign above....nothing. There was no mouth, at least as far as Harrien could see.

The beings hovered their way to the front door of the cottage, and Harrien began to hear a sound he'd never heard before. Quietly, at a volume low enough that he could easily miss if he weren't listening, he began to hear a song. It was dark, like a dirge, but beautiful. It began with a low, unsettling voice establishing some kind of chant, but was soon joined by two other voices finding strange but pleasing harmonies around the first voice. Like colors on a canvas, flavors in water, the low voice laid a foundation for something strange and captivating to be built upon by voices that were only somewhat off, though he couldn't put his finger on why.

"It's because the sound isn't coming from their mouths, seeing as they have none."

Harrien felt the ice of fear run down his spine until he realized the quiet whisper behind him belonged to his father.

"Don't worry, Son. We don't open the door and we'll be fine. They do this every day just before the morning sun."

"Why...what...?"

"We don't know for sure. No one talks about them much, but those who do call them sight-singers. They don't go to everyone's home, but the homes they do go to they go to every day, without fail. They don't hurt anyone directly. Those who open the door for them all take their own lives within the week, though. They simply look at you, sing their song, and you decide to call it quits."

The soft song continued downstairs, and Harrien could see something strange as the sight-singers periodically lifted their heads. Emerging from the glassy masquerade eyes was a fluid of many colors, every color, rainbow tears turned to strands of technicolor thread, that slowly lengthened and twisted itself under the rags of the beings, seemingly gone forever.

"Some people think they're singing the song of our ancestors gone, but I don't believe that. If it were, wouldn't everyone have their own sight-singer? We've all got ancestors after all. Others think they're just like those sirens from the coasts of Bekon and Zephyl, trying to lure folk into their traps. But that don't add up either, seeing as how they've got nothing to show for the deaths they cause. See I think they come to sing the song of the futures that might come."

"Why would that make folks...want to die, Da?"

"Cause everything's gotta end. See, the great thing about living is all the fun and joy we have to look forward to. Say for me, I get to wake up every morning and see my son growing up into an outstanding young man and it brings me joy. But if I were to follow that future for long enough and I know there may be a day when I don't wake up anymore. Or even worse, there may be a day when you don't. I think being forced to see all of those possibilities would make anyone want to give up. Don't matter who you are or how good you've got it, eventually loss comes for us all, and when we realize all the different ways it can, we become paralyzed with fear, and give up. We enjoy because we can, sometimes, forget how it's all got to end."

"So...the sight-singers...."

"They take away forgetting." 

Harrien watched as the haunting figures scooped and shivered their way back down his path, as silent leaving as they arrived. The grey of the dawn gave way to a burning orange on the horizon, and the sight-singers became harder and harder to see. Once there was nothing left to hold onto of their figure, Harrien turned to his Dad.

"Come on, Son. Let's go find out what the day has in store."