It was perhaps my eighth birthday when it all started. It's hard to recall from this far in the future. My grandfather, a gentle old man, bought me a doll to play with and together we sat around a small cake with only four candles upon the top. They weren't the fancy candles that you see on all the cakes now a days. We didn't have the money for such fanciful things when I was a kid. No, they were just small nubs of candles that were nearing the end of their usefulness.
I remember one of them was actually rather pretty. It was deep red color that my grandfather told me he had used to use on his 'date nights' with grandma. I had blown it out like the others, but when he moved to throw the small thing away I had pleaded with him to let me keep it. He assented in the end but made me promise not to light it when he wasn't around for fear I might burn myself. I had agreed wholeheartedly and stowed the small thing away.
After a long day of celebrating with him I went to my room to prepare for bed. I reached into my pocket to remove the candle only to find it gone. I searched the other, but it too was empty. I rushed from the room and asked if my grandfather had seen it. He shook his head, but gave me the strangest look. I suppose he thought it was strange to make such a fuss over a used candle.
Eventually I accepted that I'd lost the thing and went back to my room. I would cuddle my new doll and try to forget the loss. I had left the small doll on my bed, directly in the center, but when I returned she was nowhere to be found. In her place was the candle... lit and sitting there innocently. I panicked at the thought of the open flame so close to fabric and snuffed it out hoping my grandfather would not come to check on the smell of smoke.
I forgot about the event for several years, and like the mind of a child so often does I neglected to think on the strange circumstances surrounding that night.
Time passed, and so did my grandfather. I lived alone for the first time at the age of eighteen shortly after his death. I moved houses soon after taking refuge first in a dorm room at college while I studied to be a nurse and then in a single bedroom apartment after graduation. All through that time my possessions remained at the old family home.
I retrieved them when I was twenty three; just several weeks ago now. Imagine my surprise when I rifled through the old boxes and memories to find that same red candle unchanged by the years. I held the thing, just three inches long, between thumb and forefinger and smiled down on it.
I had glanced about the room and then placed it on the counter with the other candles. There was no electricity in the old home I was buying now. I had just moved and it wasn't due to be turned on for several days yet. So candlelight was my guide in the darkness.
Night swiftly approached and I flew through the regular routine; dinner, bath, book. That evening, as I sat looking down on the old pages of a faded novel a strange feeling overcame me. It was almost like the prickling feeling one gets along their skin when they're being watched. I lifted my eyes from the book and cast a glance around. The old place was still unfurnished but boxes littered the floor creating a labyrinth the even the least stealthy of people could have hidden in. I felt a surge of uneasiness take over me at the thought. Still, I forced it down sure that I was being silly.
The flickering of the candle cast dancing shadows across the walls as I stood. It was late at that point. I should have been in bed ages ago. As I crossed the entrance hall I heard a skittering sound coming from somewhere off to my right. I turned in that direction moving the candle holder to see better and expecting a stray cat to have gotten inside. Nothing moved in the faint light and I thought that perhaps a flashlight would be better suited to this cause. The candles did little in way of lighting a whole room.
I knew I had left the flashlight in the bathroom and moved that way only to hear more skittering, like something was desperate to stay just outside of the candle's faint light.
