Carl the Snarl lived alone in the woods.

His tangles tightened against themselves,

his black eyes buried beneath their hoods—

where no light entered cleanly.

Each night, when the sky broke open

and spilled its scattered fire,

Carl slipped from his hollow to curse it—

curse the way light endured

without him.

It shimmered, careless.

It carried on.

A constant reminder

of something extinguished—

or something abandoned.

Carl no longer named which.

“Deplorable light,” he murmured,

and the flies along his left side stirred—

drawn to the dimness he kept.

They gathered where brightness failed.

They fed where it could not reach.

They preferred him like this.

Above him, the stars burned steadily—

not brighter, not dimmer—

just present.

Carl narrowed his gaze.

He dragged his ladder across the clearing,

its wood striking dull rhythm into his arms.

“Stars, stars, stars,”

he whispered,

until the word thinned into sound,

and the sound into pulse.

At the center of the field,

a tree rose—

its trunk pale where it caught the starlight,

its roots black where it did not.

Carl reached it.

The flies shifted, tightening—

sealing what might still reflect.

He did not notice.

“This will be my finest hour,” Carl said,

lifting his face toward the sky.

“I will take your light from you.”

The stars did not answer.

They did not dim for him.

They did not flicker in warning.

They remained—

radiant,

indifferent.

Once, long before the dark took hold,

Carl had moved among them.

He had known their warmth—

not as something distant,

but something shared.

He did not look there now.

He set the ladder against the tree

and began to climb.

Rung by rung,

his shadow fractured across the trunk.

The flies hummed low,

a dim, steady current

pressing close to his skin.

“Stars, stars—”

“Carl, Carl, Carl.”

The sound did not come from above.

It came from somewhere nearer—

somewhere that remembered him

in light.

He stilled.

“Carl… what are you doing?”

The voice was soft—

not bright,

but not dim.

Something in between.

“None of your concern,” Carl said quickly,

before the feeling could take shape.

From the bark beside him,

an owl emerged—

her feathers catching light

and holding it,

rather than scattering it.

“You’ve said that for a long time,” she replied.

She brushed his temple with her wing.

The flies recoiled—

then closed in tighter.

Carl flinched.

Something flickered—

not yet memory,

but the echo of illumination.

“I don’t know you,” he said.

“You do,” she answered.

The light along her wings shifted—

not brighter,

but closer.

Carl’s grip tightened.

Images pressed forward—

Two lights,

not competing,

but circling.

Not brilliant—

but enough.

He swallowed.

“No.”

The flies surged—

a soft darkening,

blunting the edge of what returned.

“I am alone,” Carl said.

“Everything else is gone.”

The owl tilted her head.

“You chose not to see what remained.”

Something in him caught—

a reflection,

brief and dangerous—

and he turned from it.

“They took my light,” Carl said.

“They kept theirs,” she replied.

Carl’s mouth hardened.

“That’s the same thing.”

The owl watched him.

“If you continue,” she said,

“you won’t become something new.

You’ll only deepen the dark.”

The flies stirred uneasily.

Carl shook himself free of the thought.

“Enough.”

He climbed.

The ladder ended—

but he continued,

pulling himself through branches

that broke the starlight into shards.

“Stars, stars—”

The flies carried the rhythm now,

dulling its edges.

At the top, the owl waited.

Of course she did.

“Don’t you remember?” she asked.

Carl did not answer.

“I was fading,” she said.

“My light thinning—

collapsing inward.

You stayed.”

The flies fell silent.

“You didn’t turn away then.”

The words pressed into him—

not forcefully,

but persistently.

A warmth stirred—

not bright,

but unmistakable.

“You stopped looking,” she said.

Carl’s hand slipped.

“You decided I was gone.”

“No,” he said—

but the word dimmed as it left him.

The memory hovered—

an orbit,

a closeness,

light not owned,

but shared.

It had not vanished.

It had changed.

And he had—

“No.”

He struck outward.

The flies surged immediately,

a dense cloud swallowing what remained of the glow.

The warmth receded.

Safer this way.

Contained.

“I will finish this,” Carl said.

“I will take it back.”

He climbed the final span

and stood at the highest point of the tree.

Below him: shadow.

Above him: unbroken light.

Carl raised his arm.

“I will extinguish you,” he said quietly.

“As I was extinguished.”

The stars burned on.

“Carl—”

The owl moved toward him.

“I’m still here.”

Something inside him responded—

a flicker,

small but precise.

“Close your eyes,” she said.

“You’ll find me.”

He almost did.

For a moment—

he almost let the light return.

Instead, he opened them wider.

“It’s too late,” Carl said.

The flies settled—

pleased.

“Even now,” she said,

“light changes form.

It doesn’t disappear.”

Carl smiled—

thin, fractured.

“Watch me,” he said.

Something in him had already begun—

a pressure,

a pull,

light bending inward

toward a single point.

The flies swarmed—

trying to hold the edges together.

He let go.

Not of the loss—

but of what might have answered it.

His form collapsed inward,

light folding toward him—

drawn,

consumed,

re-shaped.

Carl vanished

into his own horizon.

The flies scattered—

left without a surface to dim.

The stars remained.

Not unchanged—

but not undone.

Something lingered—

not brightness,

not absence—

but distortion.

A quiet pull on surrounding light.

A place where illumination bent,

where it hesitated,

where it remembered something it could not name.

Whether it was what remained of Carl,

or what he refused to see,

no one could say.

But it held.

And even there—

light did not vanish.

It only changed

how it could be found.