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Only In The Dark

by Elizabeth Winfield

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The crackling sound of static fills the room as the screen lights up. We see a simple landscape with some rocks and trees. The outline of a bird appears, its wings flapping softly. The bird takes flight and the scene shifts to a small room.

It looks cozy. It has big soft armchairs, shelves full of toys, a desk, and a window. The walls are covered in drawings and a map of a city. We can also see two puppets. The first one is tall with long dangling arms and legs. He has well combed green hair with a headband and a big yellow eye. He’s wearing blue pants and a white shirt with the word Toast in big letters. The other one is short and round with a black line on the side of its face, short blue hair, and two green eyes. He’s also wearing blue pants and his shirt says Bagel. They both have huge smiles and walk to the center of the room with graceful life-like movements. There’s no sign of strings or hands moving them. Toast raises one arm waving at us and begins to speak.

“Hello, starlings!”

His voice is loud and jovial like a radio host. Text crawls across the screen:

Rule of the day—how to play hide and seek with our shadows.

“All right, boys and girls. Today we’re going to learn how to build a blanket fort, so we have a safe place to hide when our shadows move on their own. First, we need to gather supplies.” He continues, “Do you know what we need?”

Bagel eagerly starts gathering pillows and blankets.

“Great job,” Toast cheers, pulling the chairs to the center of the room.

As they make the fort, the camera zooms in on the map. There are a couple of green places, but most are marked with blue. Another portion of the map is filled with red, and some spots are crossed out completely. A space labeled Home is surrounded by green.

“That’s ten more than yesterday,” Bagel says softly. Toast stares at it for a moment, then claps his hands.

“Let’s focus. We have the pillows, blankets, and chairs, but there’s one more thing. Can you tell us what it is?”

“Silly Toast!” Bagel laughs. “You forgot the flashlights. They’re the most important part!”

As they put the pillows in place, we see Toast’s shadow moving in the opposite direction. Bagel stops and picks up a flashlight. He frowns as it flickers and shakes it a few times.

Cut to: Bagel and Toast inside an impressive fort with multicolored blankets. The interior is filled with lanterns and they’re huddled together, clutching flashlights. We can hear footsteps outside, circling them.

“All right, boys and girls,” whispers Toast, “remember to stay as still as you can, keep the lights on, and count to 200. They usually don’t play this trick for longer than that. Can you count with us at home?”

We can see the numbers on screen in a bright yellow font with the sound of a clock ticking in the background:

One… Two… Three…

As Toast and Bagel leave the fort, confetti fills the screen and a sound effect of children cheering plays.

“Great job everyone,” says Toast, “and don’t forget to add today’s lesson to your memory books.”

“I’ve got mine!“

Bagel holds up a well used notebook. The binding is worn and the cover is filled with star and dolphin stickers. They slowly clean up the blankets, telling each other jokes and having a pillow fight.

They both wave at the camera as Toast says, “Goodbye everyone! And remember, only in the dark do the brightest stars shine!”

The screen fades to black.

---

The trees sway and the bird loops around the screen a few times before flying away.

“Hello, starlings!” Toast trills.

Toast’s headband is askew and there are scratches on the wallpaper.

“Today we’re going to learn…”

He trails off and grabs his memory book, which has a geometric pattern and is covered in balloon stickers. As he flips through it, text scrolls across the screen:

Rule of the day—which games are safe to play.

He closes his book and smiles at the camera. Bagel comes into view, holding up a bag of marbles and a wooden board triumphantly. They sit across from each other and play for a while.

Toast has three of his marbles in the winning section, while Bagel only has one. Toast goes still for a moment, then tilts his head as if he’s listening to something we can’t hear. Bagel stares at the floorboards and begins to speak, but Toast shakes his head and goes back to the game.

As they play, we hear a humming steadily growing louder. It’s beautiful but eerie; the sounds aren’t ones a human could make. Bagel starts to hum along and Toast clamps a hand over his mouth, but it’s too late. The room starts to vibrate and the lights flash. We hear Bagel’s voice singing along, even though his mouth is closed and he’s clutching his throat in wide-eyed panic. Toast starts singing the multiplication tables, louder and louder. The longer he sings, the more his smile drops and his voice shakes, but he keeps going. Finally the voice stops, and Bagel is crying. Toast looks directly at us and squeezes Bagel’s hand.

“Well, boys and girls. There’s an important rule I haven’t taught you yet, so you should write this down. If you hear the underground music, ignore it. Don’t sing along under any circumstances; the song will remember you. If it takes a voice, sing anything as loud as possible and don’t stop until you’re the only voice left.”

New text fills the screen as they shakily clean up the game:

Rule of the day—what to do when the underground music plays.

“I think we’re going to end things a little early today, starlings,” Toast says, waving goodbye. “Remember, only in the dark do the brightest stars shine.”

Fade to black.

---

The trees look scorched. The bird sits on a crumbling branch and the dirt is dry and cracked.

Toast greets us. “Hello, starlings!”

The room is bright, so bright that the colors look washed out and you can see the dust motes in the air. The area around Home on the map is blue. Bagel walks into view, carrying brightly colored fabric and some scissors, and gestures at the window.

“It hasn’t moved in six hours’” he says.

There are two suns in the sky. One looks normal and the other looks like what you’d see in a children’s book. Text on screen:

Rule of the day—what to do when the light watches.

“Today, boys and girls,” Toast explains, “we’re going to learn how to make curtains. It’s a lot of fun and we can even make cool designs. When there are two suns in the sky, it’s best to block out as much of the light as you can. It likes to watch, and nothing good ever comes from it.”

They work together to measure the window and cut and sew the fabric. As they sew, they put children’s names into the fabric: Sam, Jake, Lexi. While they work, Toast is humming softly off key.

Bagel finishes the last letter, then pauses. His voice is quiet but steady. “This is so the light knows how loved you all are.”

Bagel smiles and nods as he unthreads the needle. They rush to put up the curtain, and the wrong sun moves directly in front of the window. As the light hits them, they freeze. They don’t move until it blinks. Once they do, they stare, dazed, with their eyes wide and mouths hanging open for a moment, then continue putting up the curtains.

Toast waves to us and says, “Goodbye, everyone. Thank you for doing this fun craft with us. And remember, only in the dark do the brightest stars shine.”

Fade to black.

---

The bird’s wing is torn and its flight is slower.

The room still looks off. Everything is there, the desk, the shelves, the drawings, but it’s all in different places.

“Hello, starlings!” Toast calls.

He’s facing away from the camera but quickly turns in our direction.

“Today, we’re going to learn how to draw a map.”

The onscreen text:

Rule of the day—what to do when your home looks different.

Bagel holds up his memory book with a detailed map of how the room used to look. Toast begins to explain, “Sometimes when you wake up, where you are looks different than before. It’s important to remember the old way so you don’t get lost, or go through any wrong doors.”

Toast walks over to the shelf and reaches for a box of colored pencils, but his hand goes right through it. He goes a bit to the left and reaches toward a blank wall, and a box of pencils appears in his hand.

“First, start with the important details like furniture and walls,” Bagel says as he draws, “then add stuff like pictures and what’s on your shelves.”

Toast walks towards an unfamiliar door.

“Now, we’ll show you what’s behind the randomly appearing doors.”

He opens it and all we can see is a void: complete darkness with no end in sight. Bagel sticks one of the pencils into the darkness, and we hear a snapping sound as the camera cuts out for a moment. A second later, we see Toast still in front of the door, his hand empty and two of his fingers missing. It doesn’t look like there’s a wound; his hand is perfectly smooth as if they were never there at all. Toast slams the door and walks back over to Bagel.

“Make sure to update your map if you change anything in your home. It should go back to normal after a couple of days. Goodbye, everyone. And remember, only in the dark do the brightest stars shine.”

The screen fades to black.

---

The landscape looks like it should, but there are two birds flying around on screen.

The room is almost back to normal. Everything is in its place, but the map is upside down and the drawings are crooked.

“Hello, starlings!” Toast says.

The camera pans to someone sitting at the desk. It’s another version of Toast. It looks like him from the beginning of the show, with no injuries and a well groomed appearance. When Toast waves, the copy waves a half second later.

Text appears on screen:

Rule of the day—what to do when you see yourself watching.

Toast walks around the room picking up some toys, and the other Toast is a few steps behind him. Bagel is frozen staring at the echo.

“Sometimes we leave pieces of ourselves behind,” Toast says. “If they’re watching, don’t let them see you look back.”

Cut to: Toast and Bagel build a Lego tower. As they work, the echo grabs a block each time Toast does, still a half second behind. After a few minutes of this, the echo starts turning blurry at the edges. Toast finally starts to relax, and Bagel smiles. The echo is gone by the time all the Legos are put back on the shelf.

“Okay, boys and girls,” Toast says. “Today’s rule is: if your echo is out of sync, don’t try to match it. That gives it a chance to learn. Goodbye, everyone. And remember, only in the dark do the brightest stars shine.”

Fade to black.

---

The trees are bent as if there was a storm, and the bird sits in a cage.

We can only see parts of the room. There are blank spaces like things have been erased, and Home on the map is covered in red.

“Hello, starlings.” Toast’s voice is frantic. “Today’s rule is how to help someone find their way back.” He steps toward a blank space and shouts, “Bagel, where are you? Can you hear me?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure where I am!” Bagel’s voice is so faint that we can barely hear it. Toast flips through his memory book.

“Okay.” Toast says, “Walk forward six steps.”

We can hear footsteps, and then a crash.

“Trail the wall to your left, then go around the desk.”

Toast keeps calling out directions with Bagel updating him on his progress until we finally see him emerge shaking from the darkness. They run to each other and hug, then sit together in an armchair.

“Let’s look at some drawings we’ve gotten from kids,” suggests Toast.

Bagel nods and opens his book. They’re both filled with drawings from viewers: kids painting, and making a blanket fort, and drawing themselves with the puppets. Most of them are signed and Bagel runs his finger across the names.

“I don’t remember some of them,” he cries. “I know we knew them, but I can’t… are they real?”

Toast’s eyes fill with tears as they stare at the drawings.

“We loved them,” he says. “Even if we can’t remember them, we loved them. So that makes them real.”

Toast waves to us, still missing fingers, as he and Bagel cuddle in the chair.

“Goodbye, everyone. Remember, only in the dark do the brightest stars shine.”

Fade to black.

---

We don’t see the bird, or the trees—just a shot of land full of tree stumps and rocks. The room is still broken. What’s left of it is either too bright or too dark, as if light has forgotten how to work. The only parts that are untouched are the drawings, the map with Home crossed out, and the desk. Bagel and Toast sit at the desk with a paper cake in front of them. It’s layered and has a star-shaped candle. The text appears slowly on screen:

Rule of the day—how to say goodbye.

“Hello, starlings. One last time.”

Toast’s voice is solemn. He looks to Bagel, who nods, and they light the candle together. The light flickers for a moment before catching.

Toast begins to speak looking directly at us. “Home is different than it used to be. But the rules helped, didn’t they? They helped you feel hopeful, and kept you safe.”

Bagel continues, “And they helped us love you. Even when we were scared.” His laugh is sad. “And we were scared a lot.”

Toast tries for a smile, but it doesn’t quite land.

“If you ever feel lost, or when the world gets stranger, that doesn’t mean it’s the end. It just means you have to remember. The rules, and stories, and games. That you don’t need to be watching to matter. That we love you all.”

They both wave at the camera and say, “Remember, only in the dark do the brightest stars shine.”

The candle goes out. We see the bird again, flying around the screen again and again until it fades to black.

---

Host Commentary

Our author had this to tell us: I’ve always been drawn to the Uncanny Valley and analog horror: taking things we associate with familiarity and safety and making them terrifying. In this story I wanted to explore the idea of the importance of hope even when there’s no saving the world. Toast and Bagel found moments of joy with each other and their viewers, even though there was nothing they could do to fix things. A bit of behind-the-scenes trivia: Toast and Bagel were meant to just be placeholder names but I loved them so much that I kept them.

So much of the best horror uses the language and conventions of childhood. The evil seed, in Children of the Corn or The Omen. The creepy, possessed doll – or child, and thank you Annabelle and Regan. Pennywise and its hunger for the children of the Losers Club. It’s all about taking the thing that is supposed to be most innocent and pure and twisting it to the service of the horrific. It’s taking a place and a thing and a time that should be safe, and revealing them as dangerous – or worse. It’s a perversion of our most deeply held understanding of how things are supposed to work, and that’s why it gets us every single time.

Which brings me to “Only In The Dark.” Author Elizabeth Winfield reached into the toy box and pulled out a children’s television show. We all watched that sort of thing growing up, and we know what kids’ TV is supposed to be: Simple. Clear. Brightly colored, and most of all, safe. A kids’ show is a self-contained world where Bluey or the Teletubbies or Big Bird can learn and share and make friends, with no sharp edges or scary unknowns. Winfield understands that, and understands that we all share that image of children’s TV.

And then, in her elegant, meticulous way, she takes that preconception and sends it, step by step, into the howling, uncaring void. Paragraph by paragraph, we learn that this comfortable, defined space isn’t safe, and it isn’t really defined, either. By the end, everything’s broken down, and all the safeguards we relied upon are revealed as shams. And the hosts, the ones we trusted to guide and teach us, we learn the hard way that they can’t protect us – or even themselves.

At the last, we’re left with something we cannot unlearn. The sanctuary we trusted and that gave us comfort has been revealed to be a fraud, a lie that we’re not allowed to believe any more. It’s like when you learned Santa Claus wasn’t real, but with the added weight of existential dread.

It’s a lesson that part of us always fears every time it’s presented. And Winfield teaches it masterfully, in a way that’s going to linger.