Heed the Mourning Lights

             There exists a whisper here in The Yukon Territories, a whisper that tells of a place that no longer exists.  The whisper travels through cities and towns, warning of a dreadful fate for those who don’t listen and those who show no respect for the land.  It became a rumor that none can confirm, but it brings with it curiosity regarding its legitimacy.  This place was known as Kwanlin Falls, and I can confirm that it did indeed exist, because that was my hometown.

            Kwanlin Falls was a small community roughly a hundred kilometers outside of Whitehorse, and there were no more than five thousand residents that called it home.  It was a generational town where everyone knew everyone else; where it was rare to get a new resident, and even rarer for one to leave.  I was the first person to leave the town in over fifty years, something that was still talked about as town gossip.  My parents lived there their entire lives, as did my grandparents and their parents before them.  As I said, it was a generational town, and the only reason I’m alive today was because I chose to leave, and because I chose to respect the ground upon which we stand.

            In order to understand what happened, you need to go back a year, back to when Dominion Fuel Inc. came to Kwanlin Falls.  No one from the town summoned them, and not a single person wanted them in their home; they came suddenly and fully uninvited.  The giant oil company rolled into town in their corporate vehicles with big promises of a better year ahead and a brighter future for the town.  Sure, the town wasn’t the most profitable, and there wasn’t much to do, but for most of the residents, that’s exactly how they liked it.  I wasn’t living there at the time; an old friend called me when Dominion came to town, and when he told me what was happening, I came right away.

            It wasn’t right what Dominion was doing to the inhabitants.  They came to the town, talking about how there was a “giant opportunity” for those who lived there.  These men in their fancy suits began to offer bribes and payouts to the citizens of my birthplace.  You see, allegedly there was a recent discovery that the town was surrounded by numerous oil wells, and Dominion wanted to drill into them; they insisted that they needed to.  This is why they were offering payouts to the citizens.  They claimed that they didn’t need to relocate anyone, but implied they wanted everyone who lived there to turn a blind eye to Dominion’s operations and to how they were essentially about to slaughter the natural beauty that surrounded the town.

            I left Kwanlin Falls for multiple reasons, most of them being for personal growth.  I wanted to experience other parts of Canada, and eventually I wanted to see the world.  I was also tired of the interpersonal politics of small-town living and dreamed of moving to a location where no one knew my business.  But regardless of my reasons for leaving, not one was related to the location itself.  Kwanlin Falls was a beautiful place.

The town was surrounded by lush greenery and a forest of magnificent pines.  There was a sparkling stream that cut through the town that lead to a nearby lake that reflected the sunrise like a mirror that saw into the spirit realm.  But my favourite aspect of Kwanlin Falls was the Northern Lights that would appear every winter night.  The brilliant greens danced upon the sky like ethereal spirits celebrating life itself.  Seeing the lights after a fresh snowfall was the most breathtaking sight I have ever seen, and probably ever will see.

            I arrived as soon as I possibly could, much to everyone’s surprise; most people didn’t expect to see me ever again.  I left close to a decade ago, after I lost my parents in an ice fishing accident.  They were the only things holding me to this location and once they were gone, so was I.  So, my return was the talk of the town, especially when I called a town meeting to find out any detail I could.  While I did leave, my parents loved this town, and if I could do anything to help it, I would, and I assumed everyone else would think the same way.  Unfortunately, I was wrong, as everyone had taken the payout, and the construction of the pumpjacks in the surrounding area were set for construction and set up within the following days.

            I was extremely disappointed by the residents of the town taking Dominion’s dirty hush money.  Of course, I understood that times were always on the verge of being tough for Kwanlin Falls, and that every cent helped.  But I couldn’t comprehend how everyone could be ok with the natural wonders that surrounded the town being gutted out.  I always thought that the people who lived there, generation after generation, stayed because of the natural wonders that surrounded the town.  If that wasn’t the case, then I truly didn’t understand the appeal.  Everyone from the older generation to the new one and everyone in between were bragging about how much money they received.  I even crossed a group of kids who were saying they wished more companies would come to their town, that way they could get more toys and games.

            I tried talking reason with anyone who would listen to me, but every case I made fell on deaf ears.  When I finally had a chance to speak with one of the suits from Dominion Fuel Inc., he laughed me out of the room.  Sure, I wasn’t a lawyer of any sort, and I wasn’t an “entitled, naïve activist” (their words, not mine), but I couldn’t just stand around and watch my home get destroyed.  While I left for my own reasons, I always thought I would come back later in life and show my future family where I grew up.  The slimy suit even threw some money at me, thinking that’s what I was here for, but that was the furthest thing from the truth.  I did feel a small pang of satisfaction as I placed the crumpled up bills on his desk and watched as his mouth fell open.

            I felt defeated, and the townspeople were resigned to the inevitable fate of their town.  The day I saw the Dominion Fuel Inc. executive, was the day before the pumpjack construction began.  I wanted to be anywhere other than the town, but my flight out from Whitehorse wasn’t for another couple days, so I needed to stay.  It sickened me that the townspeople could let Kwanlin Falls be tainted, but no one would hear me out; for them, it was all about the money.  That first day was the beginning of the end of the captivating scenery around my hometown, but that night was the beginning of something that I would never have believed if I hadn’t see it with my own eyes; it was the night that the Northern Lights turned yellow.

            I was sitting in the back of my rental truck, looking up at the tranquil night’s sky; it was the thing that I missed more than anything else about that place.  The Northern Lights had just begun to fade into existence, the ethereal waves of green slowly becoming more and more vibrant.  I remember letting out an exasperated sigh as I thought of how this might be the last time I got to see this view without the rusted mechanical eyesores and the smell of crude in the air.  When I returned my attention to the brilliance in the sky, I saw something that I have never seen before; the lights were beginning to change colour.

            The sky began to gradually darken as the green slowly shifted into a dull, sickly, yellow as if a dimming flame hung in the sky.  The yellow waves floated listlessly, swaying ominously as if they were waiting for something.  I was transfixed by the sight; I knew you could see the Northern Lights in different colours depending on where you were in the world, but I had never heard of them changing in front of someone’s eyes.  I sat in my truck and awaited more changes, but they never came.  The yellow ribbons of light stayed for the remainder of my time outside.  When I finally got up to go to my room, I looked to see if anyone else was witnessing this; I wanted to know if this had happened before.  No one else was around, so I took this moment as something I alone got to experience, and, in the morning, I would begin my trek home.

What I didn’t know at the time, was that the morning would bring additional reasons to stay.

            I awoke in the morning and began getting ready to leave, packing up all of my belongings as I showered and cleaned myself up.  I left my room expecting to get in my rental and drive through beautiful but uninteresting terrain for the next hour or so, but when I left the room, I was amazed at what I saw.  The Northern Lights were still hanging in the sky, and they were still that sickly shade of yellow.  The townspeople were outside, staring at the sky in awe and wonder.

            There were murmurs all around me; the people were scared at what this meant.  From the conversations I overheard from a group of old-timers, nothing like this had ever happened in Kwanlin Falls; they were wondering if this was a sign of some sort.  As I looked down the surrounding streets, people were either outside, curiously staring at the phenomenon, or they were inside, watching the lights from inside the safety of a building.

            It was a perplexing combination of events; the colour of the Northern Lights changing, and the clear visibility of them in the daylight.  As strange as the combination of the above were, it wasn’t reason enough for me to stay in Kwanlin Falls for another day.  I got in my truck and drove towards the road that led to Whitehorse.  I wanted to put the unpleasantness of the last few days behind me like the town in my rear-view mirror.  I was on my path to an escape, but that was before I saw the brightest flash of light engulf the town behind me.

            I slammed on my brakes and tried to keep my control as I screeched and jerked to a halt; my eyes were filled with spots from the burst of light.  Think that some sort of explosion happened, I turned myself around and sped back into town.  As I weaved through stopped vehicles on the streets, it seemed like everyone in town was outside, trying to see what just happened.  I slowed down once I got near the crowds, not only so I wouldn’t hit anyone, but to get a better sense of where this flash came from.  I followed the townspeople until I arrived at one of the pumpjack construction sites, where I saw a tightknit group standing near the in progress mechanical contraption.

            I quickly approached the group on foot, and when I arrived to them, I finally saw that they were standing around a single construction worker who was writhing around on the ground; he was grunting in pain as his hands were clasped over his eyes.  One of his nearby coworkers managed to pry his hands away from his face; the colour drained from his skin in an instant as a horrified expression cemented itself onto his face.  He immediately backed his way out of the group, only to throw up once he was clear of the people.  Another construction worker cautiously approached the man on the ground and took a small peek behind his hands.  He too went pale at what he saw, but he didn’t back away like the other guy; he stood up and called for medical personal as he quietly told those around him what had happened.

The man’s eyes had melted out of their sockets.

            Not long after they were called, a medical team arrived and took the man away to Kwanlin Falls General Hospital.  I asked the mournful workers what had happened, but they couldn’t quite answer the question.  One of them motioned up towards the lights, which seemed to be floating directly overhead.  They pulsed with a primordial energy as I looked up at them.

            The same thing happened the following day; there was an impossibly bright flash of light during the day, and another construction worker was found without eyes.  It happened every day that week, and the week after.  Fourteen workers who were now permanently blind and in excruciating pain.  Two of them were on platforms when they were blinded and ended up falling off, breaking numerous bones in the process.

            I couldn’t believe how heartless Dominion was being with these accidents; they didn’t care about their employee’s wellbeing at all, they only cared about their profits.  They brought more people in to take the injured worker’s places, and the Lights kept warning them to stop the construction.  I feared what would happen if they construction did not stop, but no one else shared my concerns.  By the time I left the town, I couldn’t help but see the Northern Lights, lazily dancing and pulsing its sickly yellow hue, as a silent guardian sent from Mother Nature herself.  She was sending a message to us, and I hope it would be heard.

            I stayed away from Kwanlin Falls for a few months; after all, I did need to return to my life for a bit and return to my job.  But I intended to return before they started pumping the oil out of the ground.  I had hoped that if the injuries continued to happen (which they did every day of construction), Dominion would take the loss of their men as proof that what they were doing was wrong and stop production.  Upon my return, I discovered that I couldn’t have been more incorrect.  They had brought more people in to expedite the assembly of the pumpjacks and were ready to begin the oil drilling operation.

The day I arrived was the day before they flipped the switch to begin the drilling, and I immediately went to speak with the same slimy executive that I had spoken to before.  Without hesitation, he had me removed from his office, and threatened me with legal repercussions when I brought up the two-hundred workplace accidents that had happened.  Not wanting to be arrested, I waited patiently for the next day, the day that the pumps turned on.

The day I wished I wasn’t in Kwanlin Falls.

            The pumps turned on simultaneously throughout the town, sending out an orchestral tempo of mechanical revving for melody and clanks for rhythm.  Despite everything that had happened up until now, Dominion was still determined to make up the losses they accrued through their set up.  The town stood silent as the foremen and executives shook hands at their triumph.  I walked towards the back of the crowd, leaving the people I had grown up with to lie in the bed they had made.  I tried, but by the time they were willing to listen, it was far too late.

            The pumps began to pick up steam, and before long there was a continuous noise and smoke surrounding the town where I was raised.  It sickened me, and I could only be thankful that my parents weren’t around to see all of this happen.  This would be the last time I would set foot into Kwanlin Falls.  I was done with this place, and I was more than ready to leave.  I left the crowd and started walking towards my truck.

That’s when the screaming started.

            I turned around to see what the commotion was, half expecting to see one of the pumpjacks engulphed in fire; I wish that would have been the case.  What I saw were the lights overhead, trembling and spasming as they changed colours once again.  The bile yellow began to darken into an orange, making it seem like the fires of hell were hanging above our heads.  But that orange deepened into a pure crimson, and that was when I knew that something horrific was about to happen.

            The now crimson Northern Lights continued to waiver and tremble, until the spectral ribbon began to curl and unfurl as a hint of consciousness appeared into the natural phenomenon.  Out of the ribbon of light came thin, red tendrils that snaked towards the crowd, which tried to disperse, but with the absolute panic and chaos, most were stuck like a pig in a pen.  The tendril reached out to the now cowering executive and reached into his ear.  He shrieked something that I had never heard from a human’s mouth as his eyes began to fill with the same red light as the Northern Lights up above.  He rose slightly into the air as the light began to break through his being.  Cracks formed in his skin as the light forced its way through.  His body began to disintegrate away as the light forced itself through, and with one final swan song shriek, he ceased being and became dust.

            I didn’t realize it at the time, but the crowd went silent as we watched in a shared horror as the Dominion executive’s essence was reduced to nothing in a brilliant, yet horrific display of light.  Once his death knell had ceased, the crowd erupted into such a chaotic state that I have never witnessed in my life.  The panic intensified greatly as people screamed and mowed each other over.  Small  children were knocked to the ground and trampled under the crowd.  A kid who was in the crowd was knocked to the ground in front of me, and when I tried to help him up, my hand was stomped on, breaking six bones in it.  I managed to pull the boy up, who was covered in bruises; he ran away as soon as he could, not uttering a single word to me.

            I looked back up at the sky, back up at the sentient lights trembling above us all.  Another tendril formed, and this one sought out one of the foremen who stood on the stage, no doubt their fear nailed them to their spot.  The first offshoot of the Lights shot towards another foreman; the pair began to wail simultaneously as their heads were penetrated by the Lights, as their bodies began to glow and disintegrate in the same fashion as the Dominion executive.  I held my broken hand as I watched the beautifully disturbing event on the stage.

            I began to back away once again; I needed to get to my truck and get the hell out of Dodge.  I weaved and bobbed through people until I finally found my way to my truck.  Once I sat down inside, turned it on and locked my door, I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.  Regardless of the horror happening around me, being in there made me feel safe; that is, until I felt the air around me begin to vibrate.  There was a noticeable tremor in the air, one that unsettled me deep within.  I put my seatbelt on in an attempt to quell this disturbance, but it didn’t work.  I looked behind me to see what the cause was; something that I wish I didn’t do.

            The crimson-stained Northern Lights erupted into a mass of countless branches that instantaneously sought out the crowd of people.  Every person that I could see were impaled by the light, and they all began to crack and burst with cosmic energy as they shrieked with unimaginable pain.  I turned on the radio and turned it up as high as it would go, but the screams outside muted the music.  Their collective screams got louder as the bodies began to crumble to dust.  I thrust my fingers into my ears and clenched my eyes shut as I anxiously awaited my inevitable fate; the bursts of death light creeping through my eyelids.

            I waited for what seemed like an eternity as sparks of white and red danced through my eyelids, until they stopped without warning.  I hesitantly opened my eyes, and the scene before me was unlike anything I had ever laid my eyes on.  Black dust, the dust of thousands of people, blew gently in the breeze, dancing before my eyes.  There wasn’t a single person left in Kwanlin Falls, other than me.  In fact, there was barely anything left in the town at all.  Buildings were broken and scorched, the pumpjacks were torn down and melted; every man-made structure was destroyed, expect for the truck I sat in.  It looked like the most terrible war had ravaged this community.  Without giving it a second though, I left this new ghost down as quickly as I could; the entire ride back to Whitehorse I refused to look in my rear-view mirror.

There exists a whisper here in The Yukon Territories, a whisper that tells of a place that no longer exists.  Kwanlin Falls was a town of four-thousand, seven-hundred and fifty-two that no longer exists; I am its only surviving resident and even then, I haven’t called it home for a long time.  People’s greed fueled their choices, and their choice was to ultimately show disrespect to the land that hosted them for countless generations.  This disrespect led to their demise in the worst way.  I have tried looking for proof of this happening elsewhere, but so far, I have come up short; this is probably due to the fact that I might be the only survivor of an event of this magnitude.  I was the only one actively trying to prevent this, and the only one not to take Dominion’s money; I think that is the only reason I was allowed to live.

I have looked into Dominion Fuel Inc.’s records, and there is no evidence of them ever wanting to go to Kwanlin Falls, and even further than that, there is no online record of the town at all.  Makes me wonder if this has happened before, and even if it is a common occurrence.  What I do know is that I used to find the night sky and the Northern Lights soothing and relaxing, allowing me a glimpse into the wonder of the universe, but now all I see are a symbol of my mourning for my hometown.

Now, whenever I think about them or see an image of them, all I can think of is the sight of thousands of people bursting into red light, and their orchestra of shrieks and screams as they perished before my eyes.

- Cody S