Young Writers Society

There they were again. Lean and dark across my wall. I watched them with crazy fear. Each had their hands stretched out, testing. The silence almost seemed to be snickering. They can get you, it laughed. It had been telling me that since I was seven. For eleven years I had been running from them. The invisible killers.

It had all started one day when I was alone at home. My mother and father had gone out for a special dinner, and I had turned on the television, tuning it to my favorite program, then nestling into the couch. The light outside flickered on the street, then blinked, and darkness flooded in through the open curtains. Nervously, I went to shut the curtains. I was young, and terrified of the dark. I had been sitting inside the room, with just the light from the television, and the streetlamp posted outside the window, but now that was gone, and as I turned, I got a terrible shock. A figure sat on the couch, stretched from the screen to the cushions. He was long, tall and dark. And he wanted me. He turned his head, then stood as I approached blindly. A flickering finger appeared on the wall, and it would twitch ever so, as the television buzzed. The television shut off suddenly, black crawling into my eyes.

I shook, bringing myself back to the present danger. I turned head and ran out the door. It was dark in the hallway, and I wasn't sure where to go. My bedroom. Yes, the shadow couldn't find me there. I ran inside and shut the door, breathing loudly. "The shadows can't get me, the shadows can't get me," I murmured, squeezing my eyes shut fiercely. But I could feel them. Creeping closer. Cornering me. Out the door again. Running. The shadows had met me in the bedroom, the lounge, the kitchen, the bathroom, even. They wouldn't stop until they'd eaten away everything sane inside of me. They wouldn't stop. Outside, my body cried, lunging towards the front door. I threw it open and stumbled down the porch steps, falling face first into the cold mud.

Spluttering, I snapped my head up, sucking furiously the air into my frightened lungs. Sudden realization came to me. The shadows. They were everywhere; climbing off the trees, racing towards me from the road. Even the grass seemed to have looming shadows hiding behind them. The shadows where everywhere. This was it. I had to give up. Feeling a cold chill swimming into my skin, I rolled over and stared up at the night sky. Then I noticed. Mother Moon had taken pity on me, for the sky had no shadows. Nothing, but twinkling, bright lights.