The Shadow

Emma gasped and sat bolt upright, quick as a flash. Something caught the corner of her eye. A dark shape, a shadow, large, looming. She didn’t want to look… but she felt compelled her to turn her head.

A person was standing by her front door. Perfectly still. Perfectly silent. Pitch black. Staring at her. Emma opened her mouth to let out a scream and as she did –

BANG.

Her eyes flew open and instantly she was wide awake. Her heart was pumping fast and adrenaline was coursing through her veins. She glanced immediately at the front door. No one was there, of course, but the umbrella she’d propped up carelessly when she got in earlier had fallen over.

"Phew! Just a dream," she thought, but her heart was still beating a hundred miles an hour. She took a deep breath. In. Out. In. Out. "It was just a dream."

***

The next night, she saw them again. They were standing by the bathroom door this time. They didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, but the weight of their stare was heavy, dark, oppressive. She couldn’t see their face, but the silhouette was solid and imposing. She stared. They stared back.

THUMP.

She jumped awake and grasped for the lamp switch. Her eyes flashed to the bathroom door. Nothing. Nobody. Just a dream. Just like yesterday. The towel she’d hung over the bathroom door before bed was lying crumpled on the floor.

***

Her skin tingled and painful goosebumps began to rise. "Not again," she thought. With gritted teeth, she looked to her right. The person was standing by the dining table and staring intently. Although much closer, she still couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman. Their face was obscured by the dark, their body a black outline. They made no move, no sound, but their desire was palpable. It reached across the room to her. They wanted something very badly, she was sure of that. But what?

THUD.

She came to, gasping for air. She’d been holding her breath for so long that it took several minutes to return to normal. She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to calm herself. "It was a dream. A dream. Just a dream." She looked at the table and saw the novel she’d been reading lying face down on the ground. She screwed her eyes shut again..

***

The room turned cold. Emma shivered, pulled the blankets more tightly round herself. "No, no, no," she whispered to herself. She kept her eyes closed, refusing to look, refusing to obey, but an invisible force compelled her to roll over and look toward the other room.

She jumped, scrambled backwards in her bed, crushing herself against the far wall. The figure was standing at the dividing line between her bedroom and the second room.

She could see the whole room in the moonlight – the mirror to the left, the large plant in its wicker pot, the small chair with the day’s clothes thrown over it, and yet…the figure was still in total darkness. It was so close, she should have been able to make out a face, a body, even clothes, but….nothing. Just a dark shape. And a feeling. Such a strong feeling. A yearning. A craving.

CRASH.

Emma screamed, and the scream released her from the moment. She grabbed the lamp cord and groped for the switch, and the room was bathed in light. Tears ran down her face. The nightmares were getting worse. Every night, the same but worse. She didn’t know what to do. She slept well, she ate well, she did a relaxing yin yoga and meditation in the evening to release stress, she didn’t eat cheese or drink alcohol before bed… What more could she do?

She glanced over to the corner of the room. The mirror lay tipped over, cracked and broken. She picked it up and caught sight of her face, split into a hundred separate pieces.

***

That night, they came again. No, please no, Emma whimpered, eyes tightly shut. She could feel them standing at the end of her bed. She was frozen, rigid, paralyzed. Against her will, her eyelids snapped open and she saw them, close enough to touch...if that were possible. How she knew this, she couldn’t say, but they were staring right in her eyes, although without eyes, without a face, without a body. It was just a presence... the essence of a person in the shadow of a body.

All she could see was a dark void, but she could feel them, so strong it almost hurt. She trembled as the emotions rushed through her. Anger, sadness, craving, longing, bitterness, regret, relief, anxiety, anticipation… She sensed they were close, tantalising close to something they had wanted for a long, long time. Somehow, even though it didn’t move, she felt the figure getting closer, closer, closer…

WHOOSH.

Emma’s consciousness returned like a bolt of lightning. Yet again, she found herself wide awake in the middle of the night. But something was…different. She felt disorientated, dazed. She blinked, trying to gather her wits. With a start, she realised she was upright, standing. She squinted, trying to see through the darkness. No moonlight illuminated the dark room tonight. As her eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, she realised she was facing the wrong way. She was facing the window above her bed. She squinted, peering at the scene before her.

Her heart stopped. She was standing at the foot of her own bed. She was staring at herself, sleeping, dead to the world. She turned to the mirror, still broken, propped up against the wall. She looked into the mirror and saw only a dark shape, a black shadow where she should have been.