A Step in the Dark Behind Me

The corridor extends into darkness,

A narrow path through the house of memory.

I walk toward the single lantern,

But my focus belongs to the space behind me.

✒️🖤

There is a shift in the density of the room,

A cold current that does not move,

Yet presses against my back like a heavy garment.

It tracks the rhythm of my movement,

Stopping when I stop,

Waiting in the blind spot of my vision.

✒️🖤

I refuse to turn my head.

To look is to acknowledge the terror,

To give shape to a faceless pressure.

Instead, I watch the way the shadows bend before me,

Distorted by a shape I cannot see,

A presence that casts no outline upon the wall

Yet populates the void completely.

✒️🖤

The skin on my neck tightens.

My breath catches,

Locked inside my lungs.

It is an ancient, patient malice,

Content to remain just out of view,

Feeding on the simple certainty

That I am no longer alone.

✒️🖤

The threshold of safety is near,

But the distance stretches out like miles.

Every inch of progress is contested by the urge to run,

To escape the invisible reach

Of what lingers a mere step behind.