Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Shadows ❯ Shadows ( Chapter 1 )

The little girl sat in the closet. She didn't know how long she had been there, but she knew that she could only leave when her Mommy said so. It was her fault of course. Mommy said so. Mommy said that she was a bad girl, and she had to be punished. For what the girl wasn't sure, but if Mommy said so then it must be true. Anyway, it didn't matter what she had done. This was her punishment.

 

She had to stay in the closet, and she had to be quiet. She hadn't been quiet at first. She'd screamed and cried for her Mommy to let her out, that she would be good if only Mommy would let her out, she promised! But Mommy hadn't let her out. She had banged on the door and yelled at the girl, telling her that if she didn't shut up she'd never be let out of the closet, and then she'd die in there, and was that what she wanted? The girl knew better than to disobey Mommy when she spoke like that. So she shut up and sat on the floor, hoping that Mommy would let her out soon.

 

But it was so…dark in the closet. She'd tried to use the chain that she'd seen Mommy use before. She'd pull it, and then the lights would come on. But she was too short, and the chain dangled above her head, mocking her, no matter how hard she tried to reach it. The little girl didn't like the dark. Mommy laughed at her for it, saying that she was getting too big to be scared of the dark. She had tried to explain that she wasn't really scared of the dark, but Mommy didn't believe her.

 

But it wasn't the dark that scared her. There were things that hid in the dark, and they were what scared her. She saw them sometimes at night. One night she'd woken up and seen red eyes staring at her. She'd screamed, and her Mommy had come, but the eyes were gone. Mommy had been very angry with her for screaming, and so the girl had never screamed again. She just hid her head under the covers and hoped the things would go away.

 

Once she'd told Teacher about the eyes. Teacher had listened, and nodded, and the girl thought that maybe Teacher would know how to stop the things from coming. But when she finished Teacher had said “What an imagination you have!” and the girl knew that Teacher didn't believe her either. And if Mommy didn't believe her, and Teacher didn't believe her, then what could she do? The things were there though. She knew it. She knew that they were just waiting for her, and that one night they would come and get her.

 

There wasn't anything she could do about it though. So every night she would shiver under her covers, and hope that maybe tonight they would leave her alone. Sometimes she would wait until Mommy had gone to bed, and then she would turn on the light in her room. The light kept the things away from her, and so the girl tried to keep near as many lights as possible.

 

But now she was trapped in the closet, and she couldn't turn on a light. So she sat and hugged her knees, wondering if Mommy would get mad at her if she sang very softly to herself. She thought it might help her to forget the darkness around her. But she decided not to risk making Mommy even madder than she already was.

 

Maybe Mommy would let her out soon. She'd tried to be really good and quiet since Mommy had told her to be. Then she could go into the living room and get under the lights and she would be safe. The shadows felt like they were pressing closer every minute. Sometimes they seemed to move if she wasn't looking directly at them. The little girl was hugging her knees even closer to herself when she saw something moving in the shadows. They were here!

 

She could hear them now, voices speaking words she couldn't understand. She couldn't understand what they were saying, but they made her head hurt. She felt like the words were burrowing into her skull. She didn't want them there. They felt…wrong, like they shouldn't be spoken at all. The voices twisted inside her head, making her want to squirm. But somehow she also felt frozen, like the voices were ordering her not to move, and she couldn't, no matter how much she might want to.

 

She clamped her hands over her ears, but the voices still got in. Suddenly she saw a pair of red eyes at the back of the closet. Finally she managed to scramble to her feet, but what was the point, when there was nowhere to run? There wasn't any light in here to save her, and she had no way of getting out. She looked frantically around the closet but saw only more darkness no matter where she looked. And the shadows looked like they were getting deeper. No matter what, she knew she had to get out of there, now!

 

“Mommy! Mommy please let me out, let me out!” the little girl screamed. She started pounding on the door with her fists. She looked over her shoulder, and there were more eyes now. The voices grew louder and louder every second. She turned her attention back to the door. “Mommy please!” She could hear Mommy shouting at her to shut up, but then the voices got even louder and she couldn't hear her anymore. She chanced another look over her shoulder, and saw something moving in the darkness, coming towards her. She shuddered violently and returned to pounding on the door.

 

The shadows were pressing on her now. She could feel them. With every second they pressed closer and it was getting hard for her to breathe. Then suddenly she felt like someone had just dunked her underwater. Everything got blurry, and she couldn't breathe at all now. The edges of her vision were turning red. She used the last of her breath to scream one more time. Now the red was starting to turn black and she could hear laughter from somewhere. It was getting louder, loud enough to even drown the voices out. It just kept getting louder and LOUDER and LOUDER and…

 

Her Mommy opened the door and was starting to scream at her when she collapsed. She heard her Mommy, suddenly sounding concerned, asking, “What's the matter?” but it sounded oh so very distant, as the darkness swept the little girl away.

 

 

 

 

This is my first story, so constructive criticism is appreciated. Thank you all very much!