I awoke to the feeling of people watching me, but it was different this time. This wasn’t just a random case of midnight paranoia, this was stronger, closer, more… intense. I realized that I couldn’t go back to sleep with this feeling, so I sat up to look around my room. The shadows were among me again. Don’t worry, this is no dystopian horror action novel, “the shadows” were just the really obnoxious and loud people that lived next to us having daily parties with intolerably bright and oddly placed neon lights which made their guests’ shadows look like something from Tim burton’s goth phase. but this wasn’t the case this time. The shadows now looked three- dimensional, like actual beings. Nor were the dancing to an off-beat song this time. This time, they were still, their outlined pitch black heads, darker than the wall of my room, facing me. They were circled around me as if performing some odd wordless, motionless ritual, in which I was the sacrifice.

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs but I was paralyzed in horror. My eyes moved frantically around analyzing their faces, becoming more noticeable as my pupils dilated. Their features were twisted and mangled, as if they were made of old taffy that was stretched out and twirled to a string and dropped like a chain onto a palm. Their eyes were small vertical slits and their noses were crooked and oblong, a relaxed mold of a three-year-old’s grip. Their lips were pale and minuscule, leaving their needle-like, jagged, blood stained teeth to be exposed, making their appearance more horrifying than it should be. I was petrified. My heart was beating out of my chest. It felt like there were a thousand pounds of boulders rested on my ribcage, pressing against my lungs, making me unable to breathe. It was terrifying.

They were getting closer, they loomed over me like vultures to a dead mouse, and I could do nothing about it. A tall “shadow” being was closest to my face. It lifted its hands, exposing its long, bony, bent claws reaching towards my face to slowly peel it off my skull. I shut my eyes and turned my head, but nothing happened. I waited a few more seconds and decided to look around my room once more to see what these nightmare creatures were doing. I opened my eyes in fear and was met with relief. Nothing was there. I tried saying something, and I suddenly was no longer mute. I tried moving around, and I was no longer paralyzed. I reasoned it was just a dream, but I was still scared. I ran to my parents’ room and slept warmly with them the rest of the night, of course with a little protest from my mother. To this day, I’m still a little scared of the dark, but aren’t we all?