(Please note that this story belongs to me. Please do not steal it or plagiarize it in anyway. Thank you)

Shadows Misery

It was a dark and dreary mid-autumn day. The leaves were falling furiously with the winds howling sways. The clouds were angry with black and the thunderous sky threatened to be no more. The streets were dark and foreboding, but one took no notice to the anguish the city foresaw.

A person stood amongst the streets looking upon a house so small that it could have, it should have, been blown away by the wind. With a decay that engulfed the house in a morbid sense of dread, this specific person stood entranced by the house's peculiar features. Vines had many years ago overtook this long forsaken house, and where windows used to be neatly in place shadows from inside took form and shape.

If only that person could have walked away and never looked back, they might not have come to know what still lingered inside, waiting for them and no other, for they lived there many years ago. To not go back inside and fear and feel the horror that took ahold of them the moment their foot hit the dark, hard wooden floor.

For in that moment that they were standing there, that person could still feel all the memories as they lingered and squirmed to break free and be retold.

And unlike any other person would do, she unleashed the horrors and cast aside the broken, tattered door, took a deep, everlasting breath and walked in.

She groaned that she had to rekindle the fire yet again as she sat on the old, rusty rocking chair she had, over the years, come to love. When she slowly stood up, she could see her shadow dancing around about the fire ever so majestically.

"What a beautiful thing darkness can be," she said out loud to no one in particular as she marveled at the wondrous being of herself. She made her way to the fire and poked it fully back to life after adding wood to it and with a twinkle in her eyes, she danced ever so gently to the sound of silent music beside the sensual fire.

"Why, how kind of you to dance with me, Shadow!" she exclaimed with triumph and joy as the black figure glided about within her steps. As the hours ticked away the seconds that could no longer be lived, she seemed to enjoy the silence until she thought of an idea.

"If I put on the music so sweet and tender, I can dance the night away."

So that is just what she did. As the euphony of splendor came from a beat up, old radio, she twirled away about the fire.

As the bell chimed one, a sound could be heard, a distant dread of fear... or was it just something to ignore? She shut off the radio and listened ever so tenderly to the sound that made a continuous, constant ring. In that moment, that second, she realized a nightmare had begun as the knell chimed to a deathful tone. She raced to the door and flung it open with a cry of fear as she stepped outside, only to hear nothing but the sound of the ravenous wind.

"This can't be!" she cried as she looked around.

"I heard it! I swear I did! Am I going mad or is it all just a coincidence?" She took a deep breath and turned around to face her house and as she stared wide-eyed at her tiny home now she knew she had not been dreaming.

She walked back inside the house slowly and carefully, as if it would swallow her whole in one wrong move. She gradually placed herself in the same old, rusty rocking chair she once had, so long ago, come to love and began to rock back and forth, staring at what once used to be a spectacular fire. After what seemed an hour, she managed to get up and walk into her old bedroom. There, right in front of her, stood a mirror, now slightly broken and covered in dust. She used the sleeve of her sweater to wipe away some of the dust and steadily looked at her reflection.

"How do you get old?" she asked the mirror. "Why do we get old? What happens to our beauty and our vanity?" She sighed with deep sadness, knowing that the mirror could never answer her, and studied herself feverishly. White hair and deep set wrinkles showed brightly about her face. Dark circles underneath her blue eyes showed the sadness and mortality that she now felt. Her thin, frail body seemed that it only had days to keep walking. She began to sob that her beauty had vanished like that of a baby that loses its soft, glowing touch over the course of its life.

Just as she was about to put her fragile finger to the mirror, a noise echoed from the living room. As she walked back into the living room, she came face to face with what haunted her most; the past.

Blackness overtook her once red, warm home and anger flashed across the night. As she stood looking at her home from the street, she knew something was about to begin. She walked slowly back to the house and took a step inside and there they were! Shadows, shadows everywhere! Dancing all around the house, left and right, up and down! Everywhere she turned, the crescendo of shadows were playing all about. She thought she was going crazy. She thought she was insane, but all the while she somehow knew that this was but not a dream. As she cleared her throat to begin to speak, the shadows all stopped at once. They looked at her with deep, hollow, penetrating black eyes. She became instantly terrified and tried to run away, yet against her will she could not move and for that, she began to scream.

"Why, oh, why are you doing this to me?" She spoke fearfully, but just as soon as the fear had come, it quickly left as realization dawned in her vital baby blue eyes.

"I am not afraid of you all, but keeping me here rooted to the floor does not make me feel safe. I want you all to be my friends… Please let me go and we can dance and we can sing and we can enjoy all these moments in life, together, as friends." She pleaded calmly and coolly, for she was not afraid at all anymore. She was ready to have friends, at last!

What she saw in the living room did not make her tremble. She knew that one day they would come again for her. Yet this time she was ready and she was happy. She would no longer be old and vile. She too would now be beautiful; she too would now have friends. They had cast her out so many years ago, it seemed even the shadows had never wanted her. She never understood why she was always so alone in life, why she never saw anybody else but the shadows that had become her friends, until that dreadful day they had cast her aside and left without a word. All she had ever wanted was to see another human being, or even just to have a friend. She sat down in the rickety rocking chair and tried to dream up what life with people in it could be like, but she saw nothing, for she knew nothing of it and began to weep.

She awoke to the sound of birds chattering amongst themselves, alarms going off in the distance and the sudden sound of a voice.

"Could that be..?" she wondered out loud to herself. She quickly opened her eyes to see that she was in a white room. On one side there were some potted, vibrant plants and on the other a television no bigger than a picture frame. She was startled to see people walking past her room, back and forth, back and forth.

"Could this be…?" she said to herself again, hope rising somewhere deep within her. "That I am dreaming and I finally see people? But…what if they do not see me?" She trailed off, her hopes of a good dream ruined. All of a sudden, two people in white garbs walked in.

"Ah, I see you're finally awake, Miss Locke," one of the guys said.

"Who are you and how do you know my name?" she replied, shock evident in her voice. "I've never had a dream like this before," she mumbled out loud to herself.

"This is not a dream," the other guy in white said iconoclastically as he walked over to her and got a needle ready.

"Whatever are you going to do with that?!" she croaked as her eyes became fearfully large.

"The same thing we do every morning, Miss Locke. We give you this injection so that you will calm down and stop believing that you are all alone with just shadows." The man spoke this as if he had said it a million times before.

"W-where am I?" she stuttered nervously, now fully taking in her white surroundings and attire. The guy ready to inject her with the needle sighed heavily, ever so annoyed but composing himself quickly. He turned his head to look over at her with a big malicious smile plastered to his face.

"Welcome, Miss Locke, to Dr. M & M Junior Facility for the Mentally Ill."

"I'm in a mental institution?!" she practically screamed.

"Yes and you have been for over sixteen years now and will continue to be for the rest of your life. Now hold still while we make you relax…"

As the doctors laughed manically, all that could be heard was her screaming until it faded into the calm noise of shallow breathing.

* I wrote this story around Halloween time, which is one of my favorite holidays. I wanted to give it a sort of Edgar Allan Poe feel to it. One which brings you in but leaves you wondering. Where it's foreboding with a sense of fear and dread but undoubtedly steals your attention. I want it to leave you with a chill running down your back as you make sense of the story in a whole. Feel free to review afterwards with your thoughts. 3 Charlene