18/07/2007Craig Sutherland

A word of advice

Throughout each and every day we all experience sights and visions of a wide variety of objects, some we have become quite familiar with and others we may be experiencing for the first time. We give these sights no consideration, no judgement, just carry on with our daily lives; and why not? Occasionally we may stop and comment on a pretty flower, or an unusually shaped rock, we may even mention some of these sights to a co-worker or lover, but give them no second thought. No second thought is granted to these daily experiences, we take their qualities for granted, we assume these objects can do us no harm, these objects can’t hurt us, they can’t torture, maim or kill us, so we disregard them. But what if this is false? What if one of these sights is not what we would believe it to be? Imagine that something that we see everyday can cause harm; imagine that this sight can kill. This sight isn’t an object that can accidentally cause death such as a falling brick, but rather is an entity which kills with intent. These sights, these entities are not rare ones, in fact there quite the opposite; we observe them everyday. We see them outside in the streets, in the local parks and school yards. We glimpse them in the town centre, inside our favourite fast food joints and within the workplace. We see them in our homes. These entities are of our shadows, or to be more precise, shadows are networks to these entities. We go along with life, noticing our shadows now and then, but then, as stated above, we carry on with our day, without giving them a second thought, yet these shadows house manifestations of evil, a mass of hatred and negativity, stalking each and every one of us, and we fail to notice, except for one 15 year old girl by the name of Sarah Marina.

Sarah had been in the front room of her home, flicking through the various music channels their TV had to offer, stopping whenever she’d discovered a song she liked. Sarah glanced at her watch, and upon realizing it was close to 6pm felt a pang of hunger and willed her father to hurry up. He had gone to the local supermarket over an hour ago for the weekly shop, and Sarah swore she could feel her self wasting away as each minute passed. Hungry and now bored of the TV, which she switched off, Sarah began to pace around the living room, finally stopping to look out the window. She had stood there watching to young boys kicking a football to each other, when she was startled by a thumping noise to her right. She turned round, and upon realizing a fallen book had caused the noise, she bent down, picked the book up and placed in back upon the shelf of the dresser. She had mumbled to herself about how stupid she was to allow a falling book to alarm her but quickly stopped when the same book fell out of its place n hit the floor. She was sure she had pushed it right back, to ensure it wouldn’t slip out a second time. This time as she went to retrieve the book, 2 more fluttered down to the carpeted floor, causing Sarah to jump back, and almost stumble over the small coffee table in the centre of the room. That was when she noticed it, noticed a shadow. A forth book was knocked from its shelf landing next to its fallen comrades, causing Sarah to let out a shriek of fear. The shadow had just pushed that book from its place. She didn’t believe it, couldn’t believe it, but there she was, watching this shadow throw book after book upon the floor. Sarah stood up and backed away as a fifth book hit her right shoulder, this was followed by a sixth and seventh, which caused her to fall on the coffee table, breaking it into several pieces. Pain spread through the back of her left leg as a piece of wood pierced her school trousers, cutting deep into her flesh. She let out a mixed cry of pain and fear, as she pulled herself to her feet. She brought her hands up to her head, shouting “Stop it, just stop it”, at the barrage of books ceased. The shadow was still there, still and silent. What was it? It looked like a shadow to Sarah, but not one of a human, she knew this due to the long snout from which two long fangs protruded. She could also make out two long arms, with what appeared to have claws. The rest of the thing was connected to the shadows of the room, it defiantly wasn’t human but whatever it was, Sarah feared it.

The dresses emitted a loud groaning noise as the shadow creature began to push it away from the wall, finally toppling it over, causing Sarah to scream as the dresser crashed to the ground filling her ears with a thunderous clap. With this the thing vanished, seeping into the shadows, leaving Sarah alone, crying and afraid.

An hour later Sarah’s father arrived home with the shopping and discovered his living room had been trashed, and his daughter in her room, sobbing under her covers. When asked what had happened, Sarah told him of the shadow creature, only to receive criticisms of being a liar, and accusations that she had carried out the destruction herself. When she protested that she was telling the truth, her father slapped her across her face, calling her a lying no good bitch, just like her mother. After that he had stormed out, leaving her alone once again.

Two hours later Sarah emerged from her room, her cheek still stinging from the slap delivered by her father, and went into the kitchen to get a drink. Her father was at the table, attempting to fix the radio that was always on the blink. He glanced up at Sarah as she drank from the glass off water she had just poured herself, and told her that her tea was in the oven. Sarah opened the oven, picked up the plate of sausages and mashed potatoes and placed it in the microwave. While she waited for her tea to heat up, she saw it again, lurking near the doorway to the garage. She considered telling her dad to turn around and look, but knew he would only grow angry towards her yet again, so she refrained from doing so, and ignored the creature. The microwave beeped, alerting her that her food was ready, and Sarah sat at the table and began eating. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t ignore the thing, with every mouthful her eyes strayed to the garage door, to the shadow creature. Sarah took a drink from her glass, and looked back towards the creature, which was now moving towards the wall to the left of her father. Without hesitating she yelled for her dad to look at the wall, to see the creature, and as predicted he grew angry. “Stop being so fucking childish, why can’t you be an adult and admit it? Why resort to bullshitting me? I mean 7 year olds can conjure up better lies than you.” With that her father stood up and walked towards the fridge to retrieve a cold can of larger. “I’m not making this up dad, its true” she pleaded “just look at it, its right there”. At that moment the creature threw her plate and glass at her father, striking him between his shoulder blades. With that her father had spun round whilst hissing “you little bitch” and took a step forward and grabbed his daughter, and threw her to the side against the cupboard doors. Her father hit her; hard. Hit her several times, causing her face and body to explode in pain, the final blow split her lip, filling her mouth with the taste of blood as it trickled down her throat. A bowl shattered as it struck the back of her father head, causing him to twirl around, bringing him face to face with the creature. Before he had the chance to take in what was happening Sarah watched as the creature repeatedly drove a steak knife into her fathers chest, each strike was delivered with more ferocity than the last, till his shirt front was a dark crimson red. As her father dropped to his knees, the blood still flowing from the stab wounds in his chest, the creature advanced towards a terror filled Sarah.

Sarah was an hour later, after managing to dial 999. Sarah was found near her fathers body, just sat in the blood that had flown from him, her body covered in bruises, her arms bearing claw marks. After being taken to hospital she was committed to a mental health institution after being diagnosed as suffering delusions of ‘Shadow creatures’ which she claimed were responsible the death of her father. It still visits her, still comes to terrorize her from the shadows, fading away into one with the darkness as fast as it appears.

You may consider yourself lucky that this has not happened to you, or you may believe this story to be nothing more than what Sarah’s father believed it to be. If it makes you feel better to believe this is nothing but bullshit then go ahead and think so, but what if it is the truth? If what Sarah experienced is indeed true, well we should pay closer attention to things we see everyday. If creatures do lurk in the shadows, surely they can be in our own shadows. If so this means we can’t escape them, for our shadows follow us everyday, they are a part of us. Could creatures be in waiting? Just biding there time before they strike? I now leave you with these words of advice; be more alert, look at the shadows, for you never know what’s lurking within.

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