Don't Go In Alone

TUESDAY OCTOBER 29

School drags on more than usual today. Like brain numbingly slow. It doesn't help that for some reason I still have this weird feeling in my stomach. It's making me completely paranoid. The entire weekend, I kept seeing shadows everywhere. Sometimes, they were where there shouldn't even be shadows. And it's always the same one. The same shape. It looks like a person, but off somehow.

What I really need is a good bath. Some time to myself to just relax and put this paranoia out of my mind. It's all because we went to that stupid house across the street. It had gotten under my skin and I need to just let it go.

Kris got her bragging rights though. She spends all the breaks between classes and lunch showing off the pictures on her phone. They're all too dark and most of them are blurry, but the fact that she has pictures is enough for everyone she shows apparently. I don't look at them because I don't want to think about that house anymore.

When the final bell of the day rings, I'm the first one out of the classroom. I hang around the front of the school with Casey and Kris for a little while before we all part ways to head home—Casey going to the parking lot, Kris heading to the spot where her mom picks her up, and me getting started on walking home.

I zone out for most of the walk. Usually, I have my earphones in and the music makes the walk less awful, but I'd left them on the kitchen counter this morning so I walk in silence. Which is odd. The silence, that is. I pull out of wherever my head had gone and look around me.

The street is empty. There's nobody else out here with me. Usually, there are tons of kids running around out here since school just let out for the day, but I'm alone. The only movement is the leaves scooting their way down the street in the wind.

I'm alone, but I can't help but feel like I'm not.

It's that feeling you get when you know that someone is staring at you. Like, really staring. Not blinking. Boring holes into your body with their eyes, staring at you. My spine tingles and my hands are numb and I have this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. But when I turn around, there's nothing and nobody behind me.

I'm alone.

I turn back around to continue walking and the breath is punched from my lungs. There's just darkness in front of me. That inky, oozing dark that feels like it's alive around you. Pressing against you and tangling itself in your limbs. Straight pitch black nothingness stretches out in front of me and I have to cover my mouth with my hand.

It's the shadow.

I don't know how I know, or why I even think that's a possibility, but I just know it.

The blackness seems to come closer, wrap itself around me even more. It's crawling up my spine and stuffing itself into my lungs, stealing away my breath. I squeeze my eyes shut and hope that this is all a nightmare and I'll wake up soon.

When I open my eyes, the shadow is gone. The kids that should be on the street are there, talking and laughing and walking home together. A few run past me and I press my hand closer against my mouth.

What just happened?

It takes me a few minutes to recover from the hallucination and be able to walk again. By the time I get to my block, I'm exhausted. I really want to lie down for a while.

The tightness in the pit of my stomach only grows when I get closer to my house. Closer to the Victorian across the street. The house looks especially disturbing against the gray skies with the mist floating around in the air. I will myself to not look at it and hurry inside.

Once I'm inside, behind the closed door, the tension in my spine bleeds away and I take the first steady breath since before whatever it was that happened on the sidewalk. I toss my backpack on the floor next to the door and go to the kitchen. There's a note on the fridge from my mom letting me know that she had to go to work and left Zach next door. I am to go pick him up when I get home.