Shadow Man

Chapter One- Night: One

She lay there silently trying to focus on here breathing. Slow and steady... In and out. With the blankets over her head covering her entire body, it started getting too warm. She's never felt this was before. Scared? No... terrified. She tried harder to focus on her breathing and not how the temperature was rising faster than she could handle. In, out, in, out, in... She held her breath as she heard him moving closer to her safe haven of blankets. Out. There was no more movement and she just couldn't hold it any longer.

"How much time has passed?" she thought to herself. She had been laying there under the blankets for an hour or more. Sweat had already started to run down her face and into her open mouth. Every breath she took in, she tasted the salty and wet taste of the swear along with it. She decided to check and see if he was still there. She opened up the "door" to her fortress and revealed her face. A cold gush of air blasted her in the face, and she wasn't sure it it was him, or if it was because the fortress was so hot and the room was so cold. Wither way, it felt amazing on her skin. She couldn't help but breathe easier with the freezing air on her face. She looked around the room for him. She looked to the left of her bed, nothing. She looked to the right of her bed and into her closet, nothing. She looked in front of her and out into the vantablack hallway, nothing. The last place she knew to check: above her. As she slowly moved her head upwards, she closed her eyes. Finally her head was parallel to the ceiling above her, eyes still closed.

After a few seconds she opened her eyes and let out an ear-splitting scream, and bolted back into her safe haven. "What the hell was that?" She thought to herself trying to breathe easy once more. She was hyperventilating under her comforter, and soon would run out of clean air to breathe. Soon enough, she passed out still not able to comprehend what she had just seen.

When she woke up to her screeching alarm, she was still under her blankets. She had no idea she passed out hours before she woke up. She reached her arm out of the blankets and pressed the "off" button. Her old school alarm clock shut off and continued to sit on a side table by her bed. She then slowly opened up her blankets and was flashed with a bright light. She flung the blankets off of her and ran to the doorway. She turned around expecting to see that... thing above her bed again. But all she saw was her ceiling fan. Nothing was hovering over her bed watching, and waiting for her. "Maybe it was just a dream last night," she thought, "I probably just had a nightmare." Close to her door hung a purple, and fuzzy, bathrobe for easy access when coming out of the shower. She grabbed the robe and put it over her shoulder like a cape, clutching the neck to keep it in place.

She turned around and headed down her, non-vantablack, hallway to the kitchen. When she got into the living room, her mother invited her to breakfast. She nodded, and placed her bare feet onto the cold and slick tiles. The fast, and cold, transition from carpet to tile startled her. Still holding onto her robe, she ran to the kitchen chair that was only a few feet away from the edge of the carpet. She pulled the chair out from being tucked into the kitchen table, and quickly sat in it. Her feet dangled slightly, and she was now protected from the cold floor. She grabbed her robe tighter and tried to keep as warm as possible. Soon her mother came to join her at the table. She placed down two plates full of eggs, bacon, and half of a waffle. Turning around she came back with butter, syrup, and two forks and two knives. Finally, her mother sat down and began to eat.

"Good morning honey!" chimed her mother in a happy little tune, mouth still full.

"Morning..." she replied in a raspy voice.

"Did you sleep well last night? It sure sounds like you did." her mother smiled and raised another fork-full of eggs to her mouth, but stopped when she realized her daughter wasn't eating. "Honey why don't you eat some breakfast? It's going to be a long day at school if you go hungry."