The Girl of Many Floods- Linh Song

V

Linh's eyelids flew open, and she sat up so suddenly a bunch of pillows flew off the bed.

She instinctively turned towards Tam, who was still sleeping, but he was tossing and turning in his sleep.

Linh rubbed her eyes, trying to get the shadows out of them. When she opened her eyes again, she could still see the shadows.

On the room wall.

And they were moving.

Just that they weren't in the shape of snarling teeth, but rather just random shapes.

Linh glanced at Tam again, should she wake him up? She knew she would feel bad for waking him, but another look at the shadows made up her mind.

She got up from her bed and proceeded to shake Tam out of his restless sleep.

"Tam, Tam, wake up!"

Tam slowly opened his eyelids.

"What's up Linh, nightmares again?" he asked sleepily.

Linh nodded, then pointed at the wall, her finger shaking in fear, " Tam,look the shadows are m...moving."

Instead of reassuring Linh that that was impossible, Tam frowned. He got up from bed and told Linh, "I think you should go back to your bed."

Linh raised her eyebrows, now that was weird, but she listened to Tam anyway and plopped down on her bed.

Tam started to follow her, but with every step he took, the shadows moved.

Linh was scared now, and she could see a hint of fear dancing across Tam's eyes as she screamed, "T...Tam the shadows!"

"I...I don't know...I...I don't understand....I-" Tam stuttered. Then his eyes widened.

Shadows.

Moving.

With Tam's every movement.

Tam moved his hands.

And the shadows moved along with them.

Realisation danced across Linh's face as she looked at Tam and their silvery blue eyes locked with each other's.

"I... I think you just manifested," Linh gasped.

The twins looked at each other again and said together,

"As a shade."

Tam looked down at his hands. He moved one of them again, and his own shadow moved away from him.

"Wow," Linh gasped, "what else can you do?"

"I need time to test my ability out, so....," he shrugged.

"Should we tell mum and dad?" Linh asked.

"Yeah, I guess, I mean we can't keep this from them, can we?" he laughed darkly, then added," but we're telling them in the morning."

"I don't think we should delay telling them this."

"But it's the middle of the night," Tam pointed out, "We can't just go knocking on their door, they'll be furious."

"But their son just manifested," Linh insisted.

Tam shrugged, "I say we wait and I'm the one that manifested. Besides, it won't hurt to wait a few hours. I could also use the time to test out my ability."

"Fine,but you're going back to sleep, you just manifested and you need rest." Linh told him matter-of-factly.

"I can't sleep, and you can't either, can you?" Tam asked, raising an eyebrow.