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demons
shadows
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     Ever since she was a little girl, Nora Harlow had always felt like she was being watched.

It started when she was a tiny toddler. She would run into her parent's room in the middle of the night, because there was something in her wardrobe. Or under her bed. Or through the window.

Of course, this type of stuff was common in youngsters, those chilling situations in which they felt as if there was a monster in their room. But then Nora grew older, and the odd things that occurred grew more disturbing as she did so.

One completely normal day, her mother had walked threw the front door, arms bursting with bags of groceries (as per usual) and she had smiled at the sound of her daughters voice, talking to her toys as if they were real—Nora often did that, she'd have tea parties on the regular. Except this time, as her mum wandered into her room fully intending to join in on the tea party, she stopped in her tracks.

Nora was sipping from a plastic cup. However, instead of raising it to her teddy bear that always sat on her left, she drank on her own. But she was talking, and her mum wondered for a moment if Nora had conjured up an imaginary friend, so she asked her, "Who are you talking to, Noddy?"

That was Nora's nickname for two reasons. One being that she absolutely adored the children's show, and the other was because the little girl was always nodding off to sleep in the most random places she could find.

"The shadow!" Nora replied happily, showing off the gap in her teeth that had recently appeared—she'd earned a whole one pound for it!

Frowning, her mother walked further into the room, giving it a cautious once-over.

"What shadow?" She asked, sitting down on a unicorn cushion that was usually occupied by her Angelina Ballerina doll.

"The one that comes every now and then. There's never any room for him, though, so I made sure there was plenty this time, but he hasn't joined me yet. I think he's just shy."

Shivering because her mother knew all too well about the shadows that lurked around the Earth, she gave the light room another, more severe scan, feeling uneasy at her daughter's words.

"I see," she hummed, keeping her tone light, "and where do you normally see this shadow, Noddy?"

Nora had long forgotten the words she had spoken at that moment in time, but they had stuck with her mother permanently. The way her sweet, innocent little angel had not known any wiser on what she was saying, made it all the more frightening when she had replied, stirring her cup of air as if it was no big deal.

"By the window, mummy, I saw his eyes, once, but he hasn't shown them again, I think he was just ashamed of them though, because they were so dark, and that's not really normal, is it?"

"So, as I said earlier, you will need to finish off the last chapter of The Woman in Black over the weekend for Monday's lesson with a detailed, two-page analysis on the themes of fear and isolation and how they pre-" Mr. Jensen, Nora's English literature professor, stopped himself as he looked crestfallen at the fact that most of his students had already left the classroom, the second the bell had rung. Some had left before, even. "And...they're gone, brilliant."

Nora was still packing her bags up, and smiled sympathetically at the balding man that could never control his class, she also let a small giggle slip, and the man snapped his gaze up to her, putting on a stern face.

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