The Shadows

Anastasia looked around her, she could not believe what she was seeing. Was this real? Could so much beauty fit into just one place?

The night was dark and calm, the stars above her where shining, and tonight it seemed as if they shined especially for her with all their strength, like flashlights lighting up the sky. All around her where trees high with their branches reaching up to the sky as if to capture the stars with their hands.
A light breeze moved trough them playing with their leafs making the warm night just the perfect temperature. Fireflies where everywhere, lighting the dark forest around her like white christmas lights.
The forest was alive around her, with the sound of tiny, and not so tiny, animals snapping branches at their wake, and the soft hum of the fireflies and other bugs. The smells of the forest overwhelmed her nose, with the rich smell of soil and of the different plants and trees around her.

So much beauty and life in just one place was almost unbelievable. She breathed in the smell of the soil and moss of the forest and turned in a circle to admire the beauty all around her.

She stopped abruptly in her tracks.

There was something there, coming towards her, so dark in contrast to the light around her. Someone. A shadow. The happiness melted away to dread that froze her in place. Her breath caught at her throat. She stood still. Her insides twisted and turned in the presence of this shadow.

He, it, was getting closer. She tried to run, but couldn't. She was rooted to the ground. Literally. She struggled helplessly against the roots that had sprouted from the ground and held her in place. It was useless. She could not move.

Closer. Closer. Closer.

The sick feeling inside her grew. She struggled harder, to no use. The shadow was almost to her. it reached its arms out as if to touch her.

"Anastasia" it whispered in raspy voice.

"NO!" she screamed. And jolted awake in bed. She was breathing hard, sweat running down her face. She turned to her nightstand and clicked the light button on top of her alarm clock. Three a.m.

This was the fifth time in two months, this nightmare had come to her. This had stopped happening when she was ten. And now they where back. It could only mean one thing.



Shadow Days- By John Mayer
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4FC9iuftAA