The Curious Tale of the Pale Silhouette

Was it just me? I could feel this prescence, looming over me like a skyscraper. What was it? It was 12PM. I was just sitting in the dark room, looking out of the door. The house sounded like an old man. Creaking and groaning it was. I just, well, sat there. I kept focusing on the doorway. My eyes fixed on the window through it in the next room. What was I doing here? As far as I was concerned I was tucked up in my bed, at 6:00PM after a very long day at work, and this was just a nightmare that I had wandered into. I looked around, and I realised that this wasn't a dream. You can tell the difference between a dream and what is real. At least, you can after you have woken up. I could tell the difference now. I was fully aware of what was going on. I pinched my arm to see if it hurt. It did. A lot. This was real. Had someone kidnapped me? Where is my wife? Where are my dogs? A seemingly endless amount of questions flooded my mind as I kept my eyes fixed on the window.

The prescence had gone, but I was certain I saw something out of that window. A silhouette of sorts. A shadow. I wanted to leave this house. It looked abandoned. At least I thought it was abandoned. That's what made me panic. What if someone did live here, and they saw me curling in the corner of the room? They would throw me out and call me a psycho! Or at the very least they would take me to the police! My head started to hurt. So many thoughts and feeling rushd through me. I didn't know what to do. It was getting darker now, and I had been sitting here for only five minutes or so. I thought I should stand up. I struggled to my feet, and as I did so, the doorway suddenly filled with darkness. I jumped back and grabbed the wall. Something stood in the doorway. The silhouette. Every bit of the thing was jet black, but its face was pure white. The head appeared to grow upwards. Two jet black eyes were fixated upon me, and the thing appeared to have a happy expression on its face. It was smiling. The thing was giving me such an innocent smile. Its eyes looked haunted. I had a wave of sympathy for the thing.

I asked it what it was. It continued to stare at me with sadness in its eyes. I asked again. The same result. I asked more times and still the poor creature looked at me as if it wanted a cuddle. I thought that if I wanted to get anywhere here (be it a dream or not) then I had to approach the thing. I walked cautiously towards the creature trying not to worry it. I continued to stare into its eyes. I was worried what would happen if I didn't. That's when I stepped on a loose bit of floorboard. It creaked, loudly. That's when the creature seemed to have been startled by the sound and it immediately hovered backwards and it smashed through the window, still staring at me. I cringed at the sound of the window smashing, and I glanced out at the creature. That's when its eyes widended further, and it's mouth opened widely, still with the enormous smile covering the bottom half of its face. I felt frightened now. This thing looked like it was either playing a game with me, or it was teasing me. Like a cat with a mouse.

I made a beeline out of the room and as I did so, the creature moved suddenly out of my view. I turned right and I saw some stairs. I could run up them and escape by climbing onto the roof. But my body didn't seem to listen to what I was thinking. I just seemed to run any way I could. I just ran to the end of the hallway. The room at the end looked like a kitchen. I ran in and I noticed a knife on the table. I grabbed and turned around as fast as I could. The door at the end of the hallway, near where I just was, was banging. I started to sweat. It seemed like a bucket of water had just been poured on my head. I was starting to panic. I was breathing so fast now. I daren't take my eyes off the door that continued to bang so loudly. I had to make it stop. I shouted “shut up!” so loudly that my voice seemed to echo. The door immediately ceased to bang. I calmed down a little, but I was still slightly on edge. Every slight creak made me spin around rapidly to find out the source. I closed the kitchen door.

I started searching through drawers and cupboards for a map, some notes, just anything that would tell me where I was and what was this thing pursuing me. I found a map inside a drawer, so I snatched it and unfolded its contents. A place named “Moon-Bridge House” was circled in what looked like red ink, but it could have been worse. Surrounding it were the words “Jim is dead. The truth will never be revealed.” I just re-read the sentence over and over again in my mind. Jim. My brother. This was no coincidence. He always talked about that damn thing. The Shadow creature and how he was protected by some guardian thing. I don't know what he was on about. I left home before my parents had Jim. I barely knew him. Never saw my family after that. I didn't want to be involved with them. I always found them to be horrible people, and that Jim was a total nutter. That's why I didn't feel sad. I was contemplating all of this whilst jumping out of my skin due to the noises the house was making. Jim said the creature can take on the forms of humans if it wants to. He said he read it in a diary of a friend of his. “June's Diary” he called it. I always thought it was total bullshit. Just as I put down the map, I heard a loud crash upstairs. I couldn't go up there! I had to get out of the house fast.

I slowly opened the kitchen door and I peeked around it. The front door was somehow wide open, but there was no light coming in the house anymore. It was pitch black outside. I picked up the map and the knife off of the table and I dashed for the door. Behind me, I heard running down the stairs. I ran faster and faster and as I got out of the seemingly never-ending hallway I leaped out the door and over the front step. I looked behind me. The creature was there, but it had changed. The head was the same, and the white face was so bright that it shined like a torch amongst the darkness. That smile was still there. I noticed that the creature had no hands. Instead, it had two long sharp blades that pertruded from its arms. The creature didn't seem to be a shadow anymore. It seemed to be a very pale and translucent being. It's legs were very long, and they seemed to bend incredibly as it ran towards me.

I sprinted past some old iron gate that stood there. I ran for what seemed an hour without looking back. There was no light in front of me, just a black abyss. I was completely blinded. At the end of the track, I saw a sign. It said “Blitherleigh 8 miles”. That was my home village. I ran for a long time. I'm not sure for how long, but I ended up at my house. I looked around. Nothing there. I knocked on the door continuously until my wife opened. She pulled open the door. I ran into her arms and I fell unconscious.

I woke up the next morning. My wife was sitting by my side. She told me that she wondered where I was last night. I told her what had happened and she assumed that I went sleepwalking and came back later in the evening, a little shocked because I had woken up away from home. I agreed with what she said. I thought that this whole thing was an episode. “Just a one-off” I thought. My wife offered to get me a drink and she walked downstairs to get me a glass of water. I sat up and looked around, relieved that I was away from that house. That's when I turned to my right and in the mirror, behind my head on the wall were the words:

NO ESCAPE