The Shadow Child

I saw something last night. I’m not even sure that I saw it, it was just a glimpse in the corner of my eye, but it made me remember a recurring dream from my past. I only remember some vague details about it but I remember that there was a shadow of a kid who would seem to just stare at me through my window. I could never make out any facial features on the other child, just a silhouette, and I always dismissed it as a dream because I lived on the second floor of my house with my only window facing towards the neighbors’ house, and there was no way some other kid could just… float there like the one in my dreams. It didn’t do anything in most of these dreams, just float there, barely moving, and when I would wake up the next morning it would be gone.

Most of the dreams were the same, but I distinctly remember one that happened when I was about 5. I dreamt that my window was open and the kid’s silhouette raised a hand. Its hand had long fingers, which ended at a rather sharp point. Its finger slashed the window screen and it entered my room. I tried to hide under the sheets but after a few minutes I realized nothing had happened. I peeked out and saw the silhouette at the foot of my bed. For the first time I saw its full body, and it looked just like any other kid my age, similar height and build aside from the long, conical fingers. We just stared at each other for a few seconds, or at least… I assume it was staring at me since I could not distinguish any eyes. It made a sudden movement and dragged one of its abnormally long fingers across the bottom of my bed, leaving rather deep cuts across my lower shins. I scream, partly out of pain and partly out of surprise. It made no noise, none at all, and swiftly jumped out of my window. I remember dreaming that my parents ran into my room to check on me and freaked out when they saw the torn window screen, torn covers, and the blood from my shins. I remember my parents rushing me to the emergency room but after that all I remember is waking up the next morning pretty much normal in my room.

I was talking with my parents this morning about this strange dream I remembered where it cut open my shins and jumped out the window. They said that they remember having to rush me to the hospital once because I had somehow cut the fronts of my legs open but they didn’t recall any other details about what happened before the trip to the ER. This left a bad feeling in my stomach, what was the thing, or person, that my mind projected the silhouette onto? If that “dream” actually had some root in reality how much was just made up in my crazy 5 year old imagination and how much was reality?

We moved away from that home about a year later, when I was 6, but I remember seeing the silhouette a few more times after the ER incident, but my parents never let me open my window again, so the silhouette would just stand there as before, occasionally waving, in a way that seems more sinister these days than how I interpreted it as a child. When it did wave I would scream, fearing it would try to attack me again, but when my parents would run in making sure I was okay, it was already gone and I would ramble on, trying to explain that “the kid shadow was watching me again”. I always thought the move was just for my dad’s work but we were only moving about 10 miles closer out of his 60 something mile commute to his work in Denver. Now I can’t help but think that it was to save me from whatever my parents thought was trying to harm me.

It worked, I never saw the silhouette again in the almost 10 years since we moved. But last night… I could swear whatever I saw, even though it was only for a fleeting second, looked just like my memories of the silhouette, pointy elongated fingers and all. How did it find me again? Why did it find me again? What was its intentions 11 years ago? What are its intentions now? How did it get into my house again? Who should I tell? Where should I run?