ShadowLand

   So this first chapter is dedicated to Katelyn! She's a good friend from school, and she's been with me reading this story the whole time.(: So a shout out to her! Thanks :)

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      I distinctly remember awakening one night in a terrible sweat. My entire body was soaked and wracked with a terrible pain. It felt as if I had been hit by something.. No. I had been hit by something. Or yet, it wasn't me, but I was in the person's head feeling everything they felt. My cat, Deedle, grumbled as he re-positioned himself back to my side. My five year-old brain scrambled to make the messy memories of my most recent dream come together.

     There was a man. I knew this for sure. He had obviously been hit by something hard. I couldn't make much sense of it. I heard approaching footsteps leading towards my bedroom. I knew Mom would be angry with me if she found me awake at this time of night. I quickly scooted back under the covers and "opossum-ed", as my paw-paw always called it, which meant that I was pretending to be asleep. I heard my mother's hand rest on the doorknob, and she quickly took it away as though afraid of opening the door. She bravely placed it there again and turned the doorknob, quickly stepping into my room. I felt my mattress bare the weight of her, which was barely none at all. She quickly enveloped myself into her arms, and I felt her shaking with her sobs.

     "Adley," she whispered into my ear. She kissed my cheek tenderly. There was a soft dread that was increasingly building up in my stomach. I turned my head and opened my eyes to meet her despaired set. 

     "Yes, momma?" My little voice shook.

     "There's been an accident. Daddy.. Daddy has to go away for a little while," she gently explained to me. I felt my little face squinch up into a frown.

     "Where has daddy gone to, momma?" I inquired her. She held her breath for a moment and all of a sudden let it out as her shaking began again. In that moment, I knew something was wrong eternally. Daddy would never be coming home again. 

* * * * * * * *

     The next day, mother forced me into a terrible black dress. I didn't like it one bit, and I fought her the whole way. The lace itched, and the pantyhose she forced me into sagged a little at my ankles. The shoes were even worse. I asked her why she was making me wear such clothes. She just shook her head and told me that it was funeral appropriate.

     I looked at my paw-paw and shook his hand. "What's a funeral, paw-paw?"

     He bent down on one knee and took both hands of mine into his. There was a twinkling in his eyes that I had never known before. "A funeral is a place for the dead, sweetheart, so that we may remember the ones that are passing on. Before you may ask what this means, for I know you certainly will, it means that a person has died and moved on to whatever there is for us after death. There are many aspects for this, dear one, but you are too young to understand."

     "Is that what happened to Daddy? Is he dead, Paw-paw?" My lip started to quiver. I didn't want him to be gone. All the old man could do was give a brief nod.

* * * * * * * *

     There was a huge box at the front of the Church. The lid was closed, and I would have liked to have known what was inside. It was a rich red-brown, mahogany box. Flowers were spread all around it. Beautiful pinks and reds, whites and greens. My focus got lost in all the colors. I didn't hear what the preacher was saying. I was following the line of the beautiful flowers, when I noticed something above that really pretty box. It was a shadow lingering over it. In my own five year-old mind, I knew this simply couldn't be right. There was nothing above the casket to cast a shadow. It was quite like the shape of a man. There was the lines of a head, arms, and legs, an upper body and a lower body. 

     The head of the shadow turned to meet my gaze as if sensing that I was staring at it. I had an intake of breath. With inhuman speed, it was right in my face. I could feel the icy, putrid breath on my face. It smelled like death alone. I cringed away from it, and my mother placed a hand on my arm. Could she not see this rotten thing? Could she not smell it? What was wrong with her? In fact, what was wrong with everyone else? They acted as if they could see nothing, smell nothing. They couldn't hear it's ragged breathing. Then I began to fall, and fall, mercilessly into the depth of the black pits.