It’s never the light that’s wrong. It’s the shadows.
You may think that’s a strange thing to say, but I know what I saw. I never wanted to see it, but I did.
I’d always heard the rumors, of course. Everyone has. About how shadows sometimes don’t match their sources, how they stretch too long or twist in strange ways. The stories were easy to dismiss—until I moved into that house. The old one at the end of the street.
It wasn’t much. Just a small, worn-down place with creaking floors and peeling paint, the kind of place no one cared enough to fix. But the rent was cheap, and I needed somewhere to go.
I didn’t notice at first. It started with little things—things that seemed like normal shadows, just a little off. But I didn’t think much of it. I thought I was imagining it. The light from the hall never quite reached the corners, so the shadows looked longer than they should.
But then I saw it, one night, when the power went out. A single candle flickered weakly on the table, and I sat in the dark, listening to the silence.
That’s when I saw the shape.
I couldn’t see it fully at first—just the outline, a dark thing lurking in the far corner. I thought it was just a trick of the candlelight, something I was making up in my head. But when the shadow shifted without me moving, I froze.
It had no shape. No form. Just… movement. It stretched, twisted, and grew as though it were alive, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t anything, and yet it was everything.
I blinked, and it was gone.
But I could still feel it. I could feel the edges of it pressing against me, like it was waiting for something. Like it was waiting for me to blink again.
I tried to tell myself I was tired, that it was just the dark playing tricks on me. But the more I looked, the less sense it made. Shadows don’t move like that. Shadows don’t stretch and twist like that. They don’t pull away when you turn the light on.
I never saw it again, at least not in the way I saw it that night. But every time I walk into a room, I can feel it—lurking at the edges, waiting for me to look too long.
Sometimes I think I hear something in the dark, just before I fall asleep. A soft rustling. Something breathing.
And sometimes, when I look away, I swear the shadows are different, just for a moment.
I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s not a thing at all. Maybe it’s nothing.
But I know it’s still there.
And it’s watching.