My Shadow

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Notes: Germany is to blame, I assure you ... that and staring at the ceiling at night.

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It was not like mist at all. Nor like a sheet, or even a moon beam. Not at all like it was supposed to look. For a moment she had not even realized it was there till she felt it watching. Like a glimmer perhaps, maybe hinting of long dead eyes. Then it moved in the corner of her eye and flitted to a deeper space in her darkened room. Was it stalking? She shivered. Was it stalking her? Maybe not, it did not seem to know she was there, or even care. But if it did, would it suck out her soul too? It oozed like ink across the floor, avoiding the bright spots where moonlight shone from the window, sliding into the hidden windows of her dollhouse, the darkened holes now it's space. So bright and cheery with it's curtains during the day, when she played with her dolls and Rosy Anne. Now those curtains fluttered without a stirring of air and a scratching sound issued from within, as if furniture was displaced. Then it oozed back out and across the floor, rising up in another hidden place. It glanced at her and she held her breath as nothing sparks glimmered like eyes. Then it vanished away as it came. She breathed again. They always said ghosts were white, not dark and inky as her own shadow ... her own shadow ... shadow ... she closed her eyes, they were so heavy now ...

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