Lampposts, Demonic Siblings and a Broken Toaster. Can It Get Any Worse?

My hand found the noise, and I picked it up and threw it across the room. I wanted more than anything to pull the covers back over my head and go to sleep, but instead I regretfully hauled myself out of bed and started to get dressed.

After dressing in a white, gold-specked strap top and a deep purple skirt, I head downstairs for my usual plate of toast. “Morning!” I acknowledged my mum, who just finished flipping her pancakes.

“Good morning Magenta,” she said, pouring maple syrup over her breakfast. She looked over my barely-brushed hair and hurried choice of clothes, and continued cutting her pancakes in fine slices.

I finished my toast and quickly gulped down my milk in three seconds flat. “Bye mom! See you after school!” And with that I grabbed my schoolbag and rushed out of the door before I was late for the bus.

Getting on the bus was a nightmare. I can't remember ever stressing that enough, especially in summer. The sweaty students enter onto the bus, and perspire on the cheap leather seats as if they're pouring literally buckets of sweat onto it.

The stench of sweat hangs in the air like a thunder cloud, all the while the bus driver is making up excuses for why the bus doesn't have air-con.

I sit at the front usually, where the rare breeze of air passes over occasionally from the door and the drivers window. It's possibly the best seat on th bus.

As the bus stopped at a traffic light I looked out the window, expecting to see the usual; motorcyclists winding between the collecting traffic; perhaps a convertible honking its horn at some attractive girl passing by; pedestrians coughing from the pollution.

Instead, I was shocked to see the norm, but with something incredible mixed into the recipe.

Shadows – thousands of them – were floating virtually everywhere, like at a graduation party where everyone throws those weird hats, except these were black-ghost sort of creatures.

At first I recoiled – what were they? Not normal, that's for sure. But then I looked closely, and I took in every detail; their genie-tails wiggling behind them, their opaque features were as if a film of tights were stretched onto my vision, the curve of their noses, the abyss in their eyes...

Hadn't I read this somewhere before? I struggled to remember the words; ...like spirits they are present, but not visible to the unbelievers. Like humans are their features, but unlike humans the possess powers beyond our understanding. Beware, avoid their attention if possible, for they will enter and possess you without even your own knowledge, caressing your soul to a lullaby death while they try to walk among us, the living, condemned to an eternity of pain and loneliness.

Shadow-walkers, I think they were called. They were definitely dangerous, but I read somewhere that if summoned they make fabulous servants. I wouldn't be doing that anytime soon.

I felt my heart hammering in my chest, terrified of several possibilities; one; that these creatures would notice me and then possess me. Two; my heart would falter from over-drive. Three; that my wish really was coming true. For the third, I was excited in both good ways and bad ways.

As terrified as I was, I was also ecstatic. Did the appearance of Shadow-walkers mean that there were other existing creatures too? If so, I can't wait to see them! All those things that were always in my dreams; centaurs, angels, mermaids, faeries, shadow-walkers, soul-eaters, demons...

My wish is coming true.