The Shadow

I lost control of my breathing and the tears started to fall freely from my eyes. Finn and I both jumped into his Honda Civic, he hastily ignited the engine, and we weren't long hightailing it out of there.

We were only about a 30-minute drive from my house, but it felt like the longest 30 minutes of my life. My joints were locked up, I was having chest pains, my breathing was too shallow and short, I couldn’t stop crying, and my whole body was trembling uncontrollably. All I could see were those eyes.

Finn stayed quiet, he synced his phone to the Bluetooth in the car and started playing songs he knew would help me focus. We had been through this sort of thing enough that he knew the best way to help, which was do nothing unless I asked him to. In the beginning it was a little more challenging, he wanted to help me; but his idea of help was different than what I needed. We eventually came to an understanding, and figured out what worked best.

We were about ten minutes into our drive when I was able to unlock my joints enough to sit properly, my breathing was slowing down to normal, and the tears were slowing down. It wasn’t completely over, anything could start it up again, within seconds. I knew I wouldn’t really be able to talk, I was still trembling, which meant I would probably start to stutter when I spoke. It was so frustrating to be like this; especially in a crisis.

Finn turned the music down after once he noticed I was coming out of it, "I'm so sorry. I should have left when you started doing that thing with your eyes. Ya know, where they get really wide? Like a scared cat! Anyway, I knew better."

I nodded my acceptance of his apology, and continued to look at the dark road ahead of us.

"I can stay over if you want? To be honest I don’t really want to be alone..." He serious for a moment, then his features softened, " that was pretty fuckin' freaky, eh?"

I nodded again, still unable to do much more than that. 'Fuckin' freaky' was a serious understatement, I still couldn’t shake that awful feeling. Like it was somehow still watching us, following us along the side of the road. It's long unnatural body contorting as it moved way too fast through the woods surrounding us. My imagination was starting to get the best of me, the only thing I saw were its eyes. It could have been the original owner who was only trying to keep kids out of what was once their home.

It could have been a lot of things, Clara.

You don’t know...

I reached a hand down to grab Finns phone. Once unlocked I changed the song to a cover of Waterloo Sunset performed by Def Leppard, I found it very relaxing and liked it more than the original.

"Th-this is a n-nice sa-song," it frustrated me that I still couldn’t talk properly, everything about my anxiety frustrated me.

"Oh yeah, very relaxing," Finn agreed.

Finn began rambling on about this and that for the rest of the drive. I laid my head back and kept my eyes forward. Normally I would have closed them and focused more on the sound of Finns voice and my breathing. This time I couldn’t, all I could see in the darkness were those eyes, watching me... waiting.

I grabbed Finns right hand before he had a chance to put his keys in his pocket. He took his left hand off of the door handle, and turned to look over at me. His head was cocked to the side a little, he reminded me of a puppy sometimes, maybe that was why I liked him so much.

"You didn’t feel weird about anything that happened back there?" He always seemed so calm in the face of danger, it was hard to gage how he was feeling by only looking at him. I was trying to figure out if the way I was feeling was logical, or just my imagination and anxiety teaming up to get the best of me.

He grinned and chuckled; "I feel weird about everything that happened back there. I've never experienced anything like that before, well, you would know if I had or not."

"Ok, good," I looked at my hands folded in my lap, I was trying to formulate my next question, "what exactly did you see?"

"Well," he looked thoughtfully out the windshield, "two orbs, I guess. Or whatever they're called. They talk about them all the time on those ghost hunting shows, ya know? They're always really excited because its 'paranormal activity'."

The way he said 'paranormal activity' told me that he thought of it as a joke, or maybe he was playing it off to make sure I didn’t get upset again.

"You didn’t see or feel anything else?" It was so real, what I had seen and felt. There was no way it was all in my head, it couldn’t be. I still felt like we were being watched from the wooded areas around my house.

He shrugged and his eyes darted away from mine for a moment, he either didn’t want to tell me everything or he was about to try and lie to me. We had been friends for too long for him to deceive me, we knew each other's quirks inside and out.

"It was a little weird in there," he looked unsure and shrugged again, "it didn’t really make me feel like staying, or going back."

He was giving me short answers, and putting a fair bit of thought into his words. I knew he wasn’t revealing the whole truth, he was trying to keep me safe, and trying to keep me from slipping back into another panic attack.

"Finn."

"Yes?"

I have him a point look, one conveying that I meant business, "I'm asking because I need to know. I need to know if you saw what I saw?"

"What did you see?"

"I asked you first!"

"Aw, come-"

"Finn!" He looked a little startled when I raised my voice at him. I felt like he wasn’t taking me seriously, and it was getting on my nerves faster than usual. Normally I have a little more emotional control, or try to at least. I was still too emotionally unstable and on edge to reign myself in.

"The orbs kinda looked like eyes, I guess..." He shrugged, "I got the feeling that it was hiding itself, but it wanted us to know it was there, ya know?"

He paused for a moment, thinking of how to explain his thoughts, "ah... I had this weird feeling of dread. I also felt like there was something in the basement that I needed to see-"

"We're not going back!" I couldn’t stop myself from blurting it out, cutting him off again. My thoughts were starting to race, and my heart was starting to catch up to them.

We can't go back, we can't go back, we can't go back.

Don’t let him go!

He grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze, "hey, no worries. I wouldn’t take you back there... I feel really shitty about upsetting you already."

"It wasn’t you."

"Well, technically-"

I shook my head in disagreement. I was 17-years-old, no one could make me do something that I didn’t want to do. I had made my own decision to go there with him, I was in charge of myself. I had gone through enough therapy to understand that everything that happens to me is in my hands, how I react to something is my choice. The world wasn’t out to get me, I would only be a victim if I allowed it to happen.

"The blame is non-negotiable, got cha," he flashed me a cheeky smile, trying to lighten the mood, "consider it yours."

"Thank you. Now, was that it? You felt dread, like something was hiding itself from us, and like you should go in the basement."

He nodded, "oh! Right before we left, the front door looked really dark, like, too dark, ya know? And, well, you saw it too. The door slamming itself shut."

I silently took in everything he was saying before I recounted my experience to him. He looked a little uneasy when I described seeing, but not seeing, whatever it was. He also didn’t seem overly enthused when I explained that it felt like we had been followed back here.

"So, can you see it around us now?" He started to look around out of all of the car windows.

I stopped and looked around with him. I couldn’t see anything around us, nor did I feel anything anymore. I didn’t know if I should feel relieved or worried, "no... maybe it fucked off."

Finn burst out laughing before exiting the car, "come on, lets watch a movie or something. It's just Joy here right? I don’t see your parents' cars."

"I think they're out having drinks and playing cards," I shrugged, I hadn't really been paying attention when they were telling me about their plans. I was just happy to hear they were getting out visiting friends. They were so busy with work lately they didn’t have any time for themselves.

We entered my house and started towards my bedroom. Joy was in her room in the basement, classical music was playing loud enough that we could hear it at the top of the basement stairs. That meant she was either studying or reading, we knew to stay quiet and clear of her. There were two things my sister took seriously in life, her education and reading. She wouldn’t get mad at us or anything if we were loud, I would end up feeling guilty if we did disturb her though.

We watched a couple videos on YouTube before looking for a movie to fall asleep to. It was almost odd to have things feel so normal after an experience like we had earlier. I felt calm in my room, especially with Finn there, but I couldn’t shake this weird feeling that something was off.

"I don’t think I want to try ghost hunting anymore," Finn absentmindedly started to play with my hair as we continued to watch Justice League VS Teen Titans.

"I think that’s the best idea you've had all day."

"Shut up," he chuckled, "it's not like either of us got hurt or anything."

"That's not really the only deciding factor on whether or not something is a good idea."

"I'm sorry, Clara," he was looking down at me, my head was resting on his shoulder. He looked as though he was being genuine, not that I would have any reason to believe it wasn't.

"Apology accepted," I gave him a half-hearted smile and turned my attention back to the movie.

The mixture of the stress from today, and Finn stroking my hair lulled me to sleep shortly after that. I still hadn't felt completely comfortable, something still felt weird, like we were being watched. I knew we were far away from the haunted house for anything to still be bothering us, my imagination was trying to run haywire.