Hidden Darkness Inside

The sun was setting into the horizon, it's fading light casting shadows over the land.  The shadows almost seemed to move, as if the wind were blowing through them.

A family slept peacefully inside their little home.  The child smiling as he dreamed about the possibility of going fishing early in the morning with his father.  The mother curled up to her husband.  Her arm wrapped around his body, her head on his slowly rising and falling chest.  Father, his arm wrapped lovingly around his wife.  Smiling at his good fortune.

The shadows seemed to swirl around the family as they slept.  They swirled around the house and it's tiny rooms un noticed by the soundly sleeping family.

On the mountain a ways off in the distance, a tall dark figure stood on his black horse.  He could barely be seen through the darkness that had now taken over the land.  He stared down the mountain, towards the tiny house.  A mischievious grin on his face, his eyes glowing in the darkness.  The evil swirling around him seemed to make even the most snakes shiver under their skin.

As the moon stood high in the sky, shining brightly over the small house, screams rang out through the country side.  First a young child's, then a woman's and lastly, a man's.

As the shadows slipped away slowly back to where they came from, the sun began to rise in the East.  The birds were not singing.  A knock on a door could be heard echoing through the trees.  The knock was shortly followed by a man's screams for help and a healer.

His screams were too late.  The bodies were cold, and the spirits long gone.  As the man ran down the road for help, the shadows lurked between the trees as they headed onward to their next destination.

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Myvanor awoke abruptly, her eyes wide, and sweat pouring down her.  She looked around the room in a panic, breathing heavily.

"It was just a dream."  She whispered to herself.  "Only a dream..."

Tears began to stream down her face.

It was a dream, now.  But it had not always been one.  It had once been reality..

She laid back down slowly, her eyes darting around the room.  Burying her head into her pillow, she curled up into a ball.  Sobbing herself back to sleep.