The Shadow

The Shadow

In the middle of class, as the teacher droned on about the intricacies of Longfellow and Holmes, Harold spotted, nestled in the corner of the classroom, a dark shadow that belonged to no one. It dripped darkness, standing out from the fluorescent lights that hung from the ceiling , and it had a single hand in a non-existent waistcoat. The shadow wasn't very tall, standing below 5'10, and it didn't have any eyes or mouth.

It was exceptionally hard for Harold to concentrate on the meager stanzas of Oliver Wendell Holmes, while the rest of the class had checked out long before the teacher started the recording of Old Ironsides. Harold chose to ignore the dark figure, seeing it as a figment of his imagination. He just sat in his desk, looking into the infinity while not listening to the poem, and he watched outside as rain pattered gently against the clear windows.

The recording said "The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!" and as it said that a crack of thunder rippled across the wind, splitting the ears of all in the classroom, walking all from their daze. The students looked outside, to see that lightning had struck a nearby tree, which for a moment blazed in the gentle rain, before being put out by it.

"Woah, that was pretty cool" Said Anna, who gawked with a childlike gaze at the now burnt and broken tree. She put her head on her hand, looking out to the rain that pitter-pattered against the now shaken panes of glass.

"The teacher seems not to have noticed." Harold said. Harold turned around to look at the other students, but instead saw the shadow was now not in the corner, but rather standing right behind the final row of desks, silently standing and staring with his empty face. The monster, hand still in waistcoat, was staring at the now terrified Harold. Harold could see clearly that the monster had short hair, brown and a little unkempt. He had no eyes, and clasped to his pants was a belt that held a small flintlock pistol, also a shadow of some kind.

Harold looked away, and when he looked back the shadow was still there, standing out as a dark and sinister figure against the placid and looming walls of the classroom. The other kids didn't notice, many of which had fallen back into their stupor, their grimaced faces and angry eyes casting a gaze of despair across the room to the teacher. The shadow sat there, and though it had no eyes or mouth, Harold knew that it was looking at him.

"Uhhh... Anna, are you seeing this?" He said. Anna, who was drawing some sort of picture, turned around and gasped. She saw it too.

"Oh my god, I didn't notice it before! What is it?" She whispered in fear.

"Quiet! Whats with all the noise, we're trying to listen to a poem here!" Said the teacher.

"Teacher, a shadow beast is in the back of the room! She has long hair, and a suit of armor on! She has a sword, a freaking sword!" Anna said.

"What? No he doesn't!" Quietly whispered Harold. "Its not even a girl, and he has an 18^th century waistcoat on!"

"Both of you, do I need to call the officer from downstairs?" The teacher said. And so both quieted, the teacher went back to his nap, and class continued for the rest of the period. It was two hours long, and only ten minutes had passed since the beginning of class. The second poem was on, Because I Could Not Stop For Death.

"I love this poem." Anna said, heaving a heavy sigh, staring out too the tapping rain that rapt against the glass. She and Harold had forgot about the man who was in the back of the room. The teacher was having trouble finding the recording he needed, so the students had a moment of free time, a luxury like no other.

"We have a math quiz today, by the way." She said.

"What! Another one?" Harold said in return.

"Yea, I know..." she said. She had returned to drawing, some picture not completed yet, but it had contour lines and other lines of other types that Harold could not, for the life of him, draw or understand. Harold could never draw.

"I'm already freaking stressed by school, why the hell do they have to do this to us?" Harold said.

"Tell me about it" She mused, while drawing away. She would seamlessly move her hand, like a ballerina or an ice skater, crafting something from nothing from the simple led tip of a pencil. Her eyes would dart across the paper, her long brown hair jerking with every cocked head and turned neck. She had a white t-shirt on, and a pair of sweatpants that both fluttered a bit when her body adjusted to make a certain angle.

"Found it." Said the teacher, and he played the CD.

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality

Then, as the final word of that stanza rung from the CD player, the rain picked up tremendously. Anna was just silently listening, listening to the poem as the rain started to assault the school. The water pounded the glass until you could hear them creaking and groaning against the strain of mother nature. Harold looked at Anna, who was watching it now, marveling at the incredible power it held. She had an angry gaze though, watching with jealousy, at least to Harolds knowledge.

Harold dropped his pencil, and it rolled along the floor slowly until hitting the teachers foot.

"Whose pencil is this?" Said the teacher, in an angry voice. The young man looked around, his eyes piercing into the soul of anyone he stared at.

"Anna, its probably you! Or Harold, I don't know and I don't care!" Shouted the teacher. He shot up, with the speed of a meteorite crashing into the Ural mountains. Anna, who was still looking at the rain, suddenly stared at the teacher in disbelief.

"I did it, sir." Harold said. The teacher then proceeded to call Harold an ungrateful little swine, and told him to shut up and that he would not get a pencil the rest of the period. Harold just sat there fuming, and turned around for a moment.

The shadow was sitting four or five seats away now. Harold could make out its shifting skin, black and moving like something was underneath. His face had contour lines where features would be. Staring at him, Harold suddenly saw time and space collapse behind the man, revealing a massive prison. The prison was being assaulted by cannon and shot, the stone being wiped away by the power of led. Anna was staring to, and they both suddenly leaped up to tell the teacher.

"Don't bother." It said, in a deeped, hushed voice.

Suddenly, Harold was in his chair, his eyes staring ahead. He felt anxiety beneath him, roaring at his heart. Fear had turned to bitter hate for moment, and he couldn't control his mind as it made him think of burning down the school, watching the cinders of his most hated place fly into the night sky. He felt a smile creep across his lips. He wasn't flailing, he wasn't acting like a possessed demon child, but he looked at Anna, who was smiling while she did her drawing. Her eyes were staring into the infinite. Harold felt his pale hands turn red with rage, as he imagined those Lucifer teachers being swept into a pan after turned to ash, and dumped into a fire to be burned once more, again and again. Then, his vision suddenly collided as lightning struck the ground with the school burning and the castle prison burning, and he saw both at the same time, and Anna must have seen something as well, for both let out an eerie groan of pleasure.

"Can you guys stop, please, you're freaking me out." The teacher said. The students had stopped listening to Dickenson, and stared at the two kids up front. Harold suddenly snapped out of it, and he felt shame at what he had thought, knowing it to be wrong. The teacher had seen their stares, and they were staring at the teacher. Their eyes were low, the smiles of hunters on the prowl who spotted pray on their faces. The teacher felt fear as he looked.

"S-Sorry." Said Anna. Then, class resumed, albeit no longer normally. It was hard to listen to poetry when you were experiencing visons that defied time and space and seemingly ripped your subconscious desires and combined them with your thinking mind to create horror and love.

"I-I-I had a vision." Was all Anna said. "That shadow girl, she had moving skin, and she said "God is with you child" and then I felt my soul almost release. All the emotion in me just combined with my mind, and I felt my hands grow hot with anger. I could see their bodies, the bodies of all the cheaters, scoundrels, and assholes. Teacher or not, I felt a sword crush through them. I saw a vision of a women riding atop a steed, crashing a thousand cavalry into an army which flew a white flag that had a red cross on it." Harold recounted his tale as well, and they both were at least afraid together. It was only one hour into class.

They couldn't stop thinking about what they had saw. Harold would check behind him every couple of minutes, just to make sure he hadn't moved. He didn't, but he still sat where he was. To keep the thing at bay, Harold had hypothesized that if they didn't think, then it wouldn't move. So, they ceased thinking about anything but school, just whatever poem they were on, which was now The Raven.

"Oh my god, I love this poem so much!" Anna said. She let her guard down, just for a moment, her mind slipped into other things. Harold could see this in her eyes. She had a real smile on her face. And a black, creeping hand slithering down her back.

The shadow was right behind them now. It was just sitting there, its shifting face now seemingly having a place where eyes would usually go. No mouth place still, though. His hair wafted like a normal persons. The hand was coming from him, splitting from his torso and trying to find whatever it was looking for. Then, it stopped. And it waited.

"Do you like this poem?" Anna asked. Harold just pointed to the shadow, which looked at Harold. Anna was speechless, and so they concluded not to look at it.

"What in the blazing hell are you too doing?!" Shouted the teacher. "I am quite tired of you two! You may be good at the work and such, but you're awful people! I swear, if school doesn't model you into good citizens, then what will? Maybe you should just go home and stay with your stupid mothers and retarded fathers! Now shut up and listen to the story!"

A little chuckle echoed from the shadow.

A throne is only a bench covered in velvet.

That quote came from the thing behind them, but could Harold care. He couldn't believe what the teacher had said. The recording started. While it was starting up, Harold began to think about the various things he had in school

I have a quiz in math.

Once upon a midnight dreary

I don't wanna do this... I can't do this. He felt his hands growing hot. He scowled. He suddenly thought of the shadow man, but didn't inspect it.

I have a fucking day and a half don't I. Three tests... Three!

"Tis some visitor" I muttered "Tapping at my chamber door- Only this and nothing more"

Im gonna fuckin loose it.

While he mused with anger and war in his head, the shadow had crept a tendril down his back. Anna was suffering from the same problem, and so they both scowled at their desks.

The teacher was sitting there, mumbling a song while the poem played, when he saw the scowls. They gave him chills for some reason, and he couldn't look away. There was so much passion in such blank, forward stares. Like the eyes were emoting some long forgotten language, emoting its anger. The teacher was frozen, looking simply at the torrent of water that was outside. Lightning struck every couple of minutes, and the school had become an echo chamber of rain.

I am not gonna make it, not gonna make it in this class! Harold heard this thought, and it sounded like Anna's voice, twisted though into some combination of demon and women.

Anna?

Harold?

Harold, we should do it. We should show these teachers that we're not kids.

I agree

Really?

The teacher saw the two staring at each other, when he caught the faint frame of a darker type sitting behind Harold. He wiped his eyes, and when it was gone, he thought that he played a trick on himself.

"Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"

Quoth the Raven,

Anna, im gonna fucking loose my mind if he keeps staring at us!

Harold... I'm loosing control

"Nevermore."

The teacher was staring at Anna, when she gripped the desk so hard the wood on it splinterd. Her hands had become grips from another world, and she stood up. The teacher noticed a couple other students looked like her too, and stood up with her.

"I'm so sick and tired of you, thinking you're so high and god damn mighty, huh?!" She screamed, her voice becoming a booming echo that sounded out like a fog horn.

"Wha-What?!" The teacher spit out, but the kids were now looking at him, nodding with the girl who stood defiant in front of him.

"We're just things, for you to toss around?!" She said. Her voice was passion incarnate, the voice that a thousand demons and angels combine to make. The class started murmuring in agreement.

The black creature stood up, his job apparently done, and moved on out the class room.

"I can feel my hands crushing that scrawny neck of yours! I can feel my legs burn with a rage I can no longer contain! I... I... Ahhhh!" She screamed, and threw her desk, while Harold grabbed the teacher by the collar. The kids suddenly started tearing into him. His shrieks and cries were the last echos that filled the school that fateful morn. The shadow moved on to another class, in some other school, repeating and repeating, over and over. His form never stayed the same, changing and shifting to anyone he could find.

He never failed to cause a stir, and always, always the people he got would organize protests and riots. He was seen at many, a simple reminder of him lurking out there. Lurking

Lurking

Lurking.

He could be in your school.

Your yard.

Your mind.

Your house.

He lurks

He lurks.

Be wary, reader. He lurks in corners and dark alleyways. Check your kids and see for yourself. Im sure you'll be surprised.