Sometimes I’m afraid of the dark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know my mother is asleep in the other room, but shadows lurk in the corners of my own. They have long fingers that stretch towards me. I feel the ghost of them on my cheeks and chills rack my spine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other times they look like snakes, writhing and wiggling towards me, their forked tongues tasting my fear. Raven black scales reflect the moonlight streaming in through the window. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I clutch my blanket in my fists. I’d close my eyes, but that makes the terror worse. Whatever my brain invents is far worse than the reality of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shadows in the corner of my room are simply that. Shadows. Right? Just tree branches, dancing with the wind outside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sound of the radiator hissing echoes through the empty house. My hands tremble. My breath is shallow. Light reflects off a pool of liquid black undulating in the corner by my bookcase. I hear the heavy body drag across the floorboards.

How much longer until the sun peeks through my curtains once again?
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Sometimes I’m afraid of the dark. I know my mother is asleep in the other room, but shadows lurk in the corners of my own. They have long fingers that stretch towards me. I feel the ghost of them on my cheeks and chills rack my spine. Other times they look like snakes, writhing and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[42,8,144,55,69],"class_list":["post-1026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-originalworks","tag-creepy","tag-fiction","tag-flashfiction","tag-mentalhealth","tag-originalwork"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/magnoliareads.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/pexels-photo-10294562.jpeg?fit=1880%2C1254&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1026"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1029,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions\/1029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magnoliareads.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}