Introduction
This short story is inspired by one of, if not, THE scariest memories I have. My daughters longest febrile seizure, the longest six minutes of my life.
1.
This bitter winter day
started like any other, wake up, eat and then spend the rest of the day
together. The main difference in today is that there was sadness hanging over
my sweet little girl, no one could figure out why she was under these clouds.
Surprisingly, and maybe in spite of them, she was in good spirits and smiling.
If you looked close enough you could see this sadness was wearing on her as I
held her close, but she was putting up a good fight.
It was cold outside and
my sweet girl had a fever so we were in my room under the covers to stay warm
because she had aches from the looming sadness. I told her how much I loved her
and that I would always be there to protect her and take care of her. I made
sure to do what I could to keep her smiling and warm. I read her some stories
and we looked at the pictures in hopes of not letting this sadness control us
as it had tried so many times before.
As we snuggled and she
kept herself safe in my arms, I could hear the cold wind blowing and its sharp
cold claws try to reach through the window. This is when I noticed the shadow
walk through the door. It looked like a man but there was something wrong, I
could see though him. I sat quiet in hopes he couldn’t see us, my sweet girl
was sleeping. He turned to leave and she moved, with that he turned his head.
The sound that came out was hoarse and almost a whisper. He said “there you are,
I almost thought I came here for nothing.” I tried to ask him what he meant but
it was like he couldn’t hear me. “I am here to take you to the unending
sadness”
This thing slowly
reached for my sweet girl. I screamed at him. As his hand moved closer she
started to shake. The first shake was like a shudder caused by a chill as if he
only had a cold hand. The closer he got to her, her shaking became more violent.
I felt powerless, unable to move. I had been able to ward off all other forms of
attack and sickness on her little body but the time she really needed me I was
frozen. The only thing I could think to do was to hold tight to her as she
shook. There was nothing at all that could make me let go, no fear or darkness
or some stupid fucking shadow. This went on for so long it seemed, locked in a
battle for my sweet girl.
The shadow would scream
as I fought as it was making his task of taking of her difficult. He would pull
and she would shake violently while I held her close. I was determined to stay
calm within myself in this moment though my heart was pounding and there were
tears running down my face, she deserved that much. I still don’t know if he
was aware of me at this point but I was yelling. And then my strength started
to give like there was no effort to me holding on to her, at that moment she
went limp. The monster had her!
I sat holding her limp
body for what seemed like hours weeping, I had lost. As I looked up I noticed
he was still there but no sign of my sweet girl. His face slowly formed a
smile, his teeth were yellow, and his eyes red. He looked happy. What had
happened? Where had she gone? What had I
done? The questions just flooded my mind, my head was pounding. I looked up at
him, looked him straight in the eyes, and it felt like I went into whatever
dimension he was in and I screamed.
YOU
CAN’T FUCKING HAVE HER!!!
With that I was thrown into the wall and I fell
crumpled on the floor.
I was pulled out of my daze by my sweet girl’s voice
asking me to read her another book.
I
swore in that moment if he ever came back I would rip him apart.
NB
