Protected

A shadow being visits Blythe at night with a message, but is it evil or something else?

The shadows swirled around room, swooping in close and moving away. Blythe clutched the blankets to her nose, her eyes wide with horror.

The dark shapes merged into one. Weight settled on the foot of her bed and she yanked her feet up to her chest.

“Go away!”

A low, raspy voice said, “I have a message for you.”

“Well, I don’t want it.” She tried to yank her blankets out from underneath its shadow rump to reiterate her point.

It chuckled. “This isn’t optional.”

Blythe reached under her sheet and rubbed the metal symbol hanging around her neck. It meant protection. Sometimes, the necklace chased off the shadow being. Not tonight though.

“Stay home tomorrow.”

“What? Why?” she asked.

It didn’t respond but disintegrated into normal darkness and the weight lifted from her bed. She shivered. The creature had never spoken to her before. She hoped it didn’t again.

The following morning, she feigned a headache with her parents because she hadn’t slept well. It wasn’t exactly a lie, she’d hung onto her necklace all night long, afraid it would visit again.

Her sister rejoiced. She hated the drive so early in the morning. On her way to school, she called their parents.

As soon as her mom hung up, she opened her door. “Blythe, you awake?”

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Roxie’s on her way home. There was some kind of accident, but the gas stations are on fire. I think we lucked out. According to the online articles, it happened when you would have been going to school. You could have been caught in the explosion.” Her mom hugged her. “Thank goodness for your headache.”

Blythe touched the protection symbol around her neck and wondered about the shadow. Maybe she’d been wrong about its intentions the whole time.