[Child of God]: 416.Short Stories.Shadows of the Past

God had never been a very familiar notion to me. He was more of an idea than an entity, and if he did exist, it most certainly wasn’t in a way we could know for sure. But still, even though god was a notion and not an entity, the notion still brought me comfort at times. Like the nights when the wind beat against the windows and sent howls through the cracks in my house walls. When the night was light up and sounded like the sky was falling to the earth. Under the comfort of my blankets I would sometimes squeeze my young, fear-filled green eyes and ask god to make it stop.

Or the nights when the shadows stood at the side of my bed….the shadows only I could see. Sometimes they were in the shape of a man or woman, sometimes they looked like an animal. But no matter the shape, they always spoke to me, telling me horrible things I didn’t want to know. Sometimes, they’d hurt me. I’d wake up in the morning with bruises I didn’t go to bed with. Big, blue and purple bruises that littered my young body; my face, back, legs, chest. Mom and dad wouldn’t believe me on how I got the bruises. They couldn’t see the shadows. Mother would look at me and say, “Chelsey, you know it’s bad to lie. And it’s bad to hurt yourself.” Father would take me aside and put me on his knee, looking down at me with the same green eyes I had. “Chelsey, what’s wrong sweety? Why won’t you tell daddy why you aren’t happy?”

I learned very young how to wear makeup. It was the only way to cover the bruises. They didn’t believe me when I would tell them about how I got the bruises, about the shadows that visited me every night since I could remember. No matter how many times I asked “god” to make them go away, they were always back. Those nights, after I had pleaded with god, a male shadow would come. He was the only one who’s eyes glowed red and clothes smelled of rotten eggs. Whenever he spoke, his breath seemed to be like steam and it would burn me, making my skin turn red and blister.

This is why mom and dad think I’m allergic to the sun. Because they can’t see the shadow that burns me. But this shadow would only come when I tried to whimper to “god,” so very early on, I learned not to utter that word after dark.

There was one person who believed me. Charlie could see the shadows too, but the shadows seemed to be afraid of him. Whenever the shadows were around, he would talk about god a lot, and the shadows would go away. He would sleep over a lot, because he knew I was afraid of the shadows, even though at school we didn’t talk much. He wasn’t mean to me at school either, and even helped me when some of the other kids picked on me. And when he’d sleep over, it took a few days for the shadows to come back.

Things were like this for a long time, but we became better friends. He would hang out with me at school more, and spent most of his time over at my house. I didn’t see his mom and dad much though. My mom and dad didn’t like his, and would only let him come over because they saw that the bruises would go away the more he was over.
Charlie was the brother I never had. God existed because of Charlie, and died with Charlie. I could see god in the casket with Charlie, laying beside the red-haired boy with the same deathly pale skin. I watched them both as they were lowered into the ground. I was the last to leave, waiting for as long as I could to see if they would both rise from the grave.

But neither did. God and Charlie both stayed in that grave, dead.

Almost immediately the shadows came back, and this time, they were worse than before. The male shadow from when I was younger would visit me almost every night, hurting me worse than he ever had before.

There was no one to protect me now. Charlie was dead. God was dead. I was alone to fight the shadows by myself.