October 31 - Afraid Of The Dark
Joshua lies there, fast asleep, body buried within the interweaving fabrics of his blankets. The sleep is deep, profound, nary a dream crossing his mind as his body rests. But in his room, something has been waiting for just this moment. A point in the corner is shrouded in a deeper shadow than the rest of the pitch-black room; a darkness that eats the scattered light around it. The shadow bulges and pulses in a gentle parody of life, its threshold soft and malleable.
The figure lying incapacitated in the bed does not notice. Joshua has never been one to be scared of the dark, really. He knows that, were there something resting there just beyond the sensitivity of his eyes, he could simply shine a flashlight on it and reveal whatever lay there.
Were he to shine a light on this trembling darkness, he would not be so lucky.
As he snores, the darkness slowly moves, a motion somewhere between a crawl and a slither. It clambers, pseudopodous extrusions pushing and silently scraping across the ground. Behind it, a coating of darkness persists.
It reaches the foot of Joshua’s bed, its bulging film of darkness pressing and pulling against the frame, before slowly locomoting upwards. Small drips of twilight condensate and fall from it, scattering across the floor. Along his prone body the sheer black shadow clambers, dying his skin a dark bluish-black wherever it touches.
Joshua gently awakes, the shadow covering all the sight in front of his eyes. But he thinks nothing of it, mature kid that he is, never one to be afraid of the dark; and he falls back asleep as its pulsing tendrils fully encircle his head.