the shadow men

The sky is bright, it has to be. Whenever the ball of flame falls under the mountains an arsenal of bright lamps switch on, if they don’t…

The shadow people have been tormenting us long before I was born but not infinitely, nothing goes infinitely. The reason behind our infinite day is that since we refused shelter to a witch when she was being burnt by the sun on she cursed us by ensuring we have to keep the light on and would suffer the pain of the sun, always. Wherever the smallest patch of darkness touches the shadow people will gather, we’ve had to demolish all of our buildings and crawl on the ground to ensure the lack of shadows and death, the last attack was just a month ago, a child, most likely 7 in age scoffed at our warnings of the shadow men and ran into the forest chasing a fox, his mother was horrified and ran in after him despite her husband’s protests, he was overjoyed when the mother and child were seen again but he committed suicide when he realized they were only wisps of smoke flitting at the edge of the forest, unable to get in.

We teach our children the stories and warn them the rules, unfortunately when an attack hasn’t happened in sometime the children will always disregard the warnings as myths, and a few of those fearless children will wander off and ultimately be lost… or not, through countless losses we have realized that all the children and people who are lost are often seen wandering the edge of the forest, and the families that have lost always speak of how they are still alive and can be saved, that is until a sister of a recently fallen attempted to communicate with him, unfortunately she was brutally dismembered. Since then all speculations and theories have been kept silent and secret.

And now to the present. A man has just entered the town, a man that could very much jeopardize the lives of us all. He wandered in one day, we don’t know which day of the week, we don’t have the sun setting to indicate the end of a day, its just always day, never night, it can’t be night. He came in and we decided to accept him since he seemed like a man with nowhere to go and surely without a light he would surely die, however on the first night he was here he poisoned our children’s minds, talking of huge metal towers that reached the clouds and of a land where no shadow men appear and the people fear nothing.

It has been a month since the arrival of that man, even the adults have started to become fearless and clamor him for stories, I wish we could kick him out but the village thinks it’s not our right to push a man to his death, even if his thoughts and teachings are harmful to the community, however the rate of the disappearances of our children has reached the sky however the man still has power over the peoples minds by hypnotizing them and saying the children just went to his world and chose to stay, but I know otherwise and I will act on it.

I have devised a plan, I will get rid of this stranger so the safety of my village will not be compromised, I will place a blanket over him when he sleeps so that the shadow men can get him and he can see how wrong he truly is, there however is one problem, there is never not at least one person awake and the ground is flat to avoid shadows so killing him would be a challenge, acquiring said blanket would also be a challenge as the town has banned anything that might cause a large enough shadow to tempt the shadow men, so I began.

I started to weave and dye, roll and spin, the only sheep we had in the town have long been killed so I had to create a piece of cloth using a loom, in which would take weeks, I would work long through day without break, whenever people saw me I would tell them it was a gift to the traveler, and it was, in a sense. When I was done I almost didn’t want to sacrifice it for the disposal of the traveler but I knew I had to, you see, through the time I weaved it I had to make it look beautiful in order to fully deceive the villagers, it was a beautiful thing with lakes I’ve never seen and mountains casting long dark shadows over the land, it was fitting… in an ominous way as the traveler and his vivid stories was the only reason I know of these unseen sights.

I decided to take a rest before carrying out my plan and so I laid down to take a nap, by the time I woke up most but not all of the people were sleeping, how lucky, I attempted to lift the blanket but the weight surprised me, it felt as if someone had attached lead weights to it! Perhaps it was guilt of having to kill a human life, nonetheless, I dragged it over to where the traveler was sleeping and 1…2…3! I threw the blanket with all my might onto the traveler and waited and waited, nothing. i had expected tearing of flesh and screams of agony, what was going on?! The traveler was beginning to stir and I panicked, in a hurry I pulled the blanket over myself and attempted to hide, my mind racing as I waited, I heard the shuffling of feet and squeezed my eyes shut, when I heard the traveler’s footsteps become fainter and fainter I tentatively opened my eyes and screamed in shock of what I saw.

A hollow mass as dark as the night I’ve never seen enveloped my entire being, but I immediately overcame my shock when I felt the searing pain on my leg, I tried to pull the blanket off me but it stuck as if it was plastered to my skin, in pain I screamed and screamed but nobody came. Turns out I did see flesh being torn apart and hear screams of agony that night…just not from who I expected.