House of Shadows

As a kid I didn't understand that I was kept in the attic because my mother was ashamed of me... of my affliction. I love the attic. It's the only place where they willingly show themselves to me and drawing them out always hurts me. Mother says when I call for them I risk becoming one myself, but becoming one of them doesn't sound so bad.

 I've called for them 3 times in my life, the first time was an accident, It was the day after my fathers funeral and my mother had made me stay in the attic the entire time, she told the guest I was visiting family in America. I was never allowed on the porch, rather out of the country.  I stayed in the attic listening to my mother utter excuses to why her daughter wasn't at her fathers funeral, listening to people comfort her endlessly while I grieved in the attic, alone. She was afraid I'd lose control of my emotions and summon them to me, to wipe all the light out of my body and turn me into one of them.

 Ironically I lost it because I wasn't at the funeral. I ran out on her that night ignoring her pleas for me to return to the house… to the attic so she could once more deny me being there. I ran through the tall grass, the warm wind whipping all around me till I reached his gravestone, I dropped to my knees pleading with God to take me too, to wipe all the life from my body. God wasn't the one who responded, within a few minutes of my pleas I was surrounded by them, six maybe eight reached into my body and pulled out light. They ripped it from my body and swallowed it. It felt like all my organs were lit on fire while in me and then ripped from my body. They didn't understand why I was screaming or asking for them to stop because they were doing as I asked but they stopped the ripping and pulling and swallowing and just watched me. I returned back to the house with tears running down my face and my dark hair sticking to my sweaty forehead, I avoided my mothers gaze. She had heard me screaming for help, there were no noisy neighbors in the country, no distractions; it was just me, her and my shadowy associates. 

The second time I called for them was on purpose, on my mother's almost wedding day. Two years after my father´s death my mother married the man that read father's will, he was my father´s lawyer and best friend. She kept the engagement a secret as best she could till i caught her with the wedding dress. She had set her dress on her bed and I had to give her my list of needs for the month, I entered her room and froze at the sight of the dress. I accused her of getting rid of the dress she married my father in, what I found out was worse. I lost it and called after them. They entered the room and stared at me till I told them what I wanted. My mother watched as they sucked the white fabric dry of all its light, the dress became the darkest of black unimaginable. Little did I know Phillip (Dad´s lawyer) saw the whole thing from the doorway, I liked Phillip before I found out that he was betraying my father by dating the love of his life. He disappeared after the incident, mother thinks it was out of fear, I think it was because I threatened him to leave the country and never speak to us again. 

If my mother didn't hate me before then I know she hated me after it, I didn't know that losing five to eight handfuls of light would affect my character so much but it did. I became angry at the world, at my mother, at my dead father and even at my shadows for listening to my pleas the night of my father´s funeral. 

The third time I summoned them was my last, my mother died five years before then. She admitted she hated me on deathbed and that she should have left me in the attic to starve to death, this wasn't a surprise to me, I thought about summoning them at that moment to let them rip the little bit of light she had left in her and turn her into them, into something that only listened to me. I decided to not give her that eternal life, I had prayed that she´d change as a little girl every night but death was just as good.

I got married to the man of my dreams, it was the happiest I had ever been in life until I found him and the maid together. I had hid my affliction from him since day one but when I found out that he had gotten her pregnant, I lost it. Did you know that in the beginning of pregnancy the baby is just pure light? My husband and the maid went missing but before they went missing, I had the shadow take the unborn babies light and place it in me, nine months later I had a beautiful baby girl.

 My baby girl and I lived in the house of shadows together for sixteen years. It took sixteen years for me to learn that she had developed my affliction. I found her trying to run away with a boy from her school and when I tried to stop her from leaving she pleaded for me to just go away.  Soon the shadows that only listened to me had listened to her, my light was ripped out in handfuls by the shadows I had watched, watching me as a kid. My daughter just stood there crying not understanding what she had done.

Being a shadow is just as bad as my mother thought.