House of Shadows

"Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you were born in a different family?"

A girl laying down on my bed with her head hanging off the edge says while sticking her hand out into the air. She was 16 with long brown hair in a ponytail. She still has on our school uniform which was a green sweater vest, white button shirt underneath, and beige pants.

"I never really thought of it."

I look up at her with a curious look on my face.

"Where did that even come from? We're supposed to be doing homework."

I look back down at my homework full of math problems I haven't even started yet. I was not too fond of math so the thought of actually doing it and getting the questions right was something I couldn't even fathom.

"I hate doing math, it would be so much easier if we just fail the class and never worry about it again."

She sits upright on the bed and looks at her homework laying next to her. She picks up the paper balls it up and throws it into the trash can next to my door

"Kobe!"

I look at her and laugh as the paper misses the trash entirely

"You can't yell Kobe and miss, go grab your paper we're supposed to be helping each other out with this."

She groans as she stands up to get the paper. She walks over passing the desk in my room and stopping in front of it. She looks at a single notebook sitting on top of the desk. She reaches for it and opens it.

"Don't touch that!"

I lunge forward on the bed and fall off. I cause a loud bang shaking everything in my room. She walks backward reading the notebook as she sits back down on my bed. She flips through all the pages before stopping at a drawing I did on one of the pages.

"Jason, what is this?"

I look at her while pulling myself up onto the bed.

"You weren't supposed to see this."

I reach out for the book but she moves it away from me. I wrestle with her in an attempt to grab the book and she keeps me back using her feet.

"Brittany!" I yell her name "I need that book back please!"

She shoves the book in my face stopping before she hits me. She points at the page of the drawing.

"What's this? I didn't even know you can draw and this is pretty good for you."

I grab the book from her hands and close it shut. I look at her and then hold my head down, trying to come up with a way to tell her about this without sounding crazy.

"If I tell you, you wouldn't believe me," I said to her looking down at my sheets.

She reaches over and rubs my leg. She picks my head up and smiles

"You know, for my best friend you don't have much faith in me."

I smile and grab the notebook, thumbing to the page of the drawing. I find the page and stare at it intently.

"Ok, so I do this thing called astral projection. It's me leaving my body and taking an astral form and in that astral form I can travel to different places and even different plains inhabited by different beings."

Brittany looks at me confused and then laughs at me.

"Is that some kind of joke?"

I look at her and laugh along with her

"Yeah, it was just a joke. I just started practicing drawing a little."

Brittany grabs the notebook from my hands, she looks through more of the pages and reads some paragraphs I wrote about my adventures.

"Wait, why are you writing about these "astral projection" experiences."

She looks at me and she stops smiling

"Do you believe that these things happen and you can actually "spiritually" leave your body?

I look down at my mattress and turn away from her so my legs are off the bed.

"Look, if you don't want to believe these things that's fine, but I believe these things and I believe I can leave my body and go to different plains of the universe."

She looks at me and closes the book. She places the notebook on the bed and gets up. She walks over to me and squats down so we are at eye level.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make fun of you. Tell me about this drawing and everything you experience in this astral projection stuff."

"She grabs the chair that was by my desk and sits in front of me. She looks at me with eyebrows raised waiting for me to tell her.

"Fine, but you have to promise you won't make fun of me."

I stick out my pinky, waiting for her to do the same. She reaches out her pinky

"I promise."

She looks at me and I look back at her.

"So basically, I can leave my body at will but I mostly do it at night. I can go into different plains as I said that are inhabited by different beings and entities. I once went to a plain that was dark but look like the inside of a house. I explored it a bit and I got this creepy, eerily vibe."

Brittany touched my face as she saw it get pale as I sat there telling her everything about that experience. She can see that I was bothered.

"You don't have to tell this if you don't want to."

I look at her and nod to tell her it's fine

"I can finish, it's just this experience stuck with me."

She nods at me and tells me to continue

"After I got that feeling, I started looking around me. I didn't see anything so I continued walking but I was more cautious. After a while, the feeling intensified and I stopped walking and look everywhere for the source of the feeling. I looked up and there it was, the figure in that drawing. I couldn't see anything except the face, no eyes just a mouth but you can feel as though it is staring right through you.

I stop talking to gather my thoughts, I look towards the notebook on the bed and back at Brittany. She can see the uneasiness in my eyes and face.

"After about 10 seconds of me and that thing looking at each other, its mouth opened and let out a terrible scream as it lunged at me. I ran away as fast as I could and when I looked behind me and I can see its mouth opening wider, its teeth looked like shark teeth. But the most rememberable was when its eyes finally opened. It was just white with a black hole filling the inside with red tint, but the dread and despair you felt were what made it scarier. After that, I called for my body and I ended up back in it."

Brittany looked at me with her eyes wide open. She grabbed my hands in between hers. I couldn't make eye contact with her but she forced her face in front of me.

"It can't get you here."

I looked at her and smiled

"I know"

She hugged me as she gets a call on her phone. She looks at it and shakes her head

"Shit, it's my mom. I didn't know it was so late" She rushes and grabs her things " I have to run but we will talk later about this, see you at school tomorrow!"

She runs out of the room leaving me alone with my thoughts. I quickly brush it off as I turn my tv on and start my Z-box. I put on Flix movies and get changed into pajamas for bed. I lay down and I take a few deep breaths. I close my eyes and I start to drift into sleep. I feel my body shut down as my mind wanders. After a few minutes, I can finally see my body laying down on the bed.

"I'm gonna explore the astral a bit to clear my mind."

I start to walk different plains, meeting different entities. Some of them are nice but some of them you know to keep your distance. Some places you know its safe to go but some are taboo to even think about let alone go to.

I eventually make it to a grassy area with nothing or no one in sight. No trees, no homes, no people, just tall grass. I start to walk some and see a hill in the distance. I make my way over to it and climb to the top. I stand there looking for anything around but I see nothing so I decide to leave to somewhere else. As I turn to walk away I see that figure, standing there in the distance, staring at me. I can't move fast enough as it stares. The feeling of dread rushes over me as I call out for my body to leave.

I come to my senses back in the physical world and I open my eyes. I sit up quickly breathing heavily and grabbing my head. I look up and over in the corner of my room as I see the creature standing in the corner.

"You're not real, you're not real! I yell at it. "Leave me alone!" I shut my eyes tight

I hear running in the hallway as my mom and dad burst through the door.

"Are you okay!" they both exclaimed.

I look over to the corner of the room and the figure is gone. I lift my head and look at my parents

"I'm sorry, it was just a bad dream."

My mom walks over to me and kisses my head

"It's okay, get some rest and we will see you in the morning."

They both wish me goodnight as they leave the room. After they close the door there is the figure, standing there staring at me smiling.