Shadow children come out during the daytime. They hide from the night. They leave you to dream about them. About burning around and seeing them lurking.
They giggle. They slay games like hide and shriek.
They move things around so you can’t find them and then put them in the oddest places. They whisper from bushes and pluck from branches.
But worst of all they stare.
The shadow children are like fractured mirror children. Cracked and shattered, they are hideous daggers sparkling in the sunlight. Like real children in many ways but different in so many more.
Ghastly different. With eyes that slice and sting.
To look back into those eyes is fear agony; jagged terror paralyzes the blood, squashes the heart.
It tingles as it screams and blinds.
You’ll find pieces of yourself missing. Parts of you gone; bits of your life taken. They steal you in shivers, scaring your mind out by the roots.
They’re all around you.
Under dragonfly stings. Under every blade of glass. Every drop of pain.
Every moonlit snowflake.
Don’t look for shadow children. Don’t let them know you see them.