Shadow Eyes

by Dusty Crabtree

  I pushed through the door I had forgotten to lock earlier and slammed it shut without looking back. Once I reached the living room, I finally spun around and screamed as the enormous, writhing black cloud, only two feet away, charged me, smothering my face and thrusting me backward until I crashed onto the living room floor.

  Frantically, I tried to fight it. I put what little energy and strength I had left into kicking and thrashing around with my hands constantly pulling and tearing the shadow away from me. But no matter what I did or how hard I fought to get it off, it kept oozing back into place like thick slime. It felt icy cold, and when it rubbed over me it made my skin burn, even through my clothes, with a sharp stinging sensation as if it were made of tiny needles.

  It grasped at my legs, my arms, my throat, my face, and everything in between. Several times I even attempted to shout out, as though my screaming would actually scare it or be loud enough to be heard by the neighbors. But I couldn’t get anything out because it would clutch my throat or smother my mouth every time I tried to open it. I was beginning to lose hope that I would ever get out from underneath its violent oppression.

  As I continued my losing battle, my terror and fear slowly began to mutate into the other emotions I had been too busy to realize were still lurking within. I was frustrated because of the hopeless mess my whole family was in, including myself. I was enraged because this shadow and the thousand others like it were to blame. But I was mostly ashamed for all the recent mistakes and bad decisions I’d made. Especially for the monumental mistake I made long ago that had ruined everyone’s lives.

  All of these problems somehow seemed magnified as I wrestled with the black monstrosity that encompassed me. I wanted to give up. My life hardly seemed worth fighting for anymore. My arms and every other part of my body were getting weary, and the less I pulled at the shadow, the more it constricted me, making me gasp for air. I was suffocating in my failure. Drowning in my despair.

  I had all but given up hope and was about to yield to the shadow’s will when a blinding, brilliant burst of light flashed into the living room, filling the space completely. The light immediately receded to focus inside a large glowing form that propelled toward me. I would have been frightened, except my mind was already so overwhelmed with fear and other emotions that I could hardly feel anything anymore. However, the bright figure of light didn’t even touch me. Instead, it swooped just overhead in a swift dive that sent a rush of warm air between me and the cold, dark blanket. As the illumination brushed by me, it grabbed and yanked the shadow right off of me as if the heavy mass were as light and thin as a sheet.

  I jerked my head up and gasped for air, like a swimmer breaking through the surface of the water. I could finally breathe freely. I sat upright on the living room floor and quickly whirled around to witness the fiercest fight I had ever seen. My reverence could’ve been because I was drawn to this particular light figure for reasons I couldn’t explain or because this shadow had ambushed and assaulted me for what had seemed an eternity. But the way he grappled with the shadow with such dexterity and finesse and eventually seized it made my jaw drop in awe.

  I wasn’t only in wonder at the skill the light figure displayed in wrapping itself around the squirming black shadow in some sort of choke hold, though. I was also in stunned disbelief that such a powerful glowing figure had actually come to save me. Was I really deserving? My reverent amazement grew while it held the shadow firmly in its grasp and squeezed. The black mist hissed until it slowly shrank and dissipated into nothing, leaving only the light.

  My anxiety and adrenaline drained with it. Just enough remained to prepare me for what was about to come. The bright, wavering light drifted downward to the floor, and I began to see a shape form from within…a man’s silhouette. First his arms and legs became defined, then his torso and shoulders and head. His shoulders appeared to be slumped and his face turned downward, as though he were tired and worn from centuries of battle and matters of great severity. The moment he emerged from the light, I understood two things instantly. One—this man was the glowing man from my dreams and the one I had seen conversing with Kyra and Patrick. Two—he was an angel.

  The light inside the lines of his silhouette began to grow dim until only flesh and clothing were now visible. He was wearing typical human clothes—black shoes, dark jeans, and a white T-shirt. But I couldn’t see his face. The bright glowing aura from which he materialized never left him, and as he inhaled deeply, slowly lifting his head, his face became clear for the first time.

  I gasped. “Mr. Delaney?” There was no mistaking it. This glowing form…the mysterious man from my dreams…was my teacher!

  He didn’t answer me. His gaze was directed just behind me. “Let her go, Lucas.” He spoke the words calmly, yet with authority as he glared just slightly over my left shoulder.

  After what I had just been through, I cringed at the thought that another shadow might be after me so soon. I jumped up and whipped my head around swiftly, anxious at what I might find, and saw a few shadows hovering in the background. I assumed one of them was the Lucas he was talking to and was afraid of what Lucas was capable. Guessing from Mr. Delaney’s tone, I didn’t want to find out.

  My teacher’s true angelic identity obviously came as a shock, and the thought of him as my protector or rescuer was more than a little strange. But at the moment, all of that was overshadowed by my exhaustion and intense fear from the thought of another potential shadowy fight. I couldn’t handle much more of the shadows’ attacks on my own.

  In a move of pure desperation, I turned back to him and ran, falling down at his feet as something heavy suddenly came over me. I started sobbing uncontrollably, no longer able to hold on to my brave mask. The mask I wore to hide my fear, my shame, my guilt, and my hopelessness. If anyone was able to help me, Mr. Delaney, this blazing warrior, could. Even in my dreams as the anonymous glowing man, I knew he could help me. I’d always wanted to call out to him, but never could.

  I started to form the words I desperately needed to say, but already the feeling of helplessness weighed down on me again, trying to keep me from speaking as it did in my dream. Somehow I managed to choke out, intermittently, through suffocating sobs, “Please…Mr. Delaney…help…me!”

  He knelt down and took hold of my hands that I’d planted on the ground in front of me, now wet from my torrent of tears. I was weak from fighting both physically and emotionally, so as he lifted my hands in his, I crumbled and fell to the side. He caught me at the elbows and supported my wilting frame easily with his soft touch.

  “You can call me Gregory, Iris.” He smiled and continued in a tender but somber whisper. “I want to help you. But there’s something you have to do first…and only you can do it.”

  I knew what he meant, and shame flooded through my weakened body, making me shiver. “I know,” I cried bitterly. “My family needs me. My friends need me. Everything is falling apart around them and it’s my fault. I know they need my help. I’m the one that can see the shadows, so I should be able to help them. But nothing I do works! I’m just a failure that can’t even handle my own screwed-up life. How can I help them? Please, tell me!”

  I started to sound panicky, and without thinking I grabbed his arms that were holding mine and felt myself pleading with him. “I can’t lose them. Please! Tell me what to do!”

  Desperately, I searched his pure eyes for an answer. They were so calm and peaceful, it made me feel even more like a hopeless failure, for mine would undoubtedly be in sharp contrast. I sank back down and hung my head pathetically.

  “Dear child,” he said gently, “you are in no condition to help your friends and family. Not yet. Don’t feel burdened and responsible for their choices or for things none of you can prevent. It’s not your fault.”

  I looked up into his confident eyes, trying to believe what he was telling me, but not completely convinced.

  Then, something he said registered and sparked a question in my mind. Co
nfused and not quite sure I wanted to hear his answer, I asked, “Wait. What did you mean about my ‘condition’?”

  “I can’t tell you what I mean. I can only show you. Are you sure you’re ready to have your eyes opened to the truth?”

  His question required only a brief moment of contemplation. What could be worse than what my eyes already saw now? I trembled to think of what worse things lurked around my world that my eyes had shielded me from up to this point. Still, I trusted this man—Gregory—with his graceful, illuminating aura, constantly flowing about him. It was strange and unexplainable, but somehow, my heart knew I could trust him. If letting him open my eyes as he wished meant a potential solution to my family’s problems, there was only one thing to do.

  I allowed him to help me up off the ground and glanced one last time behind me. The shadows floating in the background were still there but appeared anxious and unhappy. Gregory led me to the large mirror in the foyer, radiating an excess of warmth and comfort. It must have been for my benefit, preparing and strengthening me for what I was about to see.

  For the last three years, mirrors had always been a comfort to me, because they were the one thing that gave my eyes some solace from the frightening visions they were used to. But now, standing here facing the mirror, I was filled with foreboding, grieved at the thought that this last piece of my sanity would soon be invaded and shattered.

  He gave me one last reassuring glance, though I must confess I was far too anxious and terrified for it to have any effect. He released my hand, took one step away from me, and declared in a loud voice, “Open her eyes.”

  Gradually, everything in the mirror seemed to distort and turn dark. I was suddenly in the middle of a storm cloud with angry black wind swirling around me, blocking my vision. I tried to squint and peer through the murky fog, and I finally saw a shape that looked familiar reflecting back at me. An arm. Then I started to see my face. But, strangely, the arm I had seen in the mirror didn’t seem to be attached to my body where it should have been. In fact, it didn’t look like my arm at all. It was floating from the side of my stomach up over my chest and shoulder, fastened tight like a seat belt.

  I gasped as the shocking realization poured over me like ice cold water and froze me to the ground. Amidst the turbulent, black cloud that could only have been Lucas, I saw and felt for the first time his dark, firm, powerful grip around my body, clutching and grasping my entire being from my skin to my soul. Once I glimpsed his fearless, piercing glare and presumptuous smirk, I realized he’d been there for years.

  Chapter 26

  QUICKLY COMPREHENDING THAT GREGORY had opened my eyes, Lucas squeezed around me fiercely into an even tighter grasp like a growling but apprehensive, territorial animal afraid of losing its home. A surge of horror, disgust, and panic rushed over and through me at once. His constriction was suffocated me.

  I began to choke, gasping and screaming with every breath in between. I was dying. I must have been. But like always I was helpless to do anything about it.

  “Iris. Iris, hang in there.” Gregory’s confident, reassuring voice penetrated through the storm, but it sounded distant. “You can beat this Iris. But you have to go back with me.”

  “Anywhere!” I shouted hysterically, flailing my arms about me as if I were being attacked by a swarm of angry bees. “Anywhere! Take me! Just help me!”

  “In order to get rid of Lucas for good…as difficult as it’s going to be…you have to go back with me to your past and revisit your fourteenth birthday.”

  I froze in a brief moment of indecision. I had to do whatever it took to rid myself of this oppressive shadow that surrounded me, but confronting my most painful memory, which I had tried so desperately to forget, was the last thing I wanted to do. Nevertheless, it took just one more glance in the mirror to convince me going back was the better option. Seeing the black evilness that had secretly enslaved me for three years made me shudder with the disturbing thought it had been attached to me that whole time, invading every memory that was ever precious to me. There was no way to retreat now. Things could never be the same now that I could truly see.

  “Okay. Let’s do it.” I had meant for that declaration to sound determined and brave, but all I could muster was a reluctant and frightened squeak.

  It was good enough for Gregory. He bolted over to me in a blur of light and reached through the black storm cloud, grabbing my arm forcefully and standing his ground beside me as spurts of blackness assaulted him like deadly flares. The mirror in front of us began to warp and ripple as though it were made of water. Then the frame expanded and the walls around it started to ripple along with the mirror until the whole house seemed activated and alive.

  The mirror had grown to fit the entire wall while all the rest of the walls in the entire room somehow morphed into a circle, detached from the floor, and rotated to the left, creating my own demented, little carousel with me stuck in the middle. Only the giant and now empty mirror frame on which my gaze was fixed and the floor on which I was standing remained stationary. The carousel started out slowly but then rapidly accelerated until it was swirling around me and through the frame so fast my hair flew back with the initial blast of wind from its motion.

  The whirling orbit of walls then drew closer into a tighter, smaller circle. It flickered until it transformed into one continuous, live movie reel that constantly shifted scenes as it spun around. The frames of this living story board brightened as they swiftly passed through the large mirror, which now resembled a movie screen. Only, the film appeared to be running backward. It didn’t take long for me to figure out the subject of the movie: my life.

  As the familiar scenes from my recent past and then further back whirred around me, a few select frames were caught and illuminated by the giant movie screen. They played for a few seconds before flickering away and whizzing around behind me again. Watching these glimpses from my past, I was forced to see my memories in a new light with them altered to include the leech that had secretly been present in each of them, hanging all over me in ways that were more than unpleasant to witness.

  The ride home in Kyra’s car after the disgraceful night with Patrick—he was there weighing me down with shame and guilt. The Halloween party at Josh’s house—he was there pushing me into the downward spiral of lust when Josh and I were alone afterward. My seventeenth birthday party with my friends—he was there, no doubt the cause of my anxiety as we watched Ghost.

  It was like finding out your whole life had been a lie. That you’d been adopted. Or that your parents were really spies. Or that the life you thought was real had in fact just been a reality TV show that everyone was in on but you. I felt violated and stupid, and I was angry at this repulsive Lucas for making me feel that way.

  Finally, the crazy spinning roulette wheel that I knew was going to land on something I didn’t want to see slowed to a stop. A frame that was too dark and obscure to make out, even with the added illumination, landed in the giant screen. Before I could register what was happening, the circle swiftly closed in and consumed us. I was now in my memory, and the Lucas who was surrounding me moments earlier was nowhere to be found.

  We found ourselves in a dark hospital room with a young, fourteen-year-old Iris lying on the hospital bed with her eyes closed. My mom and Hanna were also in the room, sleeping. One reclined on a chair. The other lay on the couch. Both had mournful, hazy shadows hanging over them.

  Muffled crying drifted from the hospital bed, and as my eyes began to adjust to the dark, I spotted my younger self with bitter tears streaming down her cheeks. However, the look of extreme sadness and hopelessness in her young face was nothing compared to the torturous sight of her willingly wrapping herself in a thick, heavy blanket of black fog. She was clutching it as though it were a child’s security blanket, not realizing it was in fact Lucas, who I could now easily recognize.

  I sighed as the memory of that night, or early morning, in the hospital washed over me. I had pretended to fa
ll asleep so they would leave me alone and go to sleep themselves. I had wanted time to myself, to come to grips with my new reality of seeing shadows and to wallow in my melancholy and gloom. It was the most depressing and lonely night I had ever experienced…apart from several hours prior…

  I could sense the hospital scene shifting. We were pushed out of the memory, once more left to stare at the gigantic movie screen that had previously been a mirror, just as it was about to spin backward again. Before it completely warped and jetted past us, though, I had just enough time to notice a glimmer of light near the ceiling in the corner of the hospital room. It was hanging back as if it knew it wasn’t wanted but wasn’t about to leave.

  I glanced up at Gregory for an explanation but was knocked back by another gust of wind as the movie reel flew by us, briefly this time, and halted again.

  In this second memory, we were still in the hospital room and it was dark outside, but the artificial ceiling lights illuminated the entire room, revealing more people than previously: Hanna, Mom, my dad, Jenny, and Austin. The light figure also hovered alone in the corner, unseen by my younger self. At the moment, young Iris was awake, but none of them were aware of it. They were talking quietly amongst themselves, a few whimpering but all with puffy, red eyes. Iris’s eyes were as wide as saucers and her lips were pressed tightly together in silent horror. She was lying in her bed, still wrapped up in Lucas, glancing back and forth between her family members and the grim shadows above, beside, and surrounding each one.

  I remembered that moment. I had just woken up for the first time since passing out earlier. It was my first experience seeing any type of shadow, much less seeing them over my distraught family that was in pain because of my stupidity and selfishness. It was a horrible moment of paralyzing alarm and overwhelming guilt, not to mention panic since my sanity was now in question.