Her mother’s illness came as if it were a relative making a surprise visit for the holidays. Expensive, annoying, unwanted and sudden. An omen of catastrophe in the dead of the night. 

 

The young girl understood enough about illnesses to know that her mother needed medication. 

 

In the basement of a house staying upright out of pure spite alone, the girl watched outside on the stool she had climbed up on. 

 

The shadows had soaked into the farthest corners of the street, setting their dreary cloaks over the familiar shops and stores. 

 

Her mother's cough brought the girl back to herself. Medicine was needed, now. 

 

If only the night pharmacy weren’t on the other side of the neighbourhood. The sounds of the nightlife, still going on on that side of the neighbourhood were making their way to the girl's craftless home. 

 

The young girl turned to her mother, watching her faint figure as it lay on the bed. Her cheeks were blood red with fever, the lively smile that accompanied her everywhere gone, dead. She was practically already a corpse, only breathing, though she hardly did that, too. 

 

The girl sighed, reaching for her second-hand coat on the coat rack. Another poorly concealed cough by her mother, and she hesitated. She grabbed the cheap coat, gently laying it over her mother's sick bed. There was no need for her to shiver under the blanket, if it could even be called that, as it was as thin as a wafer. 

 

She dug her nails into her hands and ran out the door. Keys in hand, back straight, trying to look sure of herself, she began walking in the middle of the road. 

 

She jumped at the sudden sound, as she felt her heart jump out of her chest. She bit her tongue in an attempt to silence the scream attempting to break out. There was no need to wake the whole neighbourhood. 

 

She turned her head and was greeted by the cat, kitten in her mouth, who had jumped from her neighbour's roof onto the metal trash can. No problem, unlike some other things lurking in the shadows of these streets, no harm would come from a cat and her kitten. 

 

If she weren’t in such a hurry, she’d get to the main street and walk from there. But medicine was needed fast, and the back alleys provided a quicker route. 

 

She turned, the alley lay in front of her. Shadows swirled around every corner, monsters waiting to be slain. But she was no hero or an adventurer. She was a girl, and she was terrified. Shaking, she took a deep breath. She had been afraid of the dark ever since she was little, not that she was so big now. As she grew, she had learned that her fear was justified. Only it wasn’t the unseen fantasy creatures that she needed to fear, lurking beneath the shadows, no the true threat was much more real, made of flesh and bone. And especially those one needed to fear, they loved the shadows. 

 

The sound of breaking glass echoed behind her, biting down yet another scream, she turned in a hurry. She came eye to eye with her neighbour, the old lady. She spent every day and every night staring out her window onto the street, her cup of tea in her hand, waiting with a childlike hope that her son would return from war. But the girl knew he had been long ago lost to the shadows of death. Nowadays, her old and fragile hands could barely grip her cup; it was common for her to let it fall when her muscles failed. 

 

She dove into the narrow, suffocating waters of the alley. Beneath the shadows of a building’s roof, a man stood. Drunk. His starless eyes focused on her. She quickened her steps. Walking as far as she could without running, she crashed into a street full of bars. 

 

Sliding through the throttling dark sea of people as she tried to escape the monster of the shadows. But he was insistent. The girl closed her eyes, if only for a moment to escape the monster. If this was a monster of her childhood, he would disappear once out of sight. Unfortunately, though, this one was very much made of sickening sly flesh and gushing ghastly blood. Nowadays, the shadows behind her eyelids only caused anguish. 

 

She pushed herself into yet another alley, the claws of the monster grabbed her arm. 

 

Once her back hit the wall, the girl screamed. 

 

HELP ME! HELP ME! HELP ME!

 

Her cries echoed through the alley, shaking the windows of the buildings. She looked up, the moon was covered by clouds, and the shadows of them covered the monster's face. Even Artemis, the protector of maidens, was not here with her today, even she could not touch the shadows, and the monsters that dwelled in them. 

 

She closed her eyes again, trying to imagine the moon and its light, to claw her way to some semblance of comfort. She kicked and kicked, trying to dig her keys into the monster’s figure. Her throat ached, but she didn’t stop. 

 

Though the side street was covered with people, they were unreachable in the depths of the shadows. No one heard, no one came to her aid. 

 

The screams had no merit. The monsters clinging to life in the jet black of the shadows, always got what they wished. 

 

Finished, the monster let her go. The girl's corpse hit the floor, the red of her blood tainting the floor, though it was undetectable under the inky shadow covering it. Her keys rolled away. As the girls' unseeing eyes focused on him, the monster walked away, uncaring. There was no pity in his moonless eyes, no shame, no gloom. He was entirely a monster, he was a man. He vanished back into his comrades, the shadows, never to be found, as they covered the evidence of his crime, as they hid the girl even from discovery.