Every evening, she followed the same routine. Tea. Prayer. Radio low. Then bed by nine.
That night, the power went out.
The radio died mid-song. The fan stopped. The house fell into a thick, listening silence.
Granny lit a candle and walked slowly to the kitchen. The flame made her shadow long and thin on the wall. She watched it move with her steps.
Then it moved again.
Not with her.
Her hand froze in the air. The candle shook. On the wall, the shadow of her arm bent at the elbow, like it was waving at someone.
Granny whispered, “No.”
She turned quickly. Nobody was there. Only her small body in a nightgown and the candlelight trembling.
She told herself it was fear. Fear plays tricks. The brain wants patterns. It makes faces in curtains and monsters in dark corners. She had heard this from the doctor once, long ago.
Still, she backed away from the wall.
The shadow copied her—almost. It lagged a little, like it was thinking first. Like it needed time to decide what she would do.
Granny walked to the mirror in the hallway. She held the candle up.
Her face looked tired, but real. Her eyes were sharp.
Behind her, the hallway was empty.
But in the mirror, something dark stood close to her back. Not a person. Not a shape she could name. Just a deeper darkness, pressed into the glass like a stain.
Granny spun around.
Nothing.
Her heart beat hard, like it wanted to run away without her.
She took the candle and went to the living room, where her old photos sat in frames. Family weddings. Babies. Her late husband smiling with his arm around her.
The candlelight flickered over the pictures. The shadows danced across the faces.
And in one photo—her wedding photo—her husband’s shadow moved.
His smile stayed the same. His eyes stayed still. But his shadow lifted one finger to its lips.
A quiet sign.
“Shh.”
Granny’s mouth went dry. She stared until her eyes burned.
Then the phone rang.
The landline. Old and loud.
Granny jumped. Nobody called her at night.
She answered with a shaking hand. “Hello?”
A soft voice breathed into her ear. “Don’t look behind you.”
Granny stopped breathing.
The voice sounded young, but also old, like two voices at once trying to fit inside one throat.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Someone who learned the trick,” the voice said. “Someone who learned how to step out of the mind.”
Granny’s grip tightened. “What do you want?”
“To come home,” the voice whispered. “To wear a face again.”
The candle flame bent sideways, as if something unseen had passed close.
Granny wanted to hang up. She wanted to run. But her feet felt planted, heavy as stone.
“Listen,” the voice said gently, almost kindly. “Your brain is a door. Most people keep it locked. But you… you have been lonely for a long time.”
Granny’s eyes filled with angry tears. “That’s not true.”
The voice laughed softly. “Tonight, the power went out. And your locks went with it.”
In the corner of the room, the wall darkened. The shadows there thickened, piling up like smoke. They stretched toward her, slow and patient.
Granny lifted the candle like a weapon. “Get out!”
The shadows paused.
Then her own shadow peeled off the floor.
It rose up, taller than her. It stood straight, like a man. Like her husband. Like a stranger wearing a familiar face.
Granny stumbled back until she hit the wall.
Her shadow turned its head toward her, though it had no face.
The phone voice whispered, “Look at your hands.”
Granny looked down.
Her fingers were smudged black at the tips, as if she had been rubbing charcoal. The blackness crawled under her nails, creeping deeper, like ink soaking into cloth.
She tried to wipe it off on her nightgown. It didn’t move.
The shadow-man stepped closer. The room grew colder with each inch.
Granny’s mind raced. This is fear. This is a trick. This is my brain.
But the black in her nails pulsed, like it had a heartbeat.
The voice on the phone said, “You thought the shadows were following you.”
A pause.
“They weren’t.”
Granny’s shadow leaned in, as if it wanted to enter her mouth, her eyes, and her skin.
The voice finished, soft as breath on glass.
“You were following them.”
The candle went out.
And in the dark, Granny felt something smile inside her before she heard her own voice, from somewhere in the room, say,
“Hello?”
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