“We’re gunna get you,” the voice inside my head said.

I pause and turn around with deliberation. There they are, the shadows. Nobody else can see them and I wish I couldn’t. Faces, featureless and leering, loom over me. Where their eyes should be emits a eerie red glow.

The air closes around me, “not again, not again, not again,” I think cursing under my breath. I feel my old scars burn with hatred.

“How long do you think you will run from us?” The voice is raspy.

It’s not just one, it’s a bunch of voices overlapping one another. I know, with confidence, that I will be one of them. But not tonight.

I don’t answer, instead I duck my head and walk towards them. You can hear them get excited, chittering, clicking sounds. Right as I feel the shadows lick at my skin, like nails against a chalkboard, I strike a match.

They recoil, hissing. Behind me voices laugh, clearer than before.

“Have you forgotten your little mistake?” Figures emerge like some slender man slash horror film.

They surround me, pushing me into the shadows. Into them.

I feel one behind me, his presence something I long wish to forget. No matter what age or height, he has always been bigger than me. Like he grew up with me, but he has always been way older than me. His presence is like that of a thorn in a rose. Somehow I have forgotten to breath.

“My mistake has not been forgotten.” I manage to say through clenched teeth.

“Then put the match out,” the voices threaten, louder and angrier than one another.

I turn around to stare at him, jaw locked. “Defiance,” he says, somehow out loud and in my mind.

I glare at him until the match wears down. He grabs me, digging his long slender fingers into my skin. Where light breaks him, in darkness he rules. So long as I let him touch me she shadows won’t get me, and now that he has me I can no longer escape. I wonder if these voices are all of his prey. I clench on, like a bear to honey.

I made a bet, I told him if I lost I was his. I lost, now I am lost. One day these voices will be mine and I will be able to see the light, feeling the burn from its touch. Now I burn in his touch. Like fireworks on a moonless night. He guides me and I hope he never lets me go.