Andy

When I got home, I went to my room and shut my bedroom door behind me. I changed out of my Sunday dress, into some more comfortable work clothes. I lied on my bed in silence for a while. Experiencing a level of grief that wasn't mine... It felt foreign, and it felt like I was looking in on someone else's life, and I saw things I wasn't supposed to.

I felt like I needed to put my thoughts to paper, but I wasn't sure how... How do I even begin to document everything I saw less than an half hour ago?

I decided to try, anyways... I booted up my laptop, set it on my computer desk by the window and sat there, looking out at the escalating storm while I worked to organize my thoughts. My jumbled, confused thoughts on the dead boy I'd seen in the street today.

My hands hovered over my keyboard, searching for the right words. The right words that expressed the right level of grief.

Was I even right to feel this way? I feel like I intruded, taking away from the quiet moment his family had with him. Assuming he had a family... I felt sorry for thinking that. I did, indeed, know nothing about the boy, so it seemed theroughly unlikely that I'd get out a single thought. I'd just sit there, reveling in silence, wondering about him. Who he was, how old he was, where he lived... Had he always been a resident of Pendant, Utah? Or was he just passing through the town? A bluegrass tape playing on his pickup truck stereo as he rolled it in the street.

Was that who he was?

Or was he something else entirely?

A figment of night; a shadow. Maybe he wore eyeliner, and wore it dark. Listened to heavy metal, and maybe he sang. Maybe he had no family, but had enough friends that it made up for it. Maybe he was like me, and loved the rain.

Maybe it didn't matter.

I shook my head at how absolutely ridiculous I was being. Why did it even matter? I didn't know him, and all I could do was pay my respects and move on.

I furrowed my eyebrows and sighed. I just felt the slightly undiscribable feeling of loss. The feeling that made you question the whole situation, and you constantly felt nauseous.

Closing my eyes for a moment, I finally stood up from my desk and pushed away the paper pad, that contained a small sentence.

I had no words for what I'd seen today. All I could think about, was the cold, still face of the boy from the wreck. Theboy looked at least in his late teens, early twenties, making it all the more tragic. No one deserved to die, especially not under such simple, regretful circumstances.

I flipped over the page I'd written on so I wouldn't have to continue to see how I felt. The few words scribbled down so vaugely replicated what I felt inside. My heart beat uneasily as I crossed the room and sorted through my dresser drawers for some pajamas. A nice, hot shower should be able to get my mind off of things.

My head snapped up when a loud crackle of thunder sounded outside. The sky was ashy black, swirling, angry clouds hovered densely over the town. The wind in the trees outside my window made them creak back and fourth, and scratch at the wooden siding of the house. Storms made me uneasy, not rain storms, but thunder storms. The loud, random clashing of lightning and thunder got me on edge, and very quirky.

I took another deep, calming breath and looked down to concentrate on the task ahead of me. I reached for my dresser drawer, and the light in my room was gone. The house died out of light as every electronic in my room flashed out at once.

I remained very still, a dim darkness coated everything, making me even more edgy. I reached for the flashlight I kept in the drawer by my bed but stopped when I heard the wood floor creaking behind me.

My eyes widened, and I froze. Reminding myself sharply that no one was there. I was overreacting, and it was stupid. I took another needed breath and walked to the bedside table, working quickly to get some light back. The growing darkness as the sun died out outside made me feel suffocated.

More creaking sounded behind me, and I ignored it the best I could until I found the flashlight. I rummaged through a heap of paper jutting out of my drawer, searching for th flashlight. At last, I found it at the bottom. I flipped it on and turned around, my heart freezing in my chest, the flashlight falling out of my hand, and a terrified scream ripped from my chest.

The golden beam of light crossed the room, illuminating the entire corridor in front of my closet, where a pale, tall and slender figure stood. He was so skinny... And dark. He had dark black shadows around his eyes, and long black hair. I took in so many tiny details in a little amount of time, because a moment later, he was gone.

He looked so familiar... Who was he? More importantly, why was he in my room?!

My Mom threw herself into my room, her eyes wide and worried. "What's wrong?!" She cried.

"Huh?" I whispered, trying to catch my breath and slow my thudding heart.

"You screamed." She clarified.

"Oh... I thought I saw someone... I'm almost certain I did." I babbled, looking at the closet where the boy had been just moments before. My mom looked even more concerned now. "Really? Who?"

"Uh... I'm not sure... He was dressed dark, was gone in a flash..."

"Like a ghost?" My Mom asked somewhat skeptically. I sighed as I realized what she meant... She didn't believe me, she thought it was my imagination... I took another deep breath. "Yeah.. Kinda like a ghost."

I hung my head in shame and embarassment. Maybe no one had been there at all... I mean, all day, my head had been swirling in pointless little circles. In my craze, my mind could have conjured up the boy standing in front of the closet... But then, why were the details so precise? The little things about him I picked up so quickly. He had to have been there... He had to.

"I'm sorry..." I apologized with a shake of my head, "I'm just edgy because of the power outage."

My mom looked at me in confusion. "Power outage?"

"Yeah, didn't you notice?" I wondered, gesturing at the dead ceiling light.

"Ash, there is no power outage, your light is just off." She reached around the corridor and flipped the switch up, and my bedroom was once again bathed in warm light. I looked up in confusion, mystified by how that could have happened...

"It - it turned off!" I persisted, becoming scared. "I was writing, and the lights all went out. I didn't turn them off... Are you sure there was no outage?"

"Yeah. No outage... Maybe it's just a power glitch in your room," She shrugged, "Might've been all it was. Need anything else?"

I shook my head, too shaken to feel anything else but the terror building up in my chest. The tension of what had just happened, building up.

As soon as she'd left, closing the door behind her, I broke down. Absolutely terrified by what I had seen only a few minutes earlier, it scared me. Scared me because I recognized the boy... He'd been the one who died, not but an hour earlier, in this very storm.

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