Shadow

Dreams are stories and images our minds create when we sleep.

They can be a lot of things; joyful, sad, nostalgic, straight up weird or downright disturbing. Almost as if it's a mystifying thing. It's an enduring source of mystery. No one knows if their interpretations hold real meaning.

It's just basically a universal human experience no one asked for.

It's certainly something Morphie never asked for.

*

It was during the morning of Monday that Morphie sat at the table during breakfast, hunched over his phone reading over "dream interpretations" and squinting in focus as he took in every word.

Shadow

To dream of shadow/shadows represents situations or problems that can't be avoided.

How utterly vague, Morphie scoffed. He took these interpretations with a grain of salt, almost every sort of thing like that as well. Things like horoscopes, zodiac signs, astrology. Studying a statistical correlation between a person's date of birth and his or her personality doesn't have any scientific backbone but Morphie can't help but admit he feels curious enough to check on these almost on a daily basis.

"This can literally be applied everywhere else in any person's life!" Morphie said to no one in particular while he read Shadows in Dream interpretations.

"Morphie--stop looking at your phone. You're gonna be late." His mom called him out, gently patting him on the head. Morphie made a face when her 2-year old sister who sat on a baby chair in front of him began babbling as if in response to his mom and sent spittles of baby food flying in a number of directions.

"Gross, Sophie," He said half-heartedly, picking at the spittle on his shoulder. He began to rise from his chair after he checked the time on his watch. "Mom, I'll just head out now!" He said. "Bye Sophie--don't stress out Mom too much, okay?"

He got a babble in response.

"Okay Morphie, be safe!" His mom called out from the kitchen.

Morphie quickly put on his shoes from the doorway and shrugged on his oversized bright yellow hoodie.

"Morphie, Your pass is on the table. Make sure not to forget it." His Mom said and Morphie dashed back into the dining area to grab it.

"Shoot, I almost forgot about that. Thanks Mom." He said while quickly shrugging on his backpack and headed straight for the door. His Mom nodded towards him with a worried face--she got like that sometimes, especially if Morphie woke up after a particularly bad dream. He figured he must look like shit.

He ignored it and headed outside.

*

He came to a stop a few minutes later at a high-rise building, sleek and shiny at a distance as he squinted at the topmost floors. The upper side of it was plastered with the bold matte-black lettering "PRISM CO."

He shook his cold fingers to stave off the nerves he felt as he headed inside to the reception area. He then approached a brown-haired woman who looked all prim in a tight, well-fitted office suit with the tag "Pamela" on the side below her collarbone.

"Can I help you?" She asked.

"Y-yeah, uhh.. I'm part of the school organization that's supposed to come in for the career fair?" He said nervously, a bit intimidated by the situation.

Pamela blinked at him in response. "Oh, weren't you supposed to come in with your group?"

"Our house is a lot closer, so I just got approval from my teacher to come here directly. I, uh, got a pass for it."

She pursed her lips a bit. "Can I have your name and the school you're attending please?"

"Morpheus Smith from Faulconer High." Morphie said. Pamela's eyebrows raised slightly in amusement at his first name and he hurried to explain. "Yeah, Mom was a Matrix fan, it's Morphie for short." He said lightheartedly but he held back from rolling his eyes at her in annoyance.

She began typing at a rapid speed on her computer before she nodded at him. She moved to the side of her wide and marble-sleek reception desk and pulled at the drawer filled with ID passes with a bright red lanyard. "Okay Mr. Smith, here's your pass to the convention area for the career fair. I can't have you enter yet until the rest of your group is here. You can wait there in the lobby area and the guard will be the one to escort you later. Would that be okay with you?"

He hurriedly put on the lanyard she handed out. "Yeah, uh, sure. Thanks, Pamela--can I just go to the restroom for a bit first though?"

"Yes, it's at the end of the hall to the right. Enjoy the rest of your day here once the event starts." Pamela said cheerfully and gestured at the wide hallway beside the reception area.

"Thank you."

Morphie jogged towards the direction Pamela pointed to and breathed out in relief. His lack of sleep for today came rushing at him after having exerted effort with just that amount of social interaction.

He went inside the restroom, avoiding his reflection while he washed his face again and went inside the cubicle, placed down the lid of the toilet seat and sat down, hugging his legs towards himself while he paused to take a breath.

Maybe he could get a bit of a shut-eye while waiting for the rest of his schoolmates. He felt uncomfortable at the idea of lying down in the lobby area with the amount of people going in and out of the building, all dressed professionally while he was there as a student with his oversized hoodie and worn, black sneakers.

He leaned his head against the wall, staring blankly at the lights overhead. They flickered for a moment and Morphie only blinked at them groggily, wondering how such a huge company failed to install proper lights for their ground floor restroom.

The lights flickered again as Morphie slowly closed his eyes. He felt a slight pulse of fear at the idea of that same dream from this morning but he ignored it.

It's just a dream.

Dreams can't hurt you.

*

It was at a moment later that Morphie opened his eyes to see blue.

He was standing in the middle of the bright blue ocean afloat on his bare feet. All he could see around him was the vast, unending view of water and sky meeting in both its reflection of the clouds in the clear and gentle waves.

The sound of gushing wind whipped past his ears, though the waves were almost tranquil and serene. It lulled him into a sense of peace before something lodged into the pit of his stomach at the sight before him.

A creeping feeling as if something was bound to go very wrong.

And Morphie was right. There, in the distance in tiny wisps unassuming, the water began to thread into the color of blood red as if it was spreading from a source in the underground of the belly of water.

Red, red, red.

It encased the gentle blue waves into a sea of blood. Mophie began to breathe hard upon seeing in the middle of the water emerged a black head. It had an empty face. A dark sinister silhouette began to rise steadily from the waves to its full height.

Two glowing spots for eyes emerged and Morphie felt his hands grow cold.

Dreams can't hurt you. He chanted in his head in earnest as the shadowy figure rose up in height. It slowly walked towards Morphie enshrouded in darkness that seemed to permeate and block the once-blue sky.

The giant shadow stood at its full height and continued to approach.

"Give it back!" It said and its voice seemed to carry a hundred others within it--morphing into a sinister sound as if in an echo of a synchronized wail of agony.

Give what back? I did not take anything! Morphie said but no sound came out of his mouth in the dream world.

"Give it back!"

Morphie suddenly woke up with a start. He had heard an insistent knocking from the cubicle door.

He took greedy gulps of air as if he had run a marathon after witnessing another god-awful nightmare. "What the hell?" He whispered to himself, still in disbelief of what had seen.

There were another three slow knocks on the door and he hurriedly wiped at the cold sweat on his brow. "S-sorry, I need a moment." He began to say but then realized no response came after and was only met with silence.

He looked beneath the cubicle and noticed there was no shadow, no evidence of a person there having knocked. His eyebrows furrowed together in confusion at the sight. "Hello? Anyone there?" He called out.

He chewed at his bottom lip when he was once again met with silence.

He quietly placed both of his feet down from his crouched sitting position on the toilet lid and slowly unlocked the door. He peeked out on both sides of the other cubicles, feeling quite silly while doing so.

He swore he heard the knocks which woke him up and which sounded again soon afterwards.

He pursed his lips together and held in a deep breath while exiting the cubicle quickly, feeling like the area was suffocating him. He wanted out of that restroom as soon as possible--

He heard a quiet exhale of air directly right beside his ear coming from the cubicle he just exited from. A cold shiver seemed to permeate in that same direction and he whirled around instinctively, desperate to see if it might have been a prank by someone in class who finally arrived.

He was met with two glowing eyes of the shadowy figure he saw before. It stood inside the cubicle, neck titled crookedly to the side and posture bent as if it was crouching forwards on a bent spine. Its limbs hung low and were almost as long as its own body. The shadows around it seemed to pulse and permeate, engulfing the area rapidly in darkness.

Morphie's body felt cold all over at the sight.

Please let this be a dream, and that was his last thought before everything faded into black.