Ghost Stories
Monsters Protecting You by Schuyler Esen
“Screaming, sobbing, tears streaming
Eyes dry with stress, wet with sleep
Sitting straight under her past dreaming
Unaware of the moment, only the deep
Darkness vast consuming
Silence, she blinked back the stun
Of her realizing in the room being
Another presence, not just one
"Who are you?!" She croaked
But the blackness ne'er did reply
Trembling, covers shaking, she choaked
"Who are you?!" beginning to cry
Out of the inky thickness, a drift
Descending from the ceiling and curtains
Wisping it's way down, cold and swift
Twisting, looping like a serpent
Snaking toward her face in the ebony
It whispered near her ears
While she was paralyzed so helplessly
It hissed, "I am your fear."
Startled, immobile in the murkiness of night
Terrified, but resisting the silence afore
"You visit me in my dreams." She replied
The smoke continued to circle, create more
And filled the entire space with its touch
Traveling around her head, it's aura
Not physical, but felt just as much
In that moment releasing Pandora
Upon the girl's mind, and yet she knew
That in order to regain peace
A conversation would have to ensue
So she summoned her strength to increase
"Why do you wake me, when I sleep so sound?"
She held her breath as the breath replied
"So you may live." Its voice all around
"There are forces much greater than I"
"What forces are there? Why can't I sleep?"
Violently quaking from her whole endeavor
But the phantom continued its pivoting creep
"Without me, child, you would sleep forever"
"What does that mean? Do you protect me?"
"I protect no one" it hissed.
The girl began to weep over this taxing inquiry
"Then shall I forever be sleepless?"
Pausing, the voice murmured aloud,
"When greater darkness pulls you into itself
I am the force, your fear, that pulls you back out"
The presence gone, the girl questioned herself
Perplexed, but somehow at ease
She lay her head on its cradle
Better understanding night has no guarantees
But maybe it doesn't have to be that stable”
SE
Shift by Schuyler Esen
“Something inside me shifted, and I felt the scritch-scratch of nails climbing up my rib cage. A hush fell over the room as the lights flickered. I held my breath, terrified, and felt the pounding of my heart thumping behind my eyes. Everything was still. The stiffness was palpable. I waited for the moment to pass, and then inhaled slowly-silently- and felt another presence breathe in with me.
My throat was hoarse. My fingers were cold. My chest rose and fell in time with another’s lungs, lungs that were beneath mine but not my own. I lay there, as lifeless as ice.
My mind began racing, trying to grasp in the dimming shadows what was reality, and what was possibility.
My voice finally broke, “What are you?”
Deep in my chest, an utterance replied, ‘Hiding.’
Paralyzed, I lay there with the voice, feeling it breathe. Every blood cell in my body seemed to freeze, colder and colder with each passing moment–fear siphoning the life out of my veins.
The ice in my throat shattered, ‘Where did you come from?’
We lay there, in the room, in the dark, in the ice. Breathing together, lifeless in the horror that crippled us both.
Finally, it whispered back,
‘Hell.”
SE