The shadows

"They think I'm insane you know." He uttered, each word having it's own ounce of meaning and definition behind each syllable, the cracked tone of his words and the smile that repeatedly tugged at the corner of his lips suggesting that what they accused him of was correct. Tilting your head, your fingers clasped around a fountain pen, the deep black ink appeared on the paper as you took notes on what he was saying, paying attention to every glint in his eyes. Of course, you couldn't agree with those he had grown to despise, as that would not be professional of you at all.

Sitting back in the large leather armchair, one leg crossed over the other with the well used notepad resting on your left knee, you sighed and raised your eyes to meet his own. "I know you're not insane, Sir. Why do they accuse you so?" You inquired, leaning back into the back of the chair with the tip of the pen poised over the next line in the note book.

"It... It started off with the shadows in the mirrors." He whispered, eyes flitting to the ornate mirror placed on the cream wall to the left of him, eyes sharp as if paranoid he would see the shadows again. "Seeing dark masses move over the glimmering surface from my peripheral vision." He explained after you tilted your head, wanting some more information on the topic at hand. "And then the feeling that someone was staring at me in the middle of the night... Do you ever get that feeling? When you enter a dark room, the temperature drops a degree and you feel the smallest of shivers run down your spine, the hairs on the nape of your neck standing up... You can feel eyes seeing through your walls and penetrating your darkest thoughts and fears... But when you turn the light on, the feeling disappearing, leaving you unsettled and cold?"

This short description of the paranoia he had been experiencing struck a nerve buried deep inside of you. After years of work dealing with those whom the National Health Service had deemed Mentally Unsafe, you had grown used to the typed of issues that your patients had. None had managed to make your nerves come so undone, and cause your pupils to dilate and flit around your warm office.

"You know it? Don't you?" The patient asked with a hint of hope in his cracked voice. He scrambled forward in the large armchair opposite your body. "You must know it then... Laying in bed, hearing creaks and your eyes widening as your mind cooks up a thousand possibilities as to what could be causing the disruptions of silence, each becoming more wild and distorted than the last.." He murmured, hands forming into balls. You glanced down and your eyes picked up on the blue veins that formed mountain ranges on the backs of his hands, skin pulled taught like a canvas over the bones and sinew creating his hand.

The man before you continued to speak, his words becoming more troubling, pace quickening and eyes widening as he allowed his mind to get caught up in the memories that were locked in his brain.

"Don't open the door tonight. I know you have felt everything I did. Don't open the door. Don't open the door. Don't open the door." He repeated, more to himself than to you. It was a clear warning from a paranoid pyromaniac, a desperate attempt to get someone to believe him, to believe that he set the flat on fire in a bid to burn what had been staring him down away for good. He shrunk back into the chair, heels of his feet resting on the edge as he chanted the phrase softly to himself.

It was late that night, your usually strong and composed mine allowing the memories of today to swirl around your brain. The lights were off, except the dim light of the lamp giving a wash of light over you and your bed in your small flat. Looking over at the grandfather clock you owned, you watched as it's hands ticked away, eating away the seconds of 12:42 am, you realised that you had been recounting the memories for hours now. "It's not real." You whispered, leaning over and turning off the lamp and curling up between the duckfeather duvet and the sheets of the bed you slept on.

There it was. Everything that your latest patient had said came flooding back into your mind. "And then the feeling that someone was staring at me in the middle of the night... Do you ever get that feeling? When you enter a dark room, the temperature drops a degree and you feel the smallest of shivers run down your spine, the hairs on the nape of your neck standing up... You can feel eyes seeing through your walls and penetrating your darkest thoughts and fears..." You recounted, looking around the small bedroom at every crack and every deep black shadow. Your pupils dilated. Your thoughts were swimming.

You heard it again. The creaking outside your door. "It's not real." You told yourself, hand over your heart as it raced far above the average resting heart rate. "It's all in your mind. Go to the door you idiot, go look. It's not real." No matter how many times you repeated the words, your body could not respond to you, your heart rate couldn't calm down. You crawled out of bed and headed toward the door.

You turned the knob, and slowly opened the door.

Some say you died of a heart attack. Some say it was a natural death. Some say that you were murdered in your sleep. Only your ex patient knows what truly happened, but everyone thought he was just insane.