This story was written for Elsanna Shenanigans October 2018 Contest with the prompt being horror (word limit: 500-2500 words). Please check out elsanna-shenanigans on tumblr for more information on the monthly prompt contests or join us on discord at discordDOTgg/TU9NpnH (you know what to do with that DOT).

all the street lights fade

She could never tell anymore if she was asleep or awake.

She lied on the bed with her eyes opened, motionless. In the darkness, there were a few things that she was definitely sure of. The curtains were pulled tight, not a single strand of moonlight on the floor. The shadow above her head was her ceiling fan, though it's been broken for some years now, so she stopped even thinking of it as one. In the far left corner stood her wardrobe, a big, towering dark shape against the bright blue walls. On her right, not too far from the bed was her desk, cluttered with knick-knacks and trash. The chair next to it was impossible to see from under the pile of clothes that, in the darkness, resembled a hunched over giant from one of the picture books she used to read as a kid.

What she was far less than sure of sat under the window in the far right corner. It was–by all means, this night and every night before–a shadow. But it wasn't just a shadow. There wasn't anything there to cast it. It was a black so dark, so dense it almost seemed corporeal in a way that a shadow never should be.

It also had the annoying tendency to move.

Now, this could all be just a figment of Anna's imagination. She wasn't sleeping well–or sometimes at all–lately. She wasn't eating much. She limited human contact to an absolute minimum. But where her head failed to be clear, her heart told her that much–what she saw was real.

She was frightened of it.

At first, the shadow was just an undefined shape. It lingered in the very corner of the room like a cowering, frightened child. But with time, night after night as Anna lied paralysed, the shape evolved. The gargoyle-like hump gave way to anthropomorphic slender-limbed alien, then– this. This tall, smooth figure, with nothing to define as womanly but Anna knew it was womanly.

Her shoulders were always slumped, and she mostly looked… sad. She shifted in and out of existence almost in tune with Anna's breathing. Even though she had no eyes that Anna could see she could tell the Shadow was watching her.

Night after night after night after night…

She woke up in the pale morning feeling more tired than in the evening. The alarm clock was screaming at her for the 5th time–she wanted nothing more than to just smash it to pieces and lie there for the whole day, but the still sane part of her mind knew dwelling was not gonna take her anywhere. With a groan, she sat up on the bed and pushed the covers aside. Her feet were numb even under the two pairs of socks she wore. She stood up shakily. In the light, her room looked just like a regular teenager's room. Her furniture didn't resemble fantastic creatures. She looked to the window, but there was nothing there.

There never was in the light.

She grabbed the first shirt off the pile of clothes and went to the bathroom.

In school, she was even less of a presence than the shadow in her room was. Lessons passed by her like a silent movie. She spent most of her time staring out of the window. The teachers didn't mind. The other students left her alone during the breaks. They all knew she was there just because she had to, because otherwise her parents would go insane with her looming presence in the house.

There were only two months left, anyway.

It was early April, and the trees were only beginning to sprout tiny green leaves. The almost never ending rain and cold didn't help them much.

She stared like this, lifelessly, for some time. The world outside felt as un-interesting to her as the lesson did, but at least it gave her time to focus on her own thoughts. It has been almost half a year that she lived like this. Almost half a year since her entire world had been turned upside down, and she was like an abandoned child with nowhere to go to find comfort. There simply wasn't any of that left for her anymore, not until the case was solved and she could finally know for sure.

She almost jumped when, through her musings, she noticed the same odd shadow lingering in the limbs of a tree.

Skipping a lesson wasn't something she normally did, but she couldn't stand it in school anymore that day. She walked along the main street, not going anywhere but still just going, anything to cleanse her mind.

It was hard. Each day it was harder, and today it was probably more than she could take. She rubbed angrily at her face with her cold hands. She was tired. The little sleep she managed to get in the end was not enough to make her pull through the day, but she couldn't do anything about that. She had tried sleeping during the day before, but even in broad daylight the lingering fear kept her eyes wide open.

She turned to walk through the glass door of a small consignment store. There was only a handful of people browsing the shelves inside, and somehow she felt like all of them stared at her the moment she entered. Her shoulders slumped and eyes glued to the floor, she made a quick route to pick up three cans of Redbull and a candy bar. She mumbled out a hello in response to the cashier, and a thanks when she was given her change, then dashed out as quickly as she could without running.

As she turned to continue down the main road, something flashed through the store window. Something dark and unsettling that made her heart stop.

She couldn't sleep at all the next night. Various shadows–the same shadow?–clouded her mind, corrupting every thought. Somehow, the thought of losing her wakefulness felt like giving in to them.

Without sleep, she didn't even want to consider facing all the people in school. Her head pounded in tune with her pulsating veins. Even spacing out wouldn't help when she felt like this.

Instead, she decided to go to the second worst place.

The water was cold, but only for the first two minutes or so. She stood with her pants rolled up above her knees, toes curling around the small stones in the lake. There was a mist lingering over the eerily calm surface.

The whole place was so quiet she could hear her own blood rush through her head.

She closed her eyes and inhaled. This was their place. Their own little escape for when they needed to be alone. It was here that they first talked about feelings–not their feelings, just the vague concept of them. Anna was maybe thirteen then, and the night was warm and full of fireflies.

Nothing like this cold, white April morning.

It was also here they had their first kiss, lying close together on a blanket on the pier on one magical July evening. She could still feel it vividly when she let her mind wander, and her heart fluttered just like it did then. It would soon have been three years.

The sound of a gentle breeze cut through the silence like a sledgehammer, but she still stood in the freezing water, barely breathing in her stillness.

It was here they first had sex, even. It took more than a year to build up the courage and get over the guilt. It took talks, crying, fighting. Took a lot of bitterness before they let it be sweet.

The night then was cool–early September, while the leaves on the trees were still green. It started out as kissing, then heated kissing, and then Anna's hand was under Elsa's shirt, and Elsa's hand inside Anna's pants. The pier whined under their frantic motions, and the water carried on the hushed moans for no one to hear.

She opened her eyes when the wind picked up its pace and looked to her right. The pier had long since broken down to a pile of rotting wood, and morbid thoughts started seeping out from the black hole inside her brain. The wood was no longer wood but flesh, cold and pale but rotting still, bloated by the water. The wisps of fishing net that have been tied there since forever were now a white, tangled mess of hair. The blueish-gray, flat stones they used to skip across the lake–never more and never less than seven skips–were lifeless eyes.

The wind swept her hair into her face, and in it she could almost hear Elsa whisper her name.

By the time she came home, it was evening and her parents were already there.

That she couldn't deal with, not today, not after her trip to their lake. Standing in the middle of the dark hallway, her jaw clenched tightly, she made a decision.

She skipped the stairs to her room and grabbed the single Redbull she still had left. A movement in the corner of the room caught her attention, but when she looked there, there was only shadow. Her eyes landed on the framed photo of Elsa that stood on the windowsill.

Fighting the nausea and anxiety the shadow caused in her, she grabbed the photo as well.

"Sorry I took your car."

She only felt stupid for a second before she realized no one could hear her. Elsa's car still smelled of her perfume, even though it's been months since she last sat in it. She took the photo of her sister out of the frame and placed it on the dashboard where she could look at it easily.

"Where do you wanna go?"

This was hopeless. She was hopeless. Ever since Elsa disappeared, she was as much a shadow as those that haunted her. There were never any answers. No trace at all.

"I thought about… anywhere but here, you know?" she said quietly, looking the still picture in the eyes. "I hate this town. I hate it and all of these judgmental assholes." She gripped the steering wheel harder. "I wish we left it when you–" her voice hitched "–when you said wanted to. I wanted to, too. I'd have gone anywhere with you, I was just scared."

She took a long sip from the can before she turned her attention back to the road. She was going thirty over the limit down the main street.

It took her but a few seconds before she couldn't help but glance at the picture again. "But then you left without me." The only thing they ever found was one of her shoes in the forest on the outskirts of the town. Nothing aside for that. No hair. No blood. No body.

She was gone, but Anna never got to know if she was gone.

"Not like I'd move on," she continued her thoughts aloud. It didn't matter if it made sense to the picture. "I could never– I miss you so much."

This was the first time she ever addressed her since she disappeared. To most, she looked as dead as they all thought Elsa to be. But inside, Anna was hurting. She was hurting like she never was before in her life. It felt like somebody grabbed her heart and tightened the grip with each passing day.

She didn't even realize when she started crying. "Please come back to me," she whispered, fighting to keep her eyes on the road and not on the picture.

The pale street lights flickered and faded behind her.

Suddenly, a movement in the rear-view mirror caught her attention and she glanced– that's when she saw it again. The shadow, lingering in the backseat, vaguely human but still uncanny enough to make her question it. It was more vivid than ever before. Like dense, dark smoke, it kept swirling in its place, and Anna could almost make out the facial features.

And then it darted forward.

Anna swerved. The momentum threw her against the side window. She could only watch with wide eyes as the road spun in front of her. Then she was upside down. Then right way up again, and her teeth went through her tongue. Then the road gave way to the roadside barrier. It came closer. Upside down. Right way up. Roadside barrier.

Then just the ocean.

The impact was so strong she surely cracked something in her back, but the airbags never opened. Typical old car. She hit her head on the steering wheel instead.

It was dark.

It was quiet.

She was going down.

There was no point in screaming. She just hanged in her seatbelt, bleeding and mortified.

Her half empty can of Redbull fell down on the windshield, the drink spilling out at a leisurely pace. A drop of blood–from her forehead? her mouth?– fell to mix with it.

She closed her eyes and waited for the car to hit the bottom.

The door swung open suddenly with a force that had the hinges whine, before all sound was drowned out by the water pouring in. A gurgled, bloody scream left her mouth when the belt that suspended her was cut in half, and she was hurled out into the frigid depths.

There were hands holding her. In the dark, with only some of the moonlight cutting through, she couldn't see her captor well. But she felt it. She felt the same cold grip the shadows always had on her. The hands were solid and strong, not about to let her go.

She wanted to scream again. And cough. There was already some water in her lungs.

The captor spun her around, and she finally faced her fear.

The darkness had a structure–facial features that were oddly familiar, and eerily physical. Enthralled more than scared, she reached out with her hand to touch the face, trailed her fingers along the smooth, swirling surface. She traced out the nose, the eyes, cheeks, chin and lips.

She gasped out her remaining air in a flutter of bubbles.

Elsa?

Water choked her, poured into her mouth and nose, but her eyes remained glued to the shadow. It raised a hand and touched Anna's face back, before resting it on her chest.

The pain was unlike she ever felt before. Even in the dark, she could see the red cloud of her own blood as the creature's fingers plunged into her chest and grabbed her beating heart.

It was freezing.

She woke in her room again, but it was different. The lights were all blurry, like through a mist. It was hard to make out the details. She couldn't even see the bed she lied on well.

In the far right corner, sharp and clear, Elsa sat on a chair. She looked up from a book she held when she heard Anna stir and smiled.

"Hello, Sunshine."