The Unseen Shadows
September 23rd, 2024 – Day 1
I don’t even know why I’m recording this. Maybe to make sense of it all, to leave something behind in case I don’t make it out. I mean, who would believe me anyway? I’m sitting in the ruins of a world I thought I understood, trying to piece together how it all went wrong. It all started with the chess game.
Yeah, that’s right. The day the world ended, I was in the middle of a game of chess.
I was playing against Daniel—my neighbor, my friend, and, I guess, my partner in crime now. We were at the park, under that old oak tree. The air was heavy, like the calm before a storm, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Daniel was just about to make his move when everything changed.
The sky...it didn’t darken. No, that would be too normal. It… folded, like someone was crumpling paper. Birds fell mid-flight, spiraling down like discarded toys. The ground rumbled, not with the slow build of an earthquake but with a sharp, sudden jerk. The kind of jolt that tells you reality itself is shifting. I remember looking up at Daniel, his hand frozen over the board, eyes wide with something between confusion and terror. I felt it too, deep in my bones, a primal instinct screaming: Run. Hide. Survive.
But where do you hide when the world is ending?
September 23rd, 2024 – Later that Day
I don’t know how much time has passed. Minutes? Hours? Daniel and I ended up in the old bakery down the street. It’s one of the only buildings still standing, somehow untouched by the chaos outside. We thought we could catch our breath here, regroup. But when we stumbled inside, panting and desperate, we weren’t alone.
The first time I ever saw a werewolf was at the bakery.
I swear to God, I’m not making this up. At first, I thought it was a dog. A massive, shaggy thing standing behind the counter. Its eyes glowed—a sickly yellow—and its teeth were...human. I blinked, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Daniel grabbed my arm, but I couldn’t look away. It was like my brain was stuck, like the gears of my mind were grinding against each other, unable to process the impossible. Then it spoke.
“Welcome,” it growled, lips curling back in what might have been a grin. “Would you like some bread?”
Bread. The word hung in the air, absurd and surreal. The thing—no, the werewolf—pointed to a tray of freshly baked loaves, steam still rising from their golden crusts. That’s when I noticed the blood on its claws.
Daniel didn’t wait. He yanked me back, and we bolted out the door. The werewolf didn’t follow. It just laughed—a deep, rumbling sound that followed us down the street.
September 24th, 2024 – Day 2
The world hasn’t ended. Not completely, at least. But it’s...changed. There’s no other way to describe it. The streets are empty, eerily quiet, but every so often, we hear things. Scratching, whispering. The shadows don’t behave like they used to; they stretch and twist in ways that defy logic. And sometimes, they move when nothing else does.
I’m writing this in an old school library we found, the kind with dusty bookshelves and a broken clock stuck at 3:17. It’s as good a place as any to try and figure out what’s happening. Daniel thinks we should head for the mountains, but I’m not so sure. There’s something wrong with the air here. It’s thick, almost…sticky, like it’s trying to hold us in place.
We haven’t seen another person since the bakery. I keep thinking about that werewolf. How did it get there? Why was it baking bread? Is it connected to what’s happening? Daniel thinks I’m losing it, but I know what I saw.
I’ve seen a lot of things since I was ten.
When I turned ten years old, and my ghost friend didn’t vanish, I knew I was in for a lifetime of trouble.
Yeah, I had a ghost friend. Still do, actually. Her name’s Ellie. She’s been with me since I was a kid. Most people think she’s just my imaginary friend, but she’s real. At least, as real as anything else these days. She warned me, you know? About the shadows. About the whispers. I should have listened.
“They’re coming,” she kept saying, her voice echoing in the corners of my mind. “They’re coming, and they won’t stop until they find you.”
I thought she was talking about the werewolf. Now I’m not so sure.
September 25th, 2024 – Day 3
Daniel’s gone. One minute he was beside me, the next he was...just gone. I turned around, and he wasn’t there. I screamed his name, but all I heard was my own echo, bouncing off the abandoned walls. Ellie appeared then, her face pale and eyes wide.
“It’s not safe here,” she whispered. “The shadows took him.”
I don’t know what that means, but I can’t stay here. I need to find Daniel. Or at least try. The shadows are everywhere now, creeping in at the edges of my vision, slipping through the cracks in the walls. I can feel them watching, waiting. Ellie says we need to leave, to go somewhere they can’t follow. But where is that? Where do you hide from shadows?
September 26th, 2024 – Day 4
I found him. Daniel. Or…what’s left of him. He was lying in an alley, eyes wide open, staring up at the sky. His skin was cold, and his face… God, I don’t even know how to describe it. He looked terrified. Like he’d seen something so awful, so unimaginable, that it stopped his heart.
I keep replaying it in my head. The look in his eyes, the way his mouth was twisted in a silent scream. What did he see? What did the shadows show him?
Ellie says it’s not his fault. That the shadows are feeding, taking what they need to survive. But I don’t care. They took my friend, and I’m not going to let them take me too.
I can hear them now, whispering in the dark, calling my name. They’re getting closer. I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake. I have to keep moving, keep running. But where? Where do I go when the whole world is shadows?
September 27th, 2024 – Day 5
I think I’m losing my mind. The shadows are everywhere now, seeping through the cracks in reality, twisting everything into something unrecognizable. I keep seeing faces in the darkness—Daniel’s, my parents’, people I haven’t thought about in years. They’re calling to me, begging me to join them.
Ellie’s gone too. I can’t hear her anymore. I can’t feel her. I’m alone.
No, that’s not right. I’m not alone. They’re with me. The shadows. They’re inside me now, crawling under my skin, whispering in my ear. They want me to see. To understand. But I don’t want to understand. I just want this to end.
But it won’t. It never ends. It’s just shadows, forever and ever, stretching out into infinity.
September 28th, 2024 – Day 6
I can’t see anymore. The shadows have taken my eyes. They’re inside my head now, digging into my memories, my thoughts. I can hear them laughing. Or is that me? I don’t know. I can’t tell the difference anymore.
They showed me something today. A vision. A glimpse of the future, or maybe the past. It’s hard to say. But I saw the world, twisted and broken, consumed by darkness. I saw the werewolf, standing in the ruins, smiling. And I saw myself, standing beside it, my eyes black as night, my mouth open in a silent scream.
Is this my fate? To become one of them? To lose myself in the shadows, forever and ever, until there’s nothing left but darkness?
I don’t want to go. I don’t want to disappear. But I don’t have a choice. None of us do. We’re all just shadows, dancing in the dark, pretending to be something we’re not.
Final Entry – Date Unknown
If anyone finds this, if anyone’s still out there… Don’t trust the light. Don’t trust the shadows. Don’t trust anything. It’s all a lie. It’s all just a game. And we’re all losing.
End Recording.