Shadow Monsters- a prompt flash fiction

When I was small, I disliked the dark. Wondered about all the things lurking in there.

Did they want to hurt me, eat me or worse? What did they look like, where were they from?

I would run across my room in the middle of the night. Leap back into bed so nothing could grab me.

My imagination was full of hands reaching out, from behind the curtains, under the bed, behind me on the stairs.

Even when I was older, I couldn’t banish the nerves. Walk a little faster, grab my umbrella a little tighter.

Shadows consumed all that went near, providing solace to unmentionable horrors.

I stuck to the light, skipped between the moonbeams.

Older still, I realised I was wrong.

Shadows were not where the monsters hid. The monsters did not hide anymore.

There was no land that they fear to tread. They walked amongst us, as human, doing supposed good.

They paraded on tv, announcing their intentions but the masks were not good enough.

The shadows were not where the monsters lived but where the rest of us went to hide.

I stepped out of the light and merged into the dark. Gave myself up to the shadows.

They claimed me as their own and I finally realised where the darkness truly lay.

Now I watch from the shadows as the monsters play in the light.

Written in resposnse to Putting My Feet In The Dirt’s January writing prompt No.2

https://puttingmyfeetinthedirt.com/2020/01/01/january-writing-prompts-3/