Ghost Story

Don't turn on the lights tonight. In the middle of the night, I received a text from my girlfriend: "There's a ghost in the room, save me quick!" I rushed to her place and saw her huddled in the covers, trembling. "Where's the ghost?" I asked, gripping my baseball bat. She pointed a shaky finger at the closet: "It just… crawled into your shadow." I looked down, and the shadow on the floor was slowly raising its head. My phone vibrated violently in the dead of night, the screen lighting up with my girlfriend's text: "Ghost in room, save me!" My heart skipped a beat. I grabbed my baseball bat and bolted out the door. Kicking open her front door, the living room was dead silent, the bedroom lamp flickering erratically. She was curled up under the covers, only her eyes visible, shivering uncontrollably. "Where is it?" I asked, gripping my bat, lowering my voice. She slowly reached out, her fingertips pointing rigidly at the closet door behind me, her voice choked with tears: "It just… it just crawled into your shadow." A chill crawled up my spine from my feet to the back of my head. I instinctively looked down – on the floor, my shadow was contorting, slowly lifting its head, a silent grin splitting the featureless face.