Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Suspense/Mystery

Chapter 1

"You do not have much longer left..." he rasped, and even in the shadows his tall frame seemed daunting. There was a pause before the answer came, "But yet it does not bother me." The voice was carried out on cloud of misty vapour, where it reached the windows opposite and mingled with the sheets of fine ice that etched themselves across the fine windows. But nothing about this cold was fine.

"It should though, shouldn't it?" He continues to rasp, "The only reason you would not be bothered is if you didn't..."
"But I do..." The interruption was short but to the point. The one who spoke hauled himself out of the chair in which he was seated and reached for a crooked chipped walking stick which leant against the chair he was seated in. The walking stick must have been ancient... and so must have the man been man who held it.

As he doddered into the dimly lit light, it became clear he could be no younger than 60. He stooped over his walking stick as if his life depended on it, as if he was crippled by the long life he may have lived. He had pale skin, and though it was not wrinkled, it expressed age and his sunken, yet blazing, blue eyes expressed nothing but knowledge, and all but of an elderly nature. 

The man stopped his doddering. 
"I do not want you here... you have nothing to do with me and I have nothing to do with you."
Silence was the reply from the strange figure in the shadows.
"I have someone in mind," said the man, "But it isn't you." His last words were almost a whisper... a series of angry hisses. 
"You have no one," the shadow man rasped, "You're lonely out here, all on you're own..."
Pushing his chest out, the elderly man replied: "I am not lonely... I am just alone..." 
The shadow man did not reply but simply turned on his heel and glided swiftly away, soon being swallowed by the looming shadows that enveloped the room. The man was alone.