My daughter always turned up at the front gate at one o’clock in the morning – and her shadow never followed.
You notice things only when you stare long enough, or when something refuses to meet your gaze. In my case it all began with something I didn’t see.
A shadow.
My daughter’s shadow.
It wasn’t there.
And it has never returned.
Her name is Harriet. She was twelve when the trouble started. She loved crumpets, geometry and practising TikTok dances in front of the cracked bathroom mirror. For the first twelve years of her life Harriet was pure sunshine on legs – untidy braids, muddy socks, always humming a slightly off‑key tune.
Until three weeks ago.
That’s when she began arriving home at one in the morning.
The first night I nearly fainted when the front door creaked open so late. I had fallen asleep on the settee, waiting for her after her extra‑curricular lessons. She was supposed to be back by half past six in the evening. When ten o’clock came I called the school, her friends, her private tutor – no one had seen her.
And then, at one a.m., she slipped in through the door.
She seemed unusually calm, almost too calm.
I sprang up. “Harriet! Where have you been? I was—”
She lifted a hand slowly and said, “Don’t worry, Mum, I’m fine.”
That was all. No tears. No apology. No fear. She walked straight to her room and locked the door.
I stared at the floor for a long while. Something felt… wrong. The air she brought in was icy, as if it had been stored in a freezer. The hallway lights flickered once and steadied. I told myself I was over‑thinking. Kids her age can be odd, can’t they?
The next night the same thing happened. She didn’t return until one a.m., and entered as if she lived in a different time zone, offering the same words in the same tone.
But this time I noticed something. She passed the dining‑room wall lamp, yet her shadow did not.
It simply was not there. No outline, no shape, nothing.
I thought I was hallucinating. I turned on every light in the house and asked her to stand beneath them. The light illuminated her face, but the floor behind her remained empty. She realised I was watching.
“What’s the matter, Mum?” she asked.
I blinked. “Nothing. Just tired.”
She nodded and walked away. I watched her once more as she left the room. Her body moved, but no shadow trailed behind.
The following day I called the school and asked why they were letting her out so late every day. The woman on the other end hesitated, then said, “Madam, your daughter hasn’t been to school since the last mid‑term exam, over three weeks ago. We sent several notices, but you never replied.”
My heart stopped. “She goes out every morning,” I whispered. “She wears the uniform. She even takes her water bottle.”
I went to the fridge after the call. Her water bottle was still there, untouched, exactly as I had left it on the day of that exam.
That night I could not sleep. I turned off all the lights, sat by the sitting‑room window and waited.
At precisely one a.m. the front gate swung open of its own accord. And she came in. Harriet, but not Harriet.
From the outside she looked the same, but her eyes never blinked. Her breathing fell silent, then resumed with a strange rhythm. She looked at me and tilted her head.
“Why are you up, Mum?” she asked.
I forced a smile. “Waiting for you.” Then I said something I hadn’t meant to.
“Where’s your shadow?”
She smiled, but it was a cold, lipless smile. “It stayed behind.” She slipped past me.
When she passed the wall mirror, something flickered for an instant – a taller figure, eyes too large, a grin too thin.
I pulled my face away, heart hammering, hands trembling.
Now she sleeps in her own room, in her own bed, breathing softly. Quiet, calm.
But her shadow… her true shadow? I think it lingers outside, waiting for a chance to slip back in.
Episode Two: The Thing That Crawls Under the Door
Since Harriet “returned,” the house has never breathed the same.
By day everything seems ordinary. Harriet gets up, sits down for breakfast, but never eats. She stirs the cereal, flips through her notebooks, hums low‑pitched songs that I’ve never heard; the lyrics are in no language I recognise. By afternoon she simply disappears.
She never says where she’s going, never asks permission to leave. The front door opens and shuts on its own at exactly six forty‑five in the evening – not a minute early, not a minute late. I wait there, in the dark, alone, with a question that grows more insistent: Is that thing really my daughter?
I began noticing small things. The walls seem to breathe, at least when Harriet is home. The ceiling cracks widen slightly, as if they stretch with her presence. The houseplants I’ve tended for years wilt only in her bedroom, as if something unseen touches them each night.
One sleepless night I rose for a drink and passed her bedroom door, half‑ajar. Inside she was not asleep. She sat on the edge of the bed, back to me, mouthing the strange song, brushing the hair of a faceless doll.
Behind her, on the wall, a shadow moved. Not hers. It was taller, thinner, leading her rather than following.
I fled to my own room, slammed the door, propped it open with a chair, prayed. Prayer, however, offers little comfort when evil has entered through invitation.
The next day I did something desperate. I took the most recent photograph of Harriet and compared it with one taken a month earlier. Her eyes were no longer light brown; they were a sickly green‑gray, like stagnant water. Her pupils were vertical slits, like a cat’s or a serpent’s.
That night I sprinkled flour across the hallway floor – a simple trap. At one a.m. I heard the door open, soft steps, then a pause. I feigned sleep, keeping one eye open. Harriet stood in the doorway of my room, silent, unmoving. Then I saw something shift beneath her feet.
The flour bore no human footprints, only fine, dragged marks as if something with long claws had skittered along the ground. The worst part was a long, curved line – a tail dragging behind her.
This morning I found a note beneath my pillow. It was not written by hand; the words seemed burned onto the paper. It read:
“Mum, I’m trapped. This isn’t me. Don’t let her in tomorrow.”
Now I am terrified, because it is fifty‑nine minutes to midnight, and the gate outside is already beginning to swing open on its own.
Episode Three: The Voice Behind the Door
One a.m., the clock’s hand clicked, and the front door opened by itself.
I sat in the sitting‑room, the note still, my heart pounding as if trying to break free from my ribs. I did not go to answer. This time I hid behind the curtain, phone silenced, lights off.
Footsteps came – one, two, three. They were not the light tread of a teenager. They were heavier, as if bearing a burden, or as if not entirely human.
Then a voice. “Mum… I’m here.” It was not wholly hers. It was deeper, echoing, as if two mouths spoke at once – one trying to sound like Harriet, the other dragging syllables like claws over glass.
“Mum… are you awake?” the voice asked.
The door knob turned. I held my breath. She did not enter – not yet. She pressed her forehead to the door, began to weep. The tears were not wet; they were dry, cracked, as if something inside her was shattering.
“Mum… I’m cold. Let me in…” she whispered.
I wanted to open it. I wanted to run to her. It sounded like my daughter, at least in part. But the note surged in my mind: “This isn’t me. Don’t let her in tomorrow.” The thing inside the house was not her. The words made sense: the real Harriet was outside, and whatever was inside was something else.
At three thirty‑three a.m. the footsteps receded. The front door closed again. Silence returned, and finally I could breathe.
At sunrise I entered Harriet’s bedroom. It was empty, but not wholly so. On the bed lay a box wrapped in black cloth, tied with a strand of human hair. Inside was a doll, an exact replica of me, with a knife‑etched message on its head:
“You will be next.”
Episode Four: The Mirror That Refuses to Reflect
The next day was unreal. Harriet did not return to school. She did not answer her friends’ messages. Her phone remained off. The doll on her bed stayed, its eyes, its clothes, its frozen expression of terror.
I tried to burn it. It would not catch fire; it only gave off the smell of charred flesh.
At half past midnight, I did something foolish. I placed a mirror opposite the front door. It was not superstition; it was desperation. If the thing that came each night was not Harriet, I wanted to see it.
One a.m., the lock turned. I sat on the hallway floor, breath held. The door opened slowly, a figure stepped in. It was Harriet, wearing her blue jacket, backpack slung over a shoulder, hair tied back, skin pallid.
“Hello, Mum,” she said, as always, but she did not look at me. She stared at the mirror. And the mirror showed nothing.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the glass with an icy smile.
“Nothing, love,” I replied, voice broken. “How was school?”
“Fine,” she answered. “We learned about photosynthesis today.” I knew the lesson had been taught two weeks earlier.
Harriet passed the mirror without casting a shadow, without reflecting an image, without any presence at all. A cold draft brushed my feet.
I slept with the door bolted, the doll buried in a sack in the back garden. At three a.m. I heard laughter, not from the hallway but from within my wardrobe. I opened it slowly. The doll sat there, a new expression on its face – a smile. Between its tiny fingers it held a lock of my hair.
The following day I took the doll to the parish church. The vicar would not touch it, merely muttering, “Parasite.” He whispered that there are entities that imitate, that watch, that learn, that infiltrate. Sometimes they need an invitation; other times they merely need to be believed.
I asked, “Where is my daughter?” He looked at me with pity. “If her shadow does not follow, perhaps she is no longer of this world.”
That night I set up hidden night‑vision cameras, hoping for proof. What they captured made my blood run cold.
My daughter entered the house, not through the door, but falling from the roof like a broken puppet. She rose with disjointed movements, and as she walked the corridor something slithered behind her – formless, faceless, dragging invisible claws along the walls. She turned toward the camera and said, “Mum… stop watching.” The screen went black.
Episode Five: The Place She Goes When She Leaves
After seeing that footage I could not sleep. I smashed the cameras, threw the doll into the river, prayed with every breath I had. Nothing helped. Harriet still arrived at one a.m., each night colder, more perfect, more empty.
One morning I rifled through her backpack while she slept. There were no books, only damp earth – black, like freshly turned grave soil. Folded inside was a note, creased into four:
“She’s at school. I’m the one who returns. Don’t ask any more.”
I called the school. “Is Harriet attending?” I asked, choking back tears. There was a long silence on the other end.
“Madam… your daughter hasn’t been here since last month.” The voice was flat. “We thought she had withdrawn. Did you not receive our calls?”
I had not. Someone else had been answering for me, using my voice, living my routine, sleeping in my bed.
That night I waited for “Harriet.” I hid behind the curtain. One a.m. silence. Then a soft thump on the roof, the familiar sound of something falling without a soul. She rose, walked straight to my room. I followed.
From the slightly ajar door I saw something impossible: the figure knelt before the wardrobe, whispering in a tongue that sounded like reversed lamentations. The wardrobe opened by itself and a second girl emerged – gaunt, pale, lips sewn with black thread, trembling, mute. The impostor embraced her, murmuring, “You’re almost ready.” Both turned to the door, to me, and said in unison, “Mum, now it’s your turn.”
I ran. I cannot remember descending the stairs; I only know I was barefoot on the street, screaming. No lights came on, no neighbours stirred – it was as if the whole village were under a spell.
The next day I brought the police. The house was empty. The wardrobe was gone. No cameras. No earth in the backpack. No doll. Only a line carved into my bedroom wall: “She is not yours.”
I did not give up. I demanded the school hand over its security footage. There I saw Harriet – the real one – trapped in a room that did not exist in the building’s blueprint. No windows, no exit, just a desk, a chair, a mirror. In the mirror I smiled at her, but it was not my smile.
Now I understand. My daughter is stuck somewhere between this world and another. The thing that lives with me, that walks like her, calls me “Mum,” will not give her back unless I free her.
Episode Six: The Name I Must Not Speak
I scoured old archives, hidden forums, closed churches, and finally a dark corner of the internet where no one should tread. There I found a single word – a name that, according to the lore, could summon what hides behind the mirror the way a candle summons a moth. The warning read:
“Say it once and she sees you. Twice and she hears you. Thrice… you belong to her.”
I wrote the name on scrap paper and burned it at once, but the letters seemed to breathe, to move, and I could not shake the image.
One morning “Harriet” made breakfast – perfect pancakes, too perfect. “Did you like them, Mum?” she asked. I looked into her dark, bottomless eyes and realised she knew I knew.
I slipped down to the cellar, behind the boiler, and found the mirror we had thrown out weeks before, now draped in a black sheet. I pulled it away. The reflection showed nothing – I was not there, but Harriet, the real one, was on the other side, pounding, screaming, unable to be heard.
I whispered the forbidden name once. Nothing. Twice, the glass trembled. I stopped before a third utterance, fearing I might never return. Yet the memory of Harriet’s drawings, her laughter, her terror spurred me on. I said it a third time.
Everything went black.
When I opened my eyes there was no house, no mirror, only a damp, dark corridor and at its, an empty classroom. I ran to the centre. Harriet sat chained to a chair. I threw my arms around her.
“Mum! I’m here,” she sobbed. “She’s coming. Don’t say her name again.”
I asked, “Who?” She could not answer; her voice was gone. Behind her the mirror began to bleed, and from the blood rose the faceless woman – the imitator, the one that had taken my daughter.
We fled down the corridor, the woman following, her shadow spreading across the walls like a living stain. “Don’t look back,” I urged Harriet. The exit to the real world loomed ahead.
Harriet leapt. I was about to step through when a cold hand seized my ankle. “You said my name,” it hissed.
I awoke in my own bed. Harriet was in the kitchen, flipping pancakes. Her shadow trailed her. “Mum, are you alright?” she asked. I nodded, though my voice felt hollow.
I went to the bathroom, stared into the mirror – there was no one there.
Episode Seven: Mum No Longer Lives Here
The house smelled of breakfast, of fresh pancakes, of an ordinary morning. Yet I was no longer myself. Harriet of the kitchen looked at me with love, as if nothing were wrong, as if she never remembered the dark corridor or the faceless woman.
“Feeling better, Mum?” she asked.
“Yes…” I lied. My voice sounded as if it came from a well.
I tried to touch my face; my fingers passed through my own reflection. My shadow stood still, watching, waiting.
That night I lay beside Harriet, holding her tightly. She shivered.
“Mum?” she whispered. “You’re not my mum.”
I pulled away, hurt. Was I lying, or had she finally seen through the illusion?
I descended into the cellar, searching for the mirror. It was gone. In its place a note, written in a hand that was not mine:
“The body returns. The soul, not always.” Beneath it, in blood, a question: Who sleeps in your bed?
Since then, strange things have happened. My reflection flickers when I don’t. My shadow walks the hallway alone. Harriet now keeps the bedroom door locked, sleeps with the lights on, murmuring at night, “Give me my mum back.”
One day I found her diary under a pillow. A drawing chilled my blood: Harriet standing beside a woman with empty eyes and the words beneath: “She wears my skin, but she isn’t me.”
I went to the school, demanding answers. The headmistress told me, with a tremor in her voice, “Your daughter has not been here for weeks.”
“How can that be? I’ve been leaving her every night!” I protested.
“She died two months ago. You attended the funeral, didn’t you? You don’t remember?”
I rushed home. Harriet was there, playing with a doll. “What are you?” I shouted. She did not answer, only smiled. In her eyes was no child, only a void.
I.
assistantanalysisThe user wants continuation with one sentence, finishing story with a dot. Must not include code.
We need one sentence that concludes the story.
Write a final sentence that wraps up. Ensure proper grammar. No extra text.
Let’s craft: “And as the last candle guttered, I finally understood that the house had never been mine at all, only a waiting room for the shadows we leave behind.” That’s one sentence.
Make sure ends with period.assistantfinalAnd as the last candle guttered, I finally understood that the house had never been mine at all, only a waiting room for the shadows we leave behind.
