"Suspicious...Suspicious...Suspicious..." Genoa mumbled to herself as she and her brother entered their condo.

Harold let out a deep sigh before saying, "Stop it!"

"Stop what?" said Genoa, innocently.

"You know what I mean!" said Harold giving her a look.

"I'm not doing anything." protested Genoa

"I saw how you looked at him. Our new neighbor is not the shadow man!" said Harold. He shut the door behind them with his foot and then carried the bags into the kitchen.

Genoa followed after him, putting her hands behind her back. "Can you be certain?"

"Yes," said Harold rolling his eyes.

He put the bags down on the kitchen counter, spreading them out and then rolled his shoulders, happy to be free of the weight. After a few seconds, he reached into one of the bags and pulling out a handful of grapes. He popped two into his mouth before continuing, "Because for the millionth time Genoa, HE... DOES... NOT... EXIST! So would you please, please stop looking for him in every person we meet."

Genoa moved her arms in front of her, crossing them, "That's easy for you to say, he's not after you!"

Harold groaned, "Nor is he you, he is simply a figment of your overactive imagination! Now, would please stop obsessing!" Genoa let out a groan of her own, Harold shook his head and then waved her off. "Go change! Paint!"

She glared at her brother for a moment but said nothing, knowing they'd had this conversation countless times before, no matter how hard she tried to make him understand, he just couldn't… wouldn't. She let out a halfhearted sigh and turned from him. She dragged her feet as she wandered out of the kitchen and ran a hand along the wall as she went down the long hallway to her room.

She changed out of her clothes and into one of her favorite painting outfits, a polka doted shirt, faded blue overall shorts and a brightly colored apron, they were all splattered with various amounts of paint. She tied her orange hair back into a sloppy bun and then put a fresh handkerchief on her head. Finally she stepped into some paint splattered slippers and made her way to her art studio, a few rooms away.

Mid morning light poured though a big window that went from the ceiling to the floor. She stepped up to it and pressed her head again the cool glass. She looked down at the tiny cars and people below, wondering what they were up to. After a moment, she let out a heavy sigh and walked up to a large blank canvas. She stared at it for a moment turning the easel it sat on, until she found an angle she liked. She rolled her shoulders and then turned on some dramatic, classical music. It bellowed throughout the room as she began popped the lids off a can of black and then gray paint.

She looked at the clean canvas, once more and then dove her right hand into the black paint up to her wrist. She moved her left hand dipping it into the gray and stepped up close to the canvas. She began moving her hands about, thinking of the man she'd met today...Could he be the one? Could he be the one…

Did you ever know overwhelming fear...all encompassing dread, Genoa did. She knew to always be on the look out, for something was waiting to strike around each and every corner. She moved her hands frantically about the canvas before dipping them into the paint once more. Gobs of paint dripped on the floor as she dragged her hands up and down the canvas, making an up close picture of the shadow man as she dubbed him.

He was the figure of her nightmares...the owner of the dark shadow that never left her side. One day she knew he would come for his shadow...come for her. She continued to paint until she had a dark figure before her. She left its eyes empty and stepped back. She nodded to herself before washing her hands. She moved around the room then, popping the lids off more cans of paint. She mixing various blues and whites, trying to make the color of that elevator man's eyes. They had been quite...peculiar.

Everyone was a suspect! Everyone was a potential threat to her until they weren't! She had to be vigilant...had to be ready at a moments notice… Admittedly sometimes it was hard not being able to trust, to relax around anyone new but the shadow man could potential come in any form, man...maybe even a woman…perhaps something else all together. The shadow man could be an alien from another plant, a monster from the earths core...whatever shape the owner of the dakr shadow took...Genoa needed to be ready...

She thought over the elevator man and his rather suspicious nature as she paced around the room. The music intensified around her...vibrating through her thoughts. She'd never seen this man before "supposedly" he owned the penthouse at the top of the building. The shadow man was often rich, wasn't he? She'd seen the palaces he owned, the towers of doom that dripped with blood. Yes... YES! for him..money and power were easy to come by...especially when he was willing to be absolutely ruthless.

Genoa swallowed, her eyes focusing and unfocusing as she fell deeper into her thoughts. She recalled how the elevator man, had turned around, she looked at him, looked deep into his eyes, hoping to know if it was him. His eye color had been striking, but even up close she couldn't tell. She stepped up to her paint and moved her hands through the it. She placed ice blue eyes on the shadowy figure. When she was finished, she stumbled back, looking at her latest creation. Her body trembled and she sunk to her knees, thinking yes...yes this seemed right...this was the color of his eyes...his eyes were the color of ice..ice…ice...ice…

Genoa closed her eyes and ran her blue hands over her cheesk. She let her mind drift back to that night...so long ago, when her entire world had changed forever. Her father had been lightly singing to the radio, her mother had been snoring, fast asleep...baby brother, Rury had also been asleep, his head to the side in his car seat. Harold wasn't there...he was away at school.

She'd laid down having most the seat to herself, she'd been sleepy but had not yet fallen asleep. She recalled taking off her seat belt, wrapped in a blanket, no one could tell. She wasn't suppose remove it to but she slept better when she wasn't wearing it.

Looking out the dark car window, she watched the falling snow. She almost couldn't tell the difference between the snow and the stars in the sky. Eventually she'd closed her eyes...only for a moment and then the car shifted. Everything move to one side and then the other as they skid across a patch of ice. One moment, they were turning sharply, the next the car was crashing through the barrier of a bridge.

The car rolled and Genoa was thrown about until they finally landed upside down. Everything had hurt so badly then. She cried out but she wasn't the only one, she heard her mother screaming, her baby brother wailing... she couldn't recall hearing her father. A strange cracking sound could barley be heard over the cries. Suddenly they were falling again...ice cold water began to rush inside the car, filling it up.

She remembered it was cold...so so cold. She tried to move but everything hurt. She kept crying and her mother kept screaming, her brother sobbed endlessly and then everything went quiet...so so quiet and dark. She was no longer in pain...she felt like she was falling for the longest time and then drifting.

Slowly the darkness around her began to fade, strange images filled her mind... memories...so so many memories but they weren't hers and yet...yet they were. She found herself confused she was Genoa but then she was...was...Tavia...yes it was short for Octavia. Her mother had liked the name...she recalled running through a castle as a child. Beings lifted up by her father, spun round and round.

She remembered eating warm biscuits, tarts...pies. Her father was a baker…YES...and not just any baker...a royal baker. She loved to watch him and her mother work, loved the smell of sugars and spices. When she grew up she made desserts of her own...cream filled...colorful powders...She remembered working the dough in her hand, loving the feel. She wanted to be a baker too but...it wasn't to be...so many things happened….there was...a man...no...two men….A whole life...passed through her until a most vivid memory filled her….Her last...memory. She found herself in a high tower of the castle, at the end.

Her dress was torn, she struggled with someone on the floor...they wouldn't let go of her. She felt her neck tighten as someone choked her, squeezed the life out of her. They called out to her in a raspy voice "I wont ever let you go! I wont ever let you go! YOU ARE MINE!"

They were injured…they were dying and sought to smother the life out of her, rather then let Tavia live without them. Oh how she struggled...how she wanted to live. She fought to get free with all she had but in the end it wasn't enough...she'd succumb. In her final moments, she recalled stared into their eyes, the memory of them was a bit hazy now, after all these years, she couldn't quite recall the color...until now. They had been like the man's at the elevator...ice blue. They'd cruelly stared into her soul with such malice...such overwhelming greed until her vision faded and she fell away.

Seeing all of this as child had frightened Genoa, she had cried out, recalling such a horror, the windows in the car shattered as air rippled out around her. She awoke in the water and struggled to swim to the surface. She only managed to swim out of the car before she passed out. When she awoke again she was drifting in the dark waters.

She tried to swim to the surface once more, but found she was under the ice. She'd pounded her fists against it until things went dark once more. When she woke she saw light peering through the ice, there were various shapes and colors on the other side of the ice but what caught her attention was tiny air bubbles that moved along, underneath the ice. Curiously, she followed them and they lead her to the hole her families car had made, when it had fallen through the ice.

She burst through the water and the air stung her lungs, somehow she managed to make it onto the land before she passed out again. When she awoke once more, she wandered through the snow, through some woods for who knows how long. Several times she'd fall down and pass out...only to wake and keep moving. She didn't know what was happening to her...what to do, where to go but soon found she wasn't alone..something else was out there...watching her.

One time she awoke in the snow, to see shadows gathering all around her, after a few minutes they scattered as one shadow rose above all the others. Sitting in the snow, she saw the shadow of a tall figure looming over her. She looked all around for its owner but it was nowhere to be found. At first she was confused and then frightened. She tried to run away from the shadow but no matter what she did, she couldn't lose it, since that day it never left her…

Eventually she grew weak and tired...she passed out yet again. When she woke her fear of it lessened. It waved at her and she let it guide her out of the woods and onto a road. An older couple eventually found her and took her to the hospital. She realized the shadow had helped her and she thought it might be her friend then…

At the hospital, they treated her for her injures and the doctors wanted to know what had happened. She told them about the car falling into the water, how the windows had shattered and she'd followed the air bubbles. When she told them of the shadow that had happened her to the road, no one believed her. She tried to show them the shadow but found it was gone, later when she was alone it appeared once more. She realized it hadn't gone away but took the shape of object around her, hiding. No matter what she did it wouldn't show itself to others.

It took some time but eventually they found her brother, Harold. He'd been so happy to see her, she could still remember him coming around the nurses station and seeing her. He'd just stood there for the longest time, apparently he'd thought she was dead like the rest of their family. She learned that she'd been missing for almost two weeks. Yet to her it only felt like a day or so but it was hard to recall time...when she kept passing out.

Harold was just so happy to have her back. He usually teased her and they'd get into fights but after that day they never fought again...not really. She could still recall him holding her hand in her hospital room. He promised to take care of her, to always be with her. She knew one day she'd have to break...his promise.

They ran several tests on her over the next few weeks, trying to understand how she had survived the crash, the elements of winter...but there were no answers...only more and more questions. Eventually the hospital released her to Harold. He dropped out of college to take care of her. They had to sell the house and move into a small one bedroom apartment. Harold gave her the bedroom and lived in the living room. They tried to have a normal life as normal as it could be after what had happened.

He had to get a job and she had to go back to school but it was hard to go back...after what she'd seen...what she knew. She found herself pulling away from everyone. Whenever she was alone, she'd try to communicate with the shadow, tried to understand it ...what it wanted.. soon enough the nightmares began.

Night after night, she'd wake screaming bloody murder. Harold would rush into her room and wake her. He ask her what had upset so her but she couldn't remember. It was like her brain was protecting her, as soon as she woke up the nightmares would be gone...only the fear….a sense of overwhelming dread would remain. At time went on she slowly began to understand what she was seeing, she'd be able to recall details after she woke...it was then that she learned the shadow was not her friend…

The shadow or more as its owner was a true monster, her worst fears all wrapped into one. She realized the shadow was just watching her until his owner returned. Oh how she screamed, the day she realized the shadow man would one day come for her. She'd seen how he destroyed worlds...destroyed her. She knew in time he'd destroy everything she held dear.

She tried to get help...tried to warn others of his arrival her teachers...her principle...the police but no one would listen...not even her brother. She had no choice but to take matters into her own hands. She packed up her things and planned to run away…. She thought she could protect Harold if the shadow man didn't know he existed. She would be sad to leave him but it was for his own good...Of course Harold caught her before she could make her move.

He was so mad at her, he yelled and screamed but what scared her the most was when he cried. He broke down and she realized, she was all he had, she couldn't leave him...not yet. She tried to tell him again...tried to warn him once more about what was coming. She thought maybe they could prepare together or even run away together. He really listened to her and she thought he understood how much danger they were in.

He said he was going to take her to get some help. She thought they'd go see the army or some top secret agency but he just took her to doctors, who ran more tests and asked more questions. They thought she had PTSD from the accident. They put her on so many different medications, she had to see a therapist once a week. At school things became difficult, she found it hard to connect with anyone her own age. The other kids teased and bullied her about the shadow man. Eventually after one misunderstanding to many Harold pulled her out of school.

He home schooled her during the day and would work nights. He sacrificed everything to take care of her. She felt horrible he had to, she spent most her time alone, dreading the future, for years she struggled with the reality of her situation. Then one day, one of her doctors introduced her to art therapy, telling her to paint what she saw...to release her nightmares onto canvas.

At first she was hesitant to do so but it helped her to think...to make sense of it all, when several people saw her dark paintings and took an interest, her brother started to sell them under a fake name. They took off and eventually they made enough money for Harold to stop working. He was able to stay with her and she kept painting.

Eventually they had their own galleries, they sold so many paintings that they were able to buy this condo...to make a world of their own as Harold had put it, where she could feel safe...But Genoa knew she would never truly be safe, not when the shadow man was out there somewhere... All she could really do was lookout, wait and dread the day he made her nightmares a reality…

She opened her eyes and wondered once more...was it him...was it him.