Gemotions

"Grandpa, look! He’s flying a kite!" Little Leo beamed, presenting his grandfather, John, with a crayon illustration. John forced a smile. The figure in the drawing, "The Shade," bore a disturbingly familiar resemblance to John's own childhood creation.

The old man began to feel a familiar chill, a coldness that seeped into his bones. He started to forget things, his mind a battlefield of fragmented memories. He withdrew from his family, preferring the solitude of his study.

He began seeing things in the periphery, fleeting shadows that danced at the edges of his vision. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the core, that his past was about to catch up with him. He saw The Shade, standing beside his bed, a single, silent tear running down its cheek.