A supernatural short story
It was a normal day. No change to routine, no issues, everything was perfect. She walked the empty street occasionally stopping under the street light to check her watch.
Walk, walk, stop, repeat.
She heard a thump, crack as her phone slipped from her pocket onto the cement. She sighed loudly with disappointment, feeling like she jinxed her good day.
She paused while bending down slowly to retrieve the crushed bits of plastic. For a moment, she was silent and confused. The shadow on the cement was her size, petite and lean, but it was standing.
She was kneeling down.
Springing upward she whipped around, but no one was there. The shadow that was just above her was gone. Perplexed, she swiftly moved down the street, no longer stopping under the lights.
She didn’t notice that the shadow matched her pace.
The final street light was in sight. It was the last illumination before her front door. Feeling like home was a savior she sprinted into the darkness. In “bad day” fashion, she tripped and landed face-first on the roadway. Dazed and in pain, she tried to push herself up.
It didn’t work.
A light was seen in the distance, two headlights. The car didn’t see the girl on the road desperately trying to stand, scream, and live.
Flashback
“Push! Push! You can do it!” The doctor encouraged the exhausted mother while waiting to catch the baby. “One last push!” The father encouraged.
With a grunt and a scream, the first one was partially born. It was stuck. It couldn’t come out of the womb because it was holding on to something. The doctor pulled at the inserted arm revealing another arm.
Twins.
“Okay, you need to push one more time!” The doctor urgently shouted.
The parents were shocked at his tone, but the mother yelled in agony for one final contracted push. The room was in a frenzy as the nurses cleaned the infants. The parents anxiously waited for news, any news.
The saddened doctor said, “Only one made it, I am so sorry.” The living child was handed to the parents. The mother looked down and saw a tiny handprint on the girl’s wrist.
The baby screamed. It was eagerly wanting to live, just as the same child is now watching the headlights come for her life.
On the road
One last push. She stood, but the car didn’t slow. She looked down and saw that same shadow.
This time it was moving.
The shadowed arm gripped her wrist and in a thrashing motion, she was thrown to safety, landing under the street light. The cement was cold as she lay on the ground.
She rolled up her sleeve revealing a scar. The scar left by her twin on the day she was born and the day her sister died.
The shadow hovered above for a moment as the girl smiled.
She laid there and whispered “It was you. You never left. You saved me then, you saved me now. I will never escape your shadow, my sister.”
Prompt by Christine Graves “Titles Tell me the story behind this title: Her Sister’s Shadow.”
Tas The Artist 
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