The smell of burnt coffee and stale disappointment always filled our kitchen before the sun even cleared the horizon. My father sat across from me, his eyes bloodshot, staring at a stack of bills as if he could set them on fire with sheer resentment. He did not look at me. He rarely did.
But I could not stop looking at the thing standing directly behind him. It was a towering, skeletal figure draped in rags that seemed to be made of frozen smoke. Its fingers, long and needle-thin, rested lightly on my father's shoulders. Every time my father sighed, the creature leaned closer, its lipless mouth hovering just inches from his ear. This was my reality. I saw them. I saw the Shinigami.
Eat your food and get out, my father muttered, his voice raspy from years of cheap cigarettes and unfulfilled dreams. I looked down at my plate, the eggs cold and rubbery. I tried to focus on the mundane sounds of the neighborhood, the distant hum of traffic and the chirping of birds, anything to ignore the freezing chill radiating from the entity in the room.
The air around the Shinigami was different. It felt heavy, like the atmosphere before a violent thunderstorm, but without the promise of rain. It was just pressure. Pure, suffocating pressure.
I am going to work, I said, my voice barely a whisper. I did not have a job, not a real one, but I spent my days doing odd tasks for the local shopkeepers just to stay out of the house. My father finally looked up, his gaze sharp and filled with a familiar bitterness.
Work? You call hauling boxes for pennies work? You are twenty-two, Adam. When I was your age, I had a career. I had a future. And then I had you.
The Shinigami behind him reacted to his anger. Its smoky robes flared, and its elongated fingers sank deeper into his shoulders. I watched as the gray skin of the creature seemed to pulse with a faint, sickly light. It was feeding.
It did not eat flesh or blood; it ate the darkness in a man's heart. It thrived on his regret, his anger, and the slow erosion of his soul. Every time he insulted me, the creature grew a fraction more solid.
I stood up, my chair screeching against the linoleum floor. The sound was like a physical blow in the silent kitchen. I did not say anything. I could not. If I told him what I saw, he would just call me crazy.
He had spent years telling me I was a failure, a burden, a mistake that cost him everything. Adding madness to the list would not help. I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door, feeling the creature's hollow, empty eyes following me. It knew I could see it. It always knew.
The streets of the city were no better. They were everywhere. Some were small, clinging to the backs of stressed businessmen like parasites. Others were massive, looming over the homeless or the heartbroken like silent sentinels of doom.
I walked with my head down, my hands shoved deep into my pockets. I had learned early on that making eye contact with a Shinigami was a mistake. They were territorial. They did not like being perceived by the living.
I reached the docks where a man named Marcus ran a small warehouse. He was one of the few people who did not have a shadow clinging to him. He was a simple man, content with his life, and that made him invisible to the entities.
He nodded as I approached, pointing toward a stack of wooden crates near the loading bay. Same as yesterday, Adam. Get them organized and moved to the back. There is twenty in it for you.
I nodded and got to work. The physical labor was a relief. It allowed me to focus on the burn in my muscles instead of the spectral horrors lurking in the corners of the city. I hauled the crates, my breath coming in short bursts. The salt air from the harbor was cold, but it felt clean. It was one of the few places where the stench of death and decay did not linger.
As I worked, I thought about how my life had become a series of escapes. Escaping the house, escaping my father's words, escaping the gaze of the Shinigami. I wanted to be more than a witness to the end of things.
I wanted to live, to build something, to find a reason to wake up that did not involve checking for shadows. But every time I tried to move forward, the weight of my father's hatred pulled me back. He was a black hole, and I was trapped in his orbit.
Hours passed, and the sun began to dip below the skyline, painting the clouds in shades of bruised purple and orange. I finished the last of the crates and wiped the sweat from my brow. Marcus walked over and handed me two crumpled ten-dollar bills.
Good work, kid. Try to get some meat on those bones, you look like a ghost yourself.
I took the money and offered a forced smile. If only he knew. I left the warehouse and started the long walk back home. The transition from day to night was when the Shinigami were most active.
They seemed to blend into the deepening shadows, their forms becoming more distinct, more terrifying. I saw one perched on the roof of a diner, its long tail whipping back and forth like a cat waiting for a mouse. Below it, a young woman sat alone, crying into her hands. The Shinigami was waiting for her to break.
I hurried past, my heart hammering against my ribs. I could not help everyone. I could not even help myself. By the time I reached our apartment building, the air had turned frigid. I climbed the stairs, each step feeling heavier than the last. I could hear my father's voice before I even reached the door. He was shouting.
I opened the door and stopped dead. The kitchen was a mess. A chair was overturned, and a shattered bottle of whiskey lay in the center of the floor, the liquid soaking into the rug. My father was standing by the window, his chest heaving.
And the Shinigami was no longer just behind him. It had its arms wrapped around his chest in a dark, suffocating embrace. Its face was pressed against the side of his head, its mouth wide open as if it were whispering secrets directly into his brain.
You are back, my father hissed, turning to look at me. His eyes were wide, the pupils dilated until they were almost entirely black. You think you are better than me? You think you can just walk out and come back whenever you want?
I stepped into the room, my eyes fixed on the creature. It was glowing now, a vibrant, terrifying violet. It was no longer feeding on his anger; it was driving it. It was pushing him past the point of no return.
Dad, calm down, I said, my voice trembling. You have had too much to drink. Just sit down.
Sit down? he roared, taking a step toward me. He tripped over the overturned chair and stumbled, his face turning a deep, angry red. You are the reason my life is a disaster! You and your mother! She left because of you, and I stayed to rot in this hellhole!
The Shinigami let out a low, guttural hiss that vibrated in my teeth. It leaned in closer to him, and then, for the first time in my life, I heard it speak. Its voice was not a sound; it was a cold vibration in the back of my mind, a jagged edge of ice cutting through my thoughts.
Break him, the Shinigami whispered. The words were not meant for my father. They were meant for me. Break him, and he will be mine.
My father grabbed a jagged piece of the broken bottle from the floor. He was not himself. The man I knew was bitter and cruel, but he was not a killer. Yet, under the influence of the entity, he looked like a monster. He lunged at me, his movements clumsy but filled with a desperate, frantic energy. I ducked, the glass whistling past my ear.
Stop it! I yelled, shoving him back. He hit the wall with a dull thud, the breath leaving his lungs in a wheeze. The Shinigami shrieked, a sound of pure frustration. It wanted blood. It wanted the final collapse of his spirit.
It tightened its grip on him, its shadowy claws sinking into his skin. My father gasped, his eyes rolling back in his head. He began to convulse, his body shaking with a violent, unnatural rhythm.
I realized then that the Shinigami was not just waiting for him to die. It was killing him. It was accelerating the process, forcing his heart to fail under the weight of his own misery. I rushed forward, forgetting my fear. I grabbed my father's shoulders, trying to pull him away from the wall, away from the creature.
My hands passed through the cold, misty form of the Shinigami. It felt like sticking my arms into a freezer. The creature turned its head, its empty sockets fixing on mine. It let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-growl. It did not fear me. To it, I was just another fragile soul waiting to be harvested.
I looked at my father's face. He was pale, his lips turning blue. He was dying right in front of me, and there was nothing I could do. The bills, the insults, the years of neglect—it was all coming to this. A cold kitchen and a shadow that did not exist.
I felt a surge of pure, unadulterated rage. It was not fair. He was a terrible father, but he was a man. He did not deserve to be a meal for a nightmare.
Get away from him! I screamed, slamming my fist into the space where the creature's chest should be.
To my shock, I did not pass through it this time. My knuckles connected with something cold and hard, like ancient stone. The Shinigami recoiled, its grip on my father loosening. It looked at me with what could only be described as surprise.
My father slumped to the floor, unconscious but breathing. The creature hovered in the center of the room, its robes swirling like a dark vortex. It stared at me for a long moment, the air around us crackling with a strange, dark energy. Then, it began to fade, its form dissolving back into the shadows of the room.
But before it disappeared completely, I heard its voice one last time, clearer and more chilling than before.
You have the touch of the void, seeker. We will see you again very soon.
I collapsed onto the floor beside my father, my heart racing so fast I thought it might burst. My hand, the one I had used to strike the creature, was glowing with a faint, pulsing gray light. It did not hurt, but it felt numb, as if the nerves had been replaced by shadows.
I looked around the empty kitchen. The silence was deafening. I had saved him, but I knew the cost would be far greater than I could imagine. The contract of my life had just been rewritten in blood and shadow.
I looked at my glowing hand and realized my world would never be the same again. Something had changed inside me, and the shadows were no longer just watching. They were waiting.