Shadows over my shoulder...

How is everyone going?
I've got uni stuff to do... And I'm not in the right place to do it and it seems like I don't have enough time too. The shadows are slowly creeping up. Anyway... Here's a story.

Shoulder to Cry on - Cecilia
    When she was a little girl, Cecilia was quite a cry-baby. Not that she was over-emotional, she just got scared easily and her friend loved to scare her. She was scared of the shadows too and would whimper in the night until she moved herself next to her mother. One day her friend was selected by a master and left the village to learn. Cecilia cried for days and felt alone without her friend there. Eventually she got used to that reality and shut the memories away in the remote part of her brain, but she carried her friend's panpipes with her at all times. 

Years later, her village was burnt to the ground while she was practising her own set of panpipes. She braved the flames that lapped at her skin and pulled her parents and some of the other villagers out, only to discover they were already dead. A clean stab wound in their chests. Cecilia mourned the loss of her village and those in it, and with the clothes on her back and her panpipes, left the burnt ruins behind her. 

She couldn't cry, as that would show weakness, and every night she was haunted by the faces of the villagers and their cries, The shadows looked more dangerous each night, until one when Cecilia set up camp in dense woodland. Once she had started a fire, she played a tune on her pipes. The sound attracted someone or something else that hovered just outside the boundary of light the fire gave. She stopped and watched the shadows for a while before she snuffed out the dying fire. The presence was comforting, Cecilia felt nothing dangerous about it.  

When she woke in the morning and started for the town nearby, she came across five dead bodies. A clean stab wound in each chest. People came into view along the road and Cecilia waved them over to examine the bodies. They told her that the bodies were trained killers that called the woods part of their territory. Terrified she came so close to death, Cecilia made it to the town and after earning money from playing her panpipes, found an inn to stay in. Once night had fallen, Cecilia felt the presence again. She opened the window of her room and saw nothing outside. She played a tune on her panpipes and left it on the windowsill. She went to sleep for what seemed like a moment when she woke to the sound of the panpipes. It was a sad melody, one that would often be played at funerals in her village. After the last note faded into the night, Cecilia went over to the window and spoke to the wind. 

''Thank-you for before. You can keep the pipes, I have another. Use them to talk to me, I'll listen whenever you want me to.'' 

She went back to sleep, a smile on her face as the sound of another tune, a slightly more happy one, drifted through the room. 

The presence that stayed in the shadows needed someone to cry to and Cecilia was that person.

Mmm... Anyway, have a great day everyone!