Shadows

Earlier this evening I opened my door and was immediately greeted by my shadow. It scared the hell out of me. My honest first reaction was to yelp and stumble backwards, and that's when I realized that I, like a groundhog, sometimes get scared of my shadow. It reminded me of two similar events which are two of my favorite memories of being alive.

1) My friend and I had just gone to see a movie. It wasn't a scary movie, in fact, if I am correct, it was Kung Fu Panda. However, we had to park in the back of the movie theater near the trailer park. I call this area Stab Alley, because there are broken bottles and used needles littering the ground. As we got into the movie, the sun was just setting, so we didn't really think anything of parking in the back. However, after the movie let out, and we were walking back towards her car, we started to notice how dark and creepy it had gotten. I get creeped out easily, and as we were walking back to the car I kept thinking that someone was following us. My friend did not really notice anything until I said, "Doesn't it feel like someone is following us?" She agreed and we kept walking. I could see her car when I glanced over my shoulder and saw what I thought was someone right behind us. I lost my head completely and screamed, "RUN!! RUN!!" My friend and I started screaming and we ran towards her car and got in. It wasn't until the doors were locked that my friend turned to me and said, "What the hell was that?" I replied, "I thought I saw someone...but now I'm thinking it's just my shadow." She was not amused.

2) Another story that doesn't really relate all that much except to tie in with the getting startled part of this blog post is a story that happened last year while I was still at school in Rhode Island. My roommate was at work and it was around nine-thirty at night. I have this habit of going on Wikipedia and getting trapped within there for hours if you let me. Bear with me because it is very important to the story. (Oh, you should also know my roommate has/had long black/brown hair.) OKay, so there was a commerical for the Uninvited on tv. I Wikipedia'd it to read what it is about and it had a link for the original Korean version of it. I read that as well. On that page was a link for Korean horror movies. (Here is a flow chart: The Uninvited---->Original Korean version---->Korean horror movies---->various Korean horror movies.) Well, I started getting freaked out. In fact, I kept thinking I was seeing a whisp of black hair out of the corner of my eye and decided it was time to stop reading about killer asian women. However, I couldn't calm myself down. I knew my roommate was getting home at about 10:15 and at 10:00 I went to the bathroom and, on the way back, I took out my phone and called her. This is our conversation:
Her: Hey. What's up?
Me: I freaked myself out.
Her: How?
Me: I kept reading Wikipedia entries about Korean horror movies.
Her: Oh for the love of...Why?
Me: I don't know. But I keep thinking I'm going to turn around and (punching in my key and turning the handle of my door) see an Asian woman (opens door) just standing in our dorm room--AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Why did I start screaming bloody murder? Because my roommate, with the long black/brown hair, was standing in the middle of my room. And yes, for a split second, she looked asian. She looked like a Korean woman who had come to kill me.
And no, not a SINGLE person on my floor came to see why I was screaming bloody murder. So, if there had been a asian murderess in my room, I would have been killed...or molested, depending on whether or not it was the Grudge Lady or not.