The Sleeping Shadow

By Daniel Xie 

Age 12

All we wanted was peace. Peace. We did not mean any harm, or any damage. It wasn’t our fault. I never believed in ghosts when I was a kid. In fact, I think I never believed in ghosts my whole life until this point. Ghosts are real. I can prove it.


I remember it was August the 5th when my new sister and I were going on a trip to Cuba to get “along.” You see, Mom and Dad divorced and I was left with Dad.  Then he was married to a lady named Beth. I don’t get why Mom left Dad. She said something about Dad caring more about our dog instead of her and that she was going to leave because no one cared about her. Yeah, I don’t really get it either.


So anyway, my stepmother has a daughter named Meg. I am one year older than Meg. I’m seventeen, she’s sixteen. She said that we should take a plane alone to Cuba to get to know each other. We didn’t talk much on the plane. “So…” Meg finally said, taking a sip of water, “What is your  mother like?”


“Oh, she’s active, fun, joyful, and nice,” I said, looking out the window. We usually talk more at home. We would laugh and play games and call each other names. But on the plane, we were exhausted waking up three in the morning to catch the plane. So we both kind of fell asleep an hour later.

We were both woken up by a boom.

I think Meg and I woke up at the same exact time, lifting our heads up looking for something that made the boom sound.

There was a big hole in the middle of the plane. A huge splash of cold air whipped in the plane like a bucket of cold water. People were being sucked out of the plane, grabbing an object so they won’t fly out.

“Jump!” I yelled.

“Why don’t you jump first, scaredy cat?” she screamed, trying to be louder than the wind.

“Haven’t you heard of ladies first?” I asked.

So she held her breath and jumped, but the wind carried her like a tornado, and I knew Meg was in trouble so I jumped down.  We didn’t know what to do. The wind was as strong as a tornado in midair.

I saw a lake while falling and thought that we would be having a soft landing. We hit the lake and it felt like taking a brick to the face.

“Meg? Meg!” I yelled, hoping she was okay and rubbing blood off my face.

She stood out of the water and coughed.

We were happy we were alive.

“Do you hear that?” Meg asked.

I listened.

It sounded like little kids crying and it was echoing in my head.

“Yeah” I replied.

Then a dark shadow appeared.

At first we thought it was a person’s shadow but we saw no person.

It was a ghost. A ghost.

We backed away as I try to sound brave, “Who are yo-”

“Be quiet!” Meg whispered.

“We don’t know who that is!”

“How dare you,” the shadow whispered.

We looked around. Trees were broken and more shadows were crying and on the ground.

“I think they are mad at us for intruding here,” I told Meg.

We both got scared and started to run.

Luckily a rescue chopper came in as I grabbed the ladder.

“Come on Meg!” but then I realized that the shadow had captured her.

With my very own eyes I watched as my stepsister turned all black. Like she was being burned to ashes.

Meg was now one of them, the shadows. She hissed and grabbed my leg, but I kicked her and opened the door to the chopper. I felt my leg burn a little as I saw my leg was black. I had no choice but to leave her. I looked out the window as she and the other shadows went back to the trees and disappear.

I close my eyes and hear Meg’s human voice saying over and over again louder each time: “How dare you.”