In The Shadows
by Dawg
The Bridge and the Voice
There’s a kind of boredom that doesn’t just dull you–
it gnaws, hollowing out your insides
with the slow, methodical patience of rot.
That’s where we were, Jon and me,
stuck somewhere between middle-age denial
and the shadow of wasted youth.
Neither of us believed in ghosts, not really,
but you start to crave any excuse to feel something sharp.
Ghost hunting wasn’t a calling or a crusade.
It was a raised middle finger at everything safe and numb.
That bridge, out past the county line
where cell service died and the woods thickened,
had a gravity you could feel pulling at you the closer you got,
like the trees leaning in were old judges, watching, waiting.
We parked, got out, and the air hit us–
cool, thick, carrying the scent of mud and dead leaves.
The river below moved slow, never loud but always present,
like it was listening.
When I finally spoke–“Did you hear that?”–
it was less a question, more a lifeline.
It wasn’t until later, with the windows up
and the car heater rattling,
that we played the audio back.
There, buried in the noise, was my voice–
thin, strained.
And then, clear as sunrise–
a child’s voice. Unmistakable.
“I heard that too.”
Just five words, but they hung in the car like a noose.
For weeks, that voice haunted the edges of sleep.
That’s the thing about an experience like that–
you don’t get to go back to the way things were.
Chasing Orbs and Shadows
The bridge wasn’t an ending,
just the opening shot that splintered our easy disbelief.
We were infected with curiosity,
the kind that won’t let you sleep.
But it wasn’t just ghosts we found in those rooms.
There’s a kind of honesty that creeps in with the dark,
a permission to drop every mask
and speak from the ache that hides under the skin.
We talked about the things that haunted us,
not spirits, but memories–
fucked-up childhoods, mistakes, losses,
the things we never fixed.
The truth is, we became addicted–
not to the scares, but to the clarity that came after.
Every shadow was a story.
Every room held a piece of someone’s pain.
Belief Beyond the Shadows
That feeling pulled us further,
right up to the battlefield,
ground heavy with loss,
history grinding beneath the grass.
We listened–
not just for voices,
but for anything,
any sign that the world we knew was only half the truth.
Jon changed that night. We both did.
We stopped asking for proof.
We started paying attention.
Maybe belief isn’t about faith, or science, or answers.
Maybe it’s about learning to live with questions.
About letting the mysteries breathe.
About honoring the things that can’t be proven,
but still change you.
What we found was never a ghost caught on tape,
or a face in the window.
It was the charge of possibility,
the ache of unfinished stories,
the fierce need to believe in something bigger than ourselves.
In chasing shadows,
we found each other–
and found a reason to keep chasing,
even when the hunt is done.