Electric Shadows

The dark film spiraled through the brain in the platter, over the loose, squeaking pulleys and into the phantom geyser of light, painting electric shadows on the screen of the 98-seater auditorium. The projectionist stepped forward in trepidation, reaching out to it like a lifeline, wondering who had started the film when all of the movies had been out for thirty minutes.

Weary from a full day of work, the projectionist gazed through the glass in front of the scope lens. The film needed to be framed. They reached out for the knob on the front, below the lens, and framed it. There, on the silver screen, a teenage girl in a Victorian nightgown standing in front of a stone wall. Staring. Alone. But she looked right into the heart of the projectionist, and it felt as if a beam of energy were emanating from her piercing globes.

She reached up a thin finger and pointed past the theatre employee. The projectionist turned slowly, chills vibrating down the tectonic plates of their spine. Behind them was a black brick tunnel. The sound of a drip, drip, dripping echoed through right into the projectionist's throat. They stepped forward. There were barred doors on the sides of the tunnel, as if some sort of prison, though the projectionist dared not look inside. Screeches and screams filled the cavern as if wafting in like a fume of sewage, permeating every inch of the space, drenching the wanderer's skin with sound like a moist evil, soaking into the very marrow of their bones.

Further, they went. Each step far too loud for comfort in the deep of the tunnel's darkness. Too dark to see now that the dim, yellow light of the projection booth had died. Maybe their eyes would adjust (At least, the sojourner hoped). Ahead they could make out a quiet, blue light, a whisper of an azure flame, dancing in the distance. The projectionist swallowed thorny fear and trudged on toward the emanation. There stood a miniature monolith of a stone pedestal on which sat a dark candle with a blue flame. The flame upon the wick was in the fiery form of a woman, dancing in the depths of the pool of melted wax. She began singing a little melody, a ghost of the past. Behind the dancing flame, was the girl in the nightgown. She was translucent with a slightly, powder blue hue. She rolled her feet forward, gliding to the candle, smiling. But the grin widened. And widened. To her nose. To her eyes. She breathed in…

And blew the candle out.

Darkness. A glow in the background. A gleam. A flicker of twenty-four frames per second dashing through an aperture and wrapping through the teeth of the projector. There, the projectionist stood in a stone room. Cold as dry ice. Goosebumps irradiated their arms as they peered out to the auditorium. They crept forward but the path was blocked by a glass wall. They could see out to the seats. The cushions that should be empty... but they were filled with wicked patrons flashing their wild grins. Their popping eyes watched the prisoner past the fourth wall. The projectionist pounded and screamed. There in the projection booth passed the glass, they could see her. The girl in the Victorian nightgown, focusing the film on the screen. The projectionist pondered what would occur if the film ended. 'What happens to me? What happens to my soul?'

The electric shadows diminished. There were no frames left. Oblivion wrapped the projectionist's mind. But as an everlasting sleep consumed them, they heard a deep rolling voice call, "I have been waiting long. At last.

“At last."

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END

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Flash Fiction

1st Edition: Originally Published on Vocal Media 2021

2nd Edition: December 9th, 2025

Written in 2021.