501 Creative Writing Prompts - Prompt #1: The Shadow (creative writing exercise)

I just bought a book called 5-Minute Daily Writing Prompts: 501 Prompts to Unleash Creativity and Spark Inspiration, and I thought I would try out some of the prompts and post the results. I won't post the actual prompts for copyright reasons--just what I myself type out in response after about 20 minutes of working on it. 

Here's the first one.

Image by Midjourney

The Shadow

“Meow! Meow!”

Chelsea woke up to the sounds of her cat crying. The crying went on for what felt like a long, long time before the fog of sleep lifted enough for guilt to kick in. The room was pitch black save for the faint, white impression Snowball left. Chelsea stood and the blood rushed from her head, making her dizzy. She reached out blindly and braced herself against the wall. The meowing and little cat gurgles got more excited. She could see Snowball's pale radiance trotting out of the bedroom door. 

She flipped on the light switch and something immediately startled her. In the quiet and the calm that followed, she had to think about whether or not she really saw what she thought she did. She thought she saw a copy of her shadow dart away from the wall out the bedroom door. 

Heart thumping, she turned on the lights to the hallway. She saw it again: the copy of her shadow pressed against the wall. But this time, it didn’t run. It snuck very carefully into the living room, merging once again with the dark. 

Chelsea went through the first story of the house, turning on every light switch. When she got to the kitchen, Snowball was anxiously awaiting his midnight snack. But she also saw her shadow on the wall. And it appeared to be holding the hand of another shadow: the distinct outline of a little girl. Her shadow seemed to be having a conversation with it.

Chelsea stood in front of the pair of them. They seemed to ignore her. She moved her own shadow in front of the two of them. When the two shadows locked, she had a warm, falling sensation, and suddenly, she was in a place of white light, experiencing the conversation her shadow was having with... herself as a little girl. Now, with a sudden new download of information, it was as though this conversation had been inevitable. She could see how everything in life had brought them to this point.