A dark shadow, a shadow of the shadow that I never could fathom, stretched across the room. We stood motionless, almost dazed, for the moment. The shadows lengthened rapidly. I tried to guess what I thought.
"This is a horrible thought," muttered Trenor.
"It is a very, very horrible thought." Then, his tone lowers, almost imperceptible,
"It is the one thing that makes me shudder--the thought that has given me terror.
Trenor and I braved ourselves and walked towards that shadow, the only one of the darkness I knew. I walked on and on until I reached the foot of the big stone and then paused. I felt drained. I wanted to reach the window, but even then, there was no escape now.
"It is very late," I said, "and there is the door in the wall that opens into the garden."
Then we turned. There we halted. I had not intended to remain stationary, so I made up my mind that the first thing I must do was move to the inn's door by the way I had entered it. I must either move my body forward or wait for the right moment. What was that moment to me, I wondered?
But the door was closed. We heard footsteps now.
"Hearing footsteps," I said, still in the dazed way I had at first been.
I looked at Tenor as both of us waited for the worst.
"Well?" I inquired.
"I--I wonder what the thing was, anyway?"
Tenor looked straight and decided: "I dunno. We didn't see that sign--the only one. We thought they were some machine. It hadn't any electric bell, so we thought it was an electric motor."
Trenor opened the door and watched the dark shadow move across the room, his heart beating quickly. Now it seemed the house itself had been darkened.
"Now, now, now!" he cried, his eyes blazing. At the moment, the door, which was not opened, was quickly pushed open.
The shadow leaped across the shadowy depths, and I could see that it was a man with an ungainly, wrinkled face and dark hair, whose face had been turned towards me.
In a few moments, we were at the other door, but we were on the side of the lane between the two towers.
We looked back at each other; for a moment, there was no sound. We don't know how but we got out. We were saved, but we had erred somehow. I could not stand the thought of it.
But of all events, it struck me somehow that it was my turn now, and then I remembered this was the very man who had killed Trenor some three or four months later.
Was this a prophecy?
Was I flung back in time to change our future?
Was I to relive this over and over again?
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