The Shadows That Sang Lullabies

“Anna, your shadow just winked at me!” Eddy whispered, pressing his back against the closet door like he was trying to disappear into it.

Anna blinked. “My shadow doesn’t wink. It just… follows me.”

But there it was—on the wall beside her bed, stretching long and thin in the dim glow of the nightlight shaped like a giggling moon. Anna’s shadow tilted its head, then lifted one finger in a tiny wave. And then, impossibly, it opened its shadow-mouth and sang: “Hush now, little dreamer, stars are blinking bright…”

Lily X, who had been quietly building a pillow fort with Emma and Bell, dropped her neon-green blanket. “Did that shadow just sing a lullaby?!”

“It did,” said Lily N, adjusting her glasses. “And I think… I think all the shadows are doing it.”

They looked around. Under the bed, behind the bookshelf, even on the ceiling where Hyuga had taped up glow-in-the-dark planets—every shadow was softly swaying. And every one began humming or singing in quiet, crooning voices: “Close your eyes, don’t be afraid, we’ll guard your dreams like lemonade.”

Emma shrieked—not because she was scared, but because her own shadow started tap-dancing across the floor while whispering, “Dream of cupcakes, bouncy castles, flying cats with jelly-filled satchels!”

Pye, who usually hated bedtime, sat up straight. “This is awesome . Are they here to eat us?”

Alexis, ever the skeptic, crossed her arms. “Shadows can’t talk. They’re just… dark shapes.”

But then her shadow stood up on its own, bowed dramatically, and recited a poem about socks that ran away from laundry baskets. Everyone burst out laughing—even Alexis, though she tried to hide it behind her hand.

Only Bell looked nervous. She hugged her stuffed fox, Mr. Tumble, tight. “What if they want to take our dreams? What if they’re… hungry ?”

Just then, the lights flickered. The room went pitch black for three heartbeats—and when the nightlight blinked back on, the shadows were gone.

Silence.

Then—a soft chorus rose from under the beds, beneath the rugs, inside the closets: “We don’t eat dreams. We protect them. We’ve sung through centuries, keeping nightmares at bay. But tonight… the Dark Snipper is near.”

“The what ?” Eddy squeaked.

Hyuga, who had been silently assembling a robot out of old spoons and rubber bands, finally spoke. “I read about it. The Dark Snipper. A thing that cuts dreams right out of kids’ heads and turns them into sad little knots. Only lullabies sung by true friends can stop it.”

The shadows shimmered back into view, forming a circle around the children. Anna’s shadow held out a hand—well, a shadow-hand—and gestured for them to join hands too.

“We need your voices,” whispered Lily X’s shadow, doing a cartwheel across the wall. “Sing with us. Loud. Silly. From your hearts.”

“But we don’t know the song!” cried Emma.

Bell looked down at Mr. Tumble. “Maybe… maybe we make one up?”

And so they did.

Eddy started with a goofy tune about spaghetti monsters who only ate meatball clouds. Anna added verses about dancing shoes that glowed in the rain. Lily N rhymed math equations with marshmallow pies. Pye yodeled. Hyuga beatboxed using a comb and a tissue. Emma twirled and sang about a sleepy dragon who sneezed glitter. Alexis, after much grumbling, admitted she once wrote a poem about a brave umbrella—and shared it in a voice softer than snowfall.

Their shadows danced wildly, growing brighter, stretching taller, weaving a glowing net of sound across the room.

Then—a cold draft. A snip sound, like scissors cutting silk.

At the foot of Anna’s bed, a wisp of thick blackness slithered in. It had too many eyes and fingers made of smoke. The Dark Snipper.

It reached toward Eddy’s head, where a golden thread of dream floated above him—Eddy dreaming of racing sloths on rainbow skateboards.

“NO!” shouted Bell—and she jumped off her bed, Mr. Tumble in one hand, and belted out the silliest, most heartfelt lullaby she knew, about a lonely sock finding its pair in a toaster.

The moment she sang, her shadow grew ten feet tall, wrapped the Dark Snipper in a cozy shadow-blanket, and tied it up with a bow made of starlight.

The creature let out a tiny, disgruntled “pfft” and dissolved into a puff of dandelion fluff that floated out the window.

The room exhaled.

The shadows bowed, one by one.

“Thank you, brave singers,” they hummed. “Now rest. We’ll keep watch. Always.”

As the children crawled back into bed, yawning, their shadows curled up beside them like loyal pets—some snoring softly, others still humming lullabies under their breath.

Anna turned to Eddy. “So… my shadow did wink at you.”

Eddy grinned. “Yeah. And I think it likes you.”

Outside, the moon smiled. And somewhere, deep in the quiet corners of the world, other shadows began to sing—because every child deserves a song to guard their dreams.