Ghosts.

A piece of toast, and a glass of water was enough to set Mark out the door. Late as he was, he didn't have much time for anything else. On his way out, he took a quick glance at the rack of swords that sat idly on display in the living room. There were six of them, all different shapes and sizes, and each one had a different background, a different story to be told about them.

They all came from different countries and his father had told him that they all used to belong to the greatest warriors of old. Mark knew each and every story by heart, and he had even found records in the library, confirming them as actual events that occurred in history. The stories had gown dull after awhile, though. His fascination with the swords had faded over the years, and now, to Mark, the swords were just decorations in his house. Quickly, he shut the door behind him.

The sun had already begun beating down on the Earth, and Mark was grateful that he had dressed light. His shadow was cast far in front of him, and he didn't notice for the longest time, but as he walked, even as he turned, his shadow remained in front of him, regardless of the position of the sun. Eventually, he did notice, when he started walking in the direction of the sun, that his own shadow was facing a different way than everything else. At first, he disregarded it as just weird, but it soon dawned on him that it was a physical phenomena.

Mark stopped, dead in his tracks, and stared at his shadow. To his horror, something within the darkness began stirring, and Mark was no longer staring at his own shadow, but at a human-shaped abyss in the ground. He checked to see if he was still sleeping, but he knew that this was real. It was impossible, but it was real.

Moments later a hand sprung forth from the hole. It was the hand of a rotting corpse, the skin was peeling off, revealing what had been under it, a few nails were missing, and a knuckle bone was completely exposed. Mark could only stare in fear as the hand latched onto the street around the darkness, and began pulling the rest of its body out of what used to be a shadow.

Just as the head was coming out of the hole, the loud honk of a bus horn snapped Mark's attention to it. When he looked back, the ground was normal, and his shadow was cast the correct way according to the sun's positioning. Still a bit shaken, he hasted to the waiting bus, and got on, looking for familiar faces. He found one and sat down next to the face's owner.

"What were you doing? You were standing there for like two minutes, man... Hey, you listening? Dude, you look like you've seen a ghost."