Ever since childhood, the darkness beneath my bed has held an almost magnetic terror — a space too quiet, too deep, where my imagination painted shadows into living things. Every creak of the floorboards, every flicker of the nightlight, every whisper of wind through the half-open window fed a single thought I could never outgrow: something’s down there.
Even as an adult, logic told me it was nonsense. Monsters weren’t real. Childhood fears fade, or so I believed — until last night.
The house was still, the only sound the soft hum of the ceiling fan. I had just turned off the lights, pulled the blanket up to my chin, and begun to drift toward sleep when I heard it: a faint rustle, so soft it almost blended into the darkness. My eyes snapped open. For a moment, I told myself it was just the fabric shifting — nothing more. But then came the second sound — clearer this time, deliberate, like someone moving slowly and carefully in the dark.
Every instinct screamed to move, to reach for the switch and flood the room with light. But fear has a way of rooting you in place. My heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears. The noise stopped, replaced by an unnerving silence — the kind that presses against your chest, making each breath feel too loud.
I swallowed hard, my mind racing between reason and terror. Was it a mouse? The pipes? The house settling? Or was it the echo of every story I’d told myself as a kid, waiting for the right night to prove me wrong?
Finally, I reached for my phone. The faint glow of its screen broke the dark as I turned on the flashlight, the beam trembling slightly in my shaking hand.
I leaned over the side of the bed, my pulse hammering as I aimed the light beneath me.