The Dark Somnium - It Comes at Bedtime

Episode Date: December 31, 2022

This creepypasta scary story is from the creepypasta website, written by Michael Whitehouse, This was Originally posted in 2012. Make sure to check out the original story and support the author! https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-Whitehouse/author/B00D791RUI?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=trueThumbnail artwork by Stefan Koidl, make sure to check out their art here: https://www.instagram.com/stefankoidl/--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/darksomnium/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Bedtime is supposed to be a happy event for a tired child. For me, it was terrifying. While some children might complain about being put to bed before they finished watching a movie or playing their favorite video game when I was a child, nighttime was something to truly fear. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it still is. As someone who was trained in the sciences, I cannot prove that what happened to me was objectively real, but I can swear that what I experienced was just a very.

genuine horror, a fear which in my life, I'm glad to say, has never been equaled. I will relate it all to you now as best I can. Make of it what you will, but I'll be glad to just get it off my chest. I can't remember exactly when it started, but my apprehension toward falling asleep seemed to correspond with my being moved into a room of my own. I was eight years old at the time, and until then, I had shared a room, quite happily, with my older brother. As is perfectly understandable for a boy five years my senior, my brother eventually wished for a room of his own, and as a result, I was given the room at the back of the house.

It was a small, narrow, yet oddly elongated room, large enough for a bed and a couple of chests of drawers, but not much else. I couldn't really complain, because even at that age, I understood that we did not have a large house, and I had no real cause to be disappointed. my family was both loving and caring. It was a happy childhood during the day. A solitary window looked out into our back garden. Nothing out of the ordinary, but even during the day, the light which crept into that room seemed

almost hesitant. As my brother was given a new bed, I was given the bunk beds which we used to share. While I was upset about sleeping on my own, I was excited at the thought of being able to sleep on the top bunk, which seemed far more adventurous to me. From the very first night, I remember a strange feeling of unease creeping slowly from the back of my mind. I lay on the top bunk, staring down at my action figures and cars strewn across the green blue carpet.

As imaginary battles and adventures took place between the toys on the floor, I couldn't help but feel that my eyes were being slowly drawn towards the bottom bunk, as if something was moving in the corner of my eye, something which did not wish to be seen. The bunk was empty, impeccably made with a dark blue blanket tucked in neatly, partially covering two rather bland white pillows. I didn't think anything of it at the time. I was a child, and the noise slipping under my door from my parents' television bathed me in a warm sense of safety and well-being.

I fell asleep. When you awake from a deep sleep to something moving or stirring, it can take a few moments for you to truly understand what is happening. The fog of sleep hangs over your eyes and ears even when lucid. Something was moving. There was no doubt about that. At first, I wasn't sure what it was. Everything was dark, almost pitch black, but there was enough light creeping in from the outside

to outline that narrowly suffocating room. Two thoughts appeared in my mind almost simultaneously. The first was that my parents were in bed because the rest of the house lay both in darkness and silence. The second thought turned to the noise, a noise which had obviously woken me. As the last of the cobwebs withered from my mind, the noise took on a more familiar form. Sometimes the simplest of sounds can be the most unnerving, a cold wind whistling through a tree outside, a neighbor's footsteps uncomfortably close, or in this case, a sound

of bed sheets rustling in the dark. That was it. Bed sheets rustling in the dark as if some disturbed sleeper. was attempting to get all too comfortable in the bottom bunk. I lay there in disbelief, thinking that the noise was either my imagination or perhaps just my pet cat finding somewhere comfortable to spend the night. It was then that I noticed my door, shut as it had been as I'd fallen asleep. Perhaps my mom had checked on me and the cat had sneaked into my room then.

Yes, that must have been it. I turned to face the wall, closing my eyes in the vain hope that I could fall back to sleep. As I moved, the rustling from beneath me ceased. I thought that I must have disturbed my cat, but quickly I realized that the visitor in the bottom bunk was much less mundane than my pet trying to sleep, and much more sinister. As if alerted to and disgruntled by my presence, the disturbed sleeper began to toss and turn violently, but like a child having a tantrum in their bed. I could hear the sheets twist and turn with increasing ferocity, fear then

gripped me, not like the subtle sense of unease I had experienced earlier, but now potent and terrifying. My heart raced as my eyes panicked, scanning the almost impenetrable darkness. I let out a cry. As most young boys do, I instinctively shouted from my mother. I could hear something stir on the other side of the house, but as I began to breathe a sigh of relief that my parents were coming to save me, the bunk bed suddenly started to shake violently, as if gripped by an earthquake, scraping against the house.

the wall. I could hear the sheep below me thrashing around as if tormented by malice. I did not want to jump down to safety as I feared the thing in the bottom bunk would reach out and grab me, pulling me into the darkness. So I stayed there, white knuckles clenching my own blanket like a shroud of protection. The weight seemed like an eternity. The door finally, and thankfully, burst open, and I lay bathed in light while the bottom bunk, the resting place of my unwanted visitor lay empty and peaceful. I cried, and my mother consoled me. Tears of fear, followed by relief, streamed down my face.

Yet, through all the horror and relief, I did not tell her why I was so upset. I cannot explain it, but it was as though whatever had been in that bunk would return if I even so much as spoke of it, or uttered a single syllable of its existence. Whether that was the truth, I do not know, but as a child, I felt as if that was a child, I felt as if that Unseen malice remained close, listening. My mother lay in the empty bunk, promising to stay there until morning. Eventually, my anxiety diminished. Tiredness pushed me back towards sleep, but I remained restless, waking several times

momentarily to the sound of rustling bed sheets. I remembered the next day wanting to go anywhere, be anywhere, but in that narrow suffocating room. It was a Saturday, and I played outside quite happily with my friends. Although our house was not large, we were lucky to have a long, sloping garden in the back. We played there often, as much of it was overgrown, and we could hide in the bushes, climb in the huge sycamore tree which towered above all else, and easily imagine ourselves in the throes of a grand adventure in some untamed exotic land.

As fun as it all was, occasionally my eye would turn to that small window, ordinary, slight, innocuous. But for me, that thin boundary was a looking-glass into a strange, cold pocket of dread. Outside, the lush green surroundings of our garden filled with the smiling faces of my friends could not extinguish the creeping feeling clawing its way up my spine, each hair standing on end. The feeling of something in that room, watching me play, waiting for the night when I would be alone, eagerly filled with hate. It may sound strange to you, but by the time my parents ushered me back into that room for the night, I said nothing.

I didn't protest. I didn't even make an excuse as to why I couldn't sleep there. I simply and sullenly walked into that room, climbed the few steps into the top bunk, and then waited. As an adult, I would be telling everyone about my experience, but even at that age, I felt almost silly to be talking about something which I really had no evidence for. I would be lying, however, if I said this was my primary reason. I still felt that this thing would be enraged if I so much as spoke of it.

It's funny how certain words can remain hidden from your mind, no matter how blatant or obvious they are. One word came to me that second night, lying there in the darkness alone, frightened, aware of a rotten change in the atmosphere, a thickening of the air as if something had displaced it. As I heard the first casual twists of the bedsheet below, the first anxious increase of my heartbeat at the realization that something was once again in the bottom bunk, that word, a word which had been sent into exile, filtered up through my consciousness, breaking free

of all repression, gasping for air, screaming, etching and carving itself into my mind. Ghost. As this thought came to me, I noticed that my unwelcome visitor had ceased moving. The bed sheets lay calm and dormant, but they had been replaced by something far more hideous, a slow, rhythmic, rasping breath heaved and escaped from the thing below. I can imagine its chest rising and falling with each sordid, wheezing, and garbled breath. I shuddered and hoped beyond all hope that it would leave without occurrence. The house lay, as it had the previous night, in a thick blanket of darkness, silence prevailed.

All but for the perverted breath of my as yet unseen bunkmate. I lay there terrified. I just wanted this thing to go, to leave me alone. What did it want? Then something unmistakably chilling transpired. It moved. It moved in a way different from before. When it threw itself around in the bottom bunk, it seemed unrestrained, without purpose,

almost animalistic. This movement, however, was driven by awareness. by purpose, with a goal in mind. For that thing laying there in the darkness, that thing which seemed intent on terrorizing a young boy, calmly and nonchalantly, sat up. Its labored breathing had become louder, as now only a mattress and a few flimsy wooden slats separated my body from the unearthly breath below. I lay there, my eyes filled with tears, a fear which mere words cannot relate to you or

anyone else coursed through my veins. I would not have believed that this fear could have been heightened, but I was so wrong. I imagined what this would be like, sitting there, listening from below my mattress, hoping to catch the slightest hint that I was awake. Imagination then turned to an unnerving reality. It began to touch the wooden slats which my mattress sat on. It seemed to caress them carefully, running what I imagined to be fingers and hands across the surface of the wood.

Then, with great force, it prodded angrily between two slats into the mattress. Even through the padding, it felt as though someone had viciously stuck their fingers into my side. I let out an almighty cry, and the wheezing, shaking, and moving thing in the bunk below replied in kind by violently vibrating the bunk as it had the night before. Small flakes of paint powdered onto my blanket from the wall as the frame of the bed scraped along it, backwards and forwards. Once again, I was bathed in light, and there stood my mother, loving, caring as she always was, with a comforting hug and calming words which eventually subdued my hysteria.

Of course she asked what was wrong, but I could not say, I dared not say. I simply said one word over and over and over again. Nightmare. This pattern of events continued for weeks, if not months. After night, I would awaken to the sound of rustling sheets. Each time I would scream so as to not provide this abomination with time to prod and feel for me. With each cry, the bed would shake violently, stopping with the arrival of my mother who would

spend the rest of the night in the bottom bunk, seemingly unaware of the sinister force torturing her son nightly. Along the way, I managed to feign illness a few times and come up with other less than truthful reasons for sleeping in my parents' bed. But more often than not, I would be alone for the first few hours of each night in that place. The room where the light from the outside did not sit right, alone with that thing. With time, you can become desensitized to almost anything, no matter how horrific. I had come to realize that, for whatever reason, this thing could not harm me when my mother was

present. I am sure the same would have been said for my father, but as loving as he was, waking him from sleep was almost impossible. After a few months, I had grown accustomed to my nightly visitor. Do not mistake this for some unearthly friendship. I detested the thing. I still feared it greatly, as I could almost sense its desire and its personality, if you could call it that.

One filled with a perverted and twisted hatred yet longing for me, or perhaps all things. My greatest fears were realized in the winter. The days grew short, and the longer night. merely provided this wretch with more opportunities. It was a difficult time for my family. My grandmother, a wonderfully kind and gentlewoman, had deteriorated greatly since the death of my grandfather. My mother was trying her best to keep her in the community as long as possible. However, dementia is a cruel and degenerative illness, robbing a person of their memories one day at a time. Soon she recognized none of us, and it became clear that she would need to be moved

from her house to a nursing home. My grandmother had a particularly difficult few nights, and my mother decided that she would stay with her. As much as I loved my grandmother and felt nothing but anguish at her illness, to this day, I feel guilty that my first thoughts were not of her, but of what my nightly visitor may do should it become aware of my mother's absence. Her presence being the one thing which I was sure was protecting me from the full horror of this thing's reach. I rushed home from school that day and immediately wrenched the bed sheets and mattress from the lower bunk, removing all the slats and placing an old desk and a chest of drawers and some chairs which we kept in the cupboard where the bottom bunk used to be.

I told my father I was making an office, which he found adorable, but I would be damned if I'd give that thing a place to sleep for one more night. As darkness approached, I lay there knowing my mother was not in the house. I did not know what to do. My only impulse was to sneak into her jewelry box and take a small family crucifix, which I had seen there before. While my family was not very religious, at that age, I still believed in God and hoped that somehow this would protect me.

Although fearful and anxious, while gripping the crucifix under my pillow tightly in one hand, sleep eventually came, and as I drifted off to dream, I hoped that I would awaken in the morning without incident. Unfortunately, that night was the most terrifying of all. I woke gradually. The room was once again dark. As my eyes adjusted, I could gradually make out the window, the doors, the walls, and some toys on the shelf, and even to this day, I shudder to think of it.

For there was no noise, no rustling of sheets, no movement at all. The room felt lifeless, lifeless yet not empty. The nightly visitor, that unwelcome, wheezing, hate-filled thing which had terrorized me night after night, was not in the bottom bunk. It was in my bed. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Utter terror had shaken the very sound from my voice. I lay motionless.

If I could not scream, I did not want to let it know I was awake. I had not yet seen it. I could only feel it. It was obscured under my blanket. I could see its outline. I could feel its presence, but I dared not look. The weight of it pressed down on top of me, a sensation I will never forget. When I say that hours passed, I do not exaggerate.

Laying there motionless in the darkness, I was every bit a scared and frightened young boy. If it had been during the summer months, it would have been light by now, but the grasp of winter is long and unrelenting, and I knew it would be hours before sunrise, a sunrise which I yearned for. I was a timid child by nature, but I reached a breaking point, a moment where I could wait no more, where I could survive under this intimately deviant abomination no longer. Fear can sometimes wear you out, make you threadbare, a shell of nerves leaving only the slightest trace of you behind.

I had to get out of that bed. Then I remembered the crucifix. My hands still lay underneath the pillow, but it was empty. I slowly moved my wrist around to find it, minimizing as best I could the sound and vibrations caused, but it could not be found. I had either knocked it off the top bunk, or it had, I cannot even bear to think of it, been taken from my hand. Without the crucifix, I lost any sense of hope.

Even at such a young age, you can be acutely aware of what death is and intensely frightened of it. I knew I was going to die in that bed if I lay there. There, dormant, passive, doing nothing. I had to leave that room behind, but how? Should I leap from the bed and hope that I make it to the door? What if it's faster than me? Or should I slowly slide out of the top bunk, hoping not to disturb my uncanny bedfellow?

Realizing that it had not stirred when I moved, trying to find the crucifix, I began to have the strangest of thoughts. What if it was asleep? It hadn't so much as breathed since I had woken up. it was resting, believing that it had finally got me, that I was finally in its grasp, or perhaps it was toying with me. After all, it had been doing just that for countless nights, and now, with me under it, pinned against my mattress, with no mother to protect me, maybe it was holding off, savoring its victory until the last possible moment, like a wild animal savoring its prey.

I tried to breathe as shallowly as possible, and mustering every ounce of courage I could. I reached over slowly with my right hand and began to pull the blanket off of me. What I found under those covers almost stopped my heart. I did not see it, but as my hand moved the blanket, it brushed against something, something smooth and cold, something which felt unmistakably like a gaunt hand. I held my breath in terror as I was sure it must have known that I was awake. Nothing. It did not stir.

It felt dead. After a moment, I placed my hand carefully further down the blanket and felt a thin, poorly formed forearm. My confidence and almost twisted sense of curiosity grew as I moved down further to a disproportionately larger bicep muscle. The arm was outstretched lying across my chest, with the hand resting on my left shoulder as if it had grabbed me in my sleep. I realized that I would have to move this cadaverous appendage if I even so much as hope to escape

its grasp. For some reason, the feeling of torn, ragged clothing on the shoulder of this nighttime invader stopped me in my tracks. Fear once again swelled in my stomach and chest as I recoiled my hand and disgust at the touch of straggled, oily hair. I could not bring myself to touch its face, although I wondered to this very day what it would have felt like. Dear God, it moved. It was subtle, but its grip on my shoulder and across my body strengthened. No tears came, but God, how I wanted to cry, as its hands and arms slowly coiled around me, my right leg brushed along the cool wall which lay against the bed. Of all that happened to me in that room, this was the strangest.

I realized that this clutching, rancid thing which drew great delight from violating a young boy's bed was not entirely on top of me. It was sticking out from the wall like a spider striking from its layer. Suddenly, its grip moved from a slow tightening to a sudden squeeze. It pulled and clawed at my clothes as if frightened that the opportunity would soon pass. I fought against it, but its emaciated arm was too strong for me. Its head rose up, writhing, and contorted under the blanket. I now realized where it was taking me into the wall.

I fought for my dear life. I cried, and suddenly my voice returned to me, yelling and screaming, but no one came. I realized why it was so eager to suddenly strike, why this thing had to have me now. Through my window, that window which seemed to represent so much malice from outside, streaked hope, the first rays of sunshine. I struggled further, knowing that if I could just hold on, it would soon be gone. As I fought for my life, the unearthly parasite shifted, slowly pulling itself up my chest, its head now poking out from under the blanket, wheezing, coughing, rasping.

I do not remember its features. I simply remember its breath against my face, foul and as cold as ice. As the sun broke over the horizon, that dark place, that suffocating room of contempt was washed, bathed in sunlight. I passed out as its scrawny fingers encircled my neck, squeezing the very life from me. I awoke to my father offering to make me some breakfast. A wonderful sight indeed. I had survived the most horrible experience of my life in Telben.

And now. I moved the bed away from the wall, leaving behind the furniture I had believed would stop that thing from taking a bed. Little did I think that it would try to take mine, and me. Weeks passed without incident, yet on one cold, frost-bitten night, I awoke to the sound of the furniture where the bunk beds used to be vibrating violently. In a moment it passed. I lay there sure I could hear a distant wheeze coming from deep within the wall, finally

finally fading into the distance. I had never told anyone this story before. To this day, I still break out in a cold sweat at the sound of bed sheets rustling in the night or a wheeze brought on by a common cold, and I certainly never sleep with my bed against a wall. Call it superstition, if you will, but as I said, I cannot discount conventional explanations such as sleep paralysis, hallucination, or that of an overactive imagination, but what I can say is this. The following year, I was given a larger room on the other side of the house, and my parents

took that strangely suffocating, elongated place as their bedroom. They said they didn't need a large room, just one big enough for a bed and a few things. They lasted ten days. We moved on the 11th. Hey, everybody. Since I recorded my last account, I've been hesitant to do so, as I felt unsettled since I broke my silence. Sleep has not come easy to. me these last few nights. My skepticism, however, remains resilient, and as such, I will tell of what I experienced in the other room. This won't be as long as what occurred only took place over a few days, but that was more than enough for me. If you recall, after that unwelcome nightly visitor left me, I was moved into another bedroom a year later. This room was much

larger than the previous one, and had a warm and welcoming atmosphere to it. Some places feel bad. The room before felt foul, but this one did not. Thankfully, I was given a normal bed. The previous one was taken apart and thrown out. A welcome sight, I might add. I loved my new room. I enjoyed the space for all my toys. I was happy that the place was large enough to have my friends drop by, but most of all,

I was relieved to just be out of that uneasy, foreboding part of the house. I slept more soundly than I had in a long time. Of course, I still moved my bed several feet from the wall. I told my mother that I and my friends like to use the gap between the wall and the bed as a hiding place when we were playing. I woke the next day feeling refreshed and relaxed. As I lay there, watching some of my favorite cartoons on a small portable television, I noticed something odd.

An old dark brown armchair, which had always been there, sat at the foot of my bed, large and looming. It was frayed and worn, having been given to it. us by my cousin, but it had been used many times even by then. The chair itself was not unusual, but what unsettled me was that I could have sworn before I went to sleep the chair had been facing away from the bed. Now, in the cold light of day, the chair was facing me. I assumed one of my parents had moved it while I slept, probably looking for something

which had been left there before we switched rooms. The second night was not as restful. It was around 11 p.m., and I could hear my parents' television from the other end of the house. The room was largely in darkness, the only illumination in orange hue drifting through my window from the streetlights outside. I lay there, content, content, until I heard something quiet, yet unmistakable. At first I thought it was the sound of my own breath, exhaling and inhaling as I rested. But when I stopped for a moment, the quiet, almost an audible sound of someone else in.

in the room breathing in and out did not cease. It continued, rhythmically, and without pause. I lay there in the darkness, but while I was still recovering from the terror instilled in me from my experiences in the previous room, I was not entirely afraid. The breathing was so distant and unlike the wheezing I had heard during my encounter with that thing in the wall, but I remained calm. And even at that early age, I believed that it was so subtle that it was probably my imagination playing tricks on me. Still, I took no chances. I stepped out of bed, walked across the room,

and turned the light on. The sound was gone. I stared at that old, worn armchair facing the foot of my bed, which was within reaching distance of where I slept, and turned it around to face the other way. I had no real reason to do so, but something about it sitting there filled me with dread. The third night I was not so fearless. Again, I awoke in darkness. I stared up at the ceiling, which seemed to happily absorb the dim orange light from the street. The tree outside my window swayed in a calm breeze, casting a strange collection of improbable moving shadows across the room. I could hear nothing but the long and distant hum of the city's night traffic.

Just as I began to drift back into sleep, I heard it. A creek from the bottom of my bed as if something had moved or shifted its way on the floor. I raised my head, peering through the darkness, but saw nothing strange. Everything sat as it had done throughout the day. Nothing was out of place. I cast my gaze across the room, some comics on the floor, a few boxes which had to still be unpacked, the armchair unmoved, still facing away from the bottom of my bed. There was nothing sinister here.

I was now fully awake, glancing over at my television, considering whether or not to enjoy some late-night TV. I'd have to keep the volume low, of course, as my older brother would hear it in the next room and no doubt tell me to switch it off. Just as I sat up fully in bed, I heard it again. A low creak accompanied by a sound, the sound of the slightest of movements. I looked again at the room. The dim orange shadows cast by the leaves hanging by my window now took on a more menacing

form. I still saw no reason to be afraid. I stared at the chair at the end of my bed and saw nothing unusually. usual about it. It's quite common for the mind to take a moment to fully come to terms with what it's seeing. It takes time to put the full horror of what is in front of you together into a moment of cold, bitter realization. Yes, I was staring at that old, worn armchair in the dark, but what I was also staring at was the person sitting in it. In the dim light I could only see the outline of the back of its head, the rest obscured by the spine

of the chair. I sat motionless, staring, praying, hoping that my eyes were being misled by their surroundings. The slow creak of movement as it shifted in its battered throne chilled me to my very core. This was no mere trick of the dark. Then it shifted onto its right side. I knew what it was doing. It was turning around to look at me. It was difficult to make out, for even in that room it seemed darker than everything around it. I saw what looked. It looked like a collection of long fingers slip over the crest of the chair, and then another. The room was silent, but for the sound of this thing shuffling in its seat and the crash of my racing heart. At first I could only make out the outline of its forehead, but then it began to rise up,

revealing two pinpoints of light in the dark recesses of its deeply set eye sockets. It was staring at me. I screamed, and within a moment my brother and mother came into the room. Switching the light on, asking if I had another bad dream. I sat speechless, barely acknowledging them, staring intently at the now empty armchair. I was only in that room for another few days before we suddenly moved. I saw nothing for the remaining nights, except for my last sleep in that room where I awoke to the warm air of something breathing into my ear.

I jumped out of bed, turning the light on. The slow, rhythmic breath of something unseen remained. louder than before, I spent the rest of that night on the couch in the living room. Two years later, I slept soundly in my bed in our new house. There had been no other incidents, and I was sure I had left behind whatever strangeness had plagued me in that little average suburban home. I was, however, left one parting gift. My tormentors, and in my opinion the watcher in that armchair was a different entity

than the thing in the elongated room, had one little bit. last surprise in store for me. Like an animal claiming its territory, I was not entirely out of their grasp. For one last terrifying moment, I felt the presence of those things. I lay there sound asleep, two years since those horrifying experiences. I was in the throes of a nightmare and suddenly, happily found myself awake, safe and sound in my bed. The room was darker than usual. I breathe the sigh of relief as one does when waking from a nightmare, but the room was so dark. I could not see anything at all, as if something had snuffed out the light. I chuckled to myself, realizing that I must have pulled my blanket up over my face while sleeping. The cotton blanket felt cool

against me, but the air was a little too warm, almost stifling. Just as I was about to remove the blanket for some air, I heard it. For the last time I heard it. The rhythmic breathing of the watcher at the end of my bed. Fear gripped me, followed by anger and despair. Why could I not be left alone? I then did something most peculiar. I decided to speak to it. Perhaps this thing did not mean to harm me. Perhaps it was unaware of the terror it had caused. Surely a young boy deserved some mercy. As the breathing grew louder and closer, I began to cry. I could feel its presence on the other side of the blanket, its breathing hanging over me like a stagnant wind.

Through the tears I uttered two words, words which surely would put an end to all of this. Please, stop. The breathing began to change. It became more animated, quicker somehow. I could hear something shuffling next to me, standing close by. The breathing then moved, first back to the foot of my bed, then slowly across the room, the door, into the hallway, and then gone. Half crying, half elated, I lay in the still darkness, my face still covered by the blanket.

You may consider this a victory of some sort, but I do not. If those things were real, I know now that their intentions were not misconstrued, they were twisted, filled with malice. I would normally never use such a word to describe anything, but it's as close to evil as I hope I ever come. How do I know that? I'll tell you how. Moments after that thing seemed to have left the house, something pressed forcefully down

on top of me, pushing the blanket with great strength against my face. I could feel a large hand with long fingers wrapping the covers around my skull, its nails imprinted upon me like razor-sharp ridges. I managed to slip down into the gap between the bed and the wall, quickly making my escape, clamoring and screaming out of my room, waking my family. Make no mistake, that thing in the darkness tried to smother me, smother me to death. It's been a few days since my last update on this. I had been compelled to silence, gripped by the irrational fear that somehow, even after all these years, should I speak of it, all those things would seek me out once again and wreak havoc on my

life. In the name of science and reason, I confronted those fears and set out to vanquen out to vanquish those tormented memories once and for all by sharing them with others, exposing them for what I believed they were, the delusions of a troubled child. I have held on to my skepticism and rationality for dear life. I have allowed them to define me, but this morning I was presented with verifiable, physical evidence, evidence of what I do not know, but it cannot be ignored, and it seems It seems strange to me that the last few days have been so tainted by apprehension and misfortune after finally breaking my silence that I can no longer rely upon entirely conventional explanations.

In the wake of sharing those dramatic experiences I had as a child, I have been plagued by an overwhelming sense of unease. Initially, I had attributed this to the fear I had experienced in simply recounting and reliving those terrible events in my mind, but as the days passed, it felt. Like so much more, a feeling of impending doom consumed my every thought. While sleep came to me, rest did not. Each morning I awoke my nerves on edge as if deprived of sleep for an age. Nothing overtly frightening happened during the first few nights, no visitation, no unwelcome

bedfellows, no wheezing breaths reaching out from deep within my bedroom walls, but I had that distantly familiar feeling of not being alone. Do not misunderstand. I did not sense someone in my room with me. I did not hear, smell, or feel anything remotely supernatural, but throughout my days and nights I have sensed something subtle, almost on the periphery of my awareness. The feeling that something is on its way, something is coming, like the first few stagnant blasts of air from a subway tunnel, heralding the arrival of a lurching, unstoppable monstrosity,

Surprising, yet expected. My sense of unease grew with each passing day, pushing its way under my skin, deep into my mind like some form of cancerous infection. I tried to focus my attention on various riding projects in a vain attempt to fill my mind up to the brim with other thoughts, hopefully leaving no room for those contaminated memories, but those thoughts came to me nonetheless. My anxiety gained momentum until I could think of nothing else. I had to do something.

I had studied psychology for years at university. With this, I knew that anxiety is often the result of a loss of control, and that one of the most effective ways to combat it is to empower oneself. This is what I intended to do. Call it foolhardy, but I was going back to that place, that house where those terrible events took place. I was going to confront those memories and expose them for what they were. It was an hour's drive to my old home, but it was one filled with elation.

I was confident, at ease, happy. I was in control now, and nothing was going to get in my way from showing that place I had feared my entire life was nothing but an average, humdrum, harmless little suburban house. Gleefully negotiating the country roads and then motorway, finally I made it to the city. Gradually, the streets began to take on a familiar appearance, memories of playing. of playing in that neighborhood came flooding back to me, a play park with my favorite slide, an ash pit where we used to play football, my schoolyard filled with hide-and-seek and friendships long since abandoned, but never forgotten. My mind wandered through those memories,

wandered so much so that before I realized it, I was pulling into the street where I had once lived. The road was long and disappeared far into the distance, finally entering into a sharp, blind turn. It was an old neighborhood, and had been planned and built long before the advent of a car. This was evident by the narrowness of its roads, creating a strangely claustrophobic feeling, as if the houses on each side rose up, leering at passers-by. I slowed my speed and cast my eye over each house that I passed. It was a uniform place, with every house looking not too dissimilar. My heart suddenly began to beat faster as a cold chill crawled up my spine.

There it was. There was the house. It was late afternoon, and the street was quiet, almost lonely. I stared at that little place, wondering how such an ordinary home could have instilled so much fear in me. I initially intended to only look at the house from afar, confirming it to me as a material construction, entirely explicable and removed from anything uncanny. But as I parked, I took a deep breath, and before I knew it, I was out of my car, walking towards that old, metallic gate. Its once bright, floral shapes, now darkened by age, flaking deep green paint, revealing nothing but rust beneath.

I ran my fingers over its uneven top, and, with a subtle grasp, I pushed it open. Walking along the path, I was shocked at how disused the garden was. I thought to myself how much of a waste of a good lawn it was, which was all but obstructed by a thick mosaic of weeds and other invasive species, but as I neared the house, I realized why. It was unoccupied. Once again, a shudder crept through me, but as my anxiety rose up, I crushed it with my rational mantra.

The simplest of explanations is usually the correct one. I assumed that due to the current economic climate that the house had probably just been on the market for some time, and that the owner wasn't too aware of the old sentiment that the first bite is with the eye, but as I looked around, I could see no for-sale sign nor one to rent. It genuinely seemed as though this house had been forgotten, abandoned, and left to rot. The windows at the front of the house were filthy, and as such, almost impossible to see through, but as I wandered around to the back of the building, I could seem more clearly inside. I would have imagined that a house such as this would be empty, but on the contrary, it was

entirely occupied, occupied by the trappings of a modern life. I could see a television sitting in the living room corner, a coffee table with magazines strewn across it, various pieces of furniture sitting as if ready to be used, and a couple of coffee cups sitting on the windowsill still full, covered in mold. I would have thought the house was lived in, if not for the thick layer of dust lying over everything, accompanied by the occasional spider webs. It was as though the most recent occupants had left in a hurry and never returned. Clammering through a sea of waist-high grass and bushes, I eventually arrived at that innocuous little window at the back of the house. The very side of it frightened me, but this was a mere memory and not the strange

feeling of being watched from within as I had experienced as a child. Peering in, the room looked eerily familiar. I suppose there is little that can be done with a room so small, so oddly narrow, But, through the dirt-covered glass, the room looked almost unchanged from when I had slept in it, a bed, a set of drawers, and what looked like an assortment of toys on the floor. A profound sense of anger washed over me momentarily, but I shook it quickly from my mind. The room was clearly that of a child's, and the thought of that thing harming another innocent filled me with contempt for such a thought. And within me swelled the desire to protect any child from such a child.

abomination. As I gazed at that wall, of which a bed lay alongside it, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. For a moment, and it was for only the slightest, I thought I saw the blanket on the top of the bed move. More than that, through the window pane, I could have sworn I heard wheezing gasp. Closing my eyes tightly, I repeated another scientific mantra. Science does not owe its debts to imagination. Opening my eyes, I saw nothing but an empty bedroom, no foul spirits, no unearthly things, just a room, no more, no less. I breathed the sigh of relief, as if all was well with the world for the first time in many

days. You may think that it was wishful thinking, but I genuinely felt that I had shown myself that there was nothing to be scared of, other than my overactive imagination. It was starting to get dark, and I wanted to be home before the night, filled with confidence now that my anxieties were behind me, there was one last thing to do. When we had left the house, we did so in a hurry. As a child, it was disorienting, even frightening to leave everything I knew behind, but there was one thing left which I always wondered about.

At the bottom of the garden stood a sycamore tree, which looked to be even older than the house. I was amazed at how unchanged it was. I had grown up, gone on to pastures new, but the old sycamore still stood. Wise, warm, almost friendly in its appearance. I think it's a rite of passage for any child to have a place to hide things. It's often their first experience with independence, something removed from any authority figure. For me, my stash was halfway up the old sycamore tree.

I'm sure I must have looked like a fool, but I happily and gleefully climbed the tree with abandon. The configuration of the branches had changed in places, but overall the happy memories of playing amongst the limbs of the old sycamore tree, of having a little place of the world to myself away from everyone else, seemed vivid, as it was remarkable how much remained unchanged. Halfway up, I caught my breath and smiled to myself. In the central trunk of the tree lay a hollow. Whether it was created by an animal, or perhaps the tug of a gale on a weakened branch long ago, I do not know, but it was where I kept things.

If I found something which I was sure would be taken from me for being inappropriate into the hollow it would go. The truth is, though, the majority of the items inside were not very interesting, mostly just toys and rarely exotic pieces of contraband like a slingshot or some smoke bombs. I had no reason to hide toys, but when I was young, it felt very adventurous to have a secret. The hollow was dark and filled halfway with rotting leaves, no doubt deposited there from countless autumns. Nevertheless, I reached deep inside to see what remained. I couldn't believe it. I had found a toy that I had hidden there before we moved all those years ago. I could feel

the plastic in my hand, its sharp edges unmistakable, but the leaves and darkness of the hollow obscured its view from me as I struggled to remove it from the thick, wet mixture of rotting leaves and rainwater. It seemed to be caught amongst a collection of small twigs. The reason I was so excited was that I knew when we moved I had left one of my favorite toys behind, a small plastic World War I soldier. It may not sound like much, but I had grown up on my family's stories of my grandfather's adventures during both wars, and while he had passed away before I was born, I would often act out exaggerated versions of the stories with small soldiers in the role of the hero,

my intrepid grandfather. At the time, I fought a hollow, the perfect hiding place for a soldier. My delight, however, quickly turned to horror. I felt sick to my stomach, for as I pulled the soldier out, I realized it was not my toy, but something else entirely. Stuffed into the back of the hollow amongst the sludge, and now in my hand was the skeletal remains of a small animal. The bones crunched together in my grip as the few small flakes of hair and flesh left

on it putrified between my fingers. I almost lost my balance as the rotten and potent smell of the dust. Death escaped through my moist grasp and invading my senses. I climbed back down carefully, dejected. There was nothing else in the hollow. My toy was gone, probably taken by another child during the subsequent years. What remained of the poor animal I buried under some loose earth in the garden. I left that place immediately.

Despite my unfortunate encounter in the hollow, I still felt empowered that I had actually plucked up the courage to revisit that place to see how ordinary it really was, made me feel in control once more of my faculties. I did not, at the time, require anything more than a conventional explanation. I said goodbye to the old neighborhood, to that bad memory once and for all, and began to make my way home. By the time I had driven onto the highway, something had begun to filter through the back of my subconscious. At first, I disregarded it, dismissing it as my imagination, But as the sun shone its last and dipped below the horizon, I sensed the growing of a compulsion in me, an idea which seemed to have been born and nurtured for no good reason, no rationale,

no sound casual footing, but one which had to be followed at all cost. I must get home. I increased my speed, zipping sporadically between the slower cars on the motorway, looking in the rearview mirror, keeping an eye on what might be following. I had to get home. Again, I drove faster, constantly looking behind as if racing some unseen pursuer. Seventy, 80, 100 miles per hour, I tore along the road. I honked, I yelled, and sweat lashed off of me.

What was happening to me? All I knew was that I just had to get home. White-knuckled, I finally made it off the freeway and onto the country roads, which had led directly to my town. The roads were narrow and wound around the now. bleak and ominous countryside. Darkness seemed to blank the road in front of me. I turned my high beams on and breathed the sigh of relief to see a bright light again.

The manic anxiety, which had seemed to grip me on the road, appeared to have diminished. However, I still glared into the rearview mirror more often than I should have, just to make sure that there was nothing following me. What a ridiculous thought, to think of something chasing my car, to put myself and others in danger by speeding down the road. It's madness. Still, madness or not, I had felt compelled to get away as quickly as possible, and even though I had managed to collect my nerves, the loneliness of the road I was on fueled

my yearning from my own town, my own street, my own bed. Nervously, I traversed the web-like winding roads which seared through the countryside, feeling relieved at the first sign of a streetlight, of civilization, and of the boundaries of my town. I pulled up outside my house, switching the engine off and sat for a moment in silence. I had to stop all this nonsense, things coming out of the walls, watchers smothering me at night, looking into someone's window like a prowler, all of this was lunacy. Tomorrow I would start fresh.

No more recordings about my childhood experiences, no more reliving of dread-filled nights, just getting back to normal, carrying out my work, spending time with my girlfriend, and, most of all, reaffirming my belief, faith, and confidence in science and rationality. Then the thing in the back seat leaned over, grabbed me by the shoulder, and breathed the foul, rancid breath from deep inside its lungs down the back of my neck. I screamed for the door, my arms flailing around, looking for the lock. Fear possessed me, shook me. A fear from all those years ago, lying awake at night in that sickening room.

The inside of the car had grown much colder, but that was nothing compared to the icy fingers burrowing into my shoulder. I honestly thought I was going to die, that this thing would finally get its way after all this time. The door handle popped in my panicked grip, and I fell out of the driver's seat onto the pavement. For the briefest moments, I thought I caught a glimpse of something in the back seat, the form of an old man, yet twisted and distorted, grinning from ear to ear. Luckily, there was no one around.

As had there been, I would have appeared a mad fool, for the car was empty. I grabbed the keys from the ignition and booted the door shut with my foot, locking it for the night. I staggered down the path and into my house. I'm not going to lie to you, but I drank myself to sleep that night. You may recall that I said I had evidence, actual physical evidence of something unnatural. You might be wondering what that evidence is. Well, I could say it was the marks on my shoulder that made me shudder with fear, or I could tell

you that my bedroom window lying pried open this morning by what looked like claw marks had left me dreading tonight, or any other. But no. None of that scared me as much as what I saw today upon waking. Sometimes the most frightening of messages are the most simple, for lying on my chest as I awoke this morning was a toy soldier. The soldier I had hidden in that hollow all those years ago returned to me as an adult, bitten in half.

Last night was the most heart-wrenching and frightening of my life, so much so that I can barely bring myself to contemplate it. By now, I will have submitted what occurred during my visit to that cursed place I once called home, a visit which heralded the return of my childhood fears. No matter what foul thing fell me then, nothing could have prepared me for last night. After waking up to the chilling side of that toy soldier, bitten in half, I found that my window to my bedroom was slightly ajar. On closer inspection, it looked entirely as if the window had been pried open from the outside.

The latches were bent back, out of position as if subjected to an unrestricted, unbound, brute force. From the outside looking in, I could see three indications where the unwelcomed housebreaker had used some kind of tool to leverage the window unnaturally away from its latch. What was peculiar about those markings was that they seemed to cut across the outside of the window frame like an old uneven razor, unlike a crowbar or other implement which may have merely left a dent where it would have been used as a wedge to force the window open. Nothing had been stolen, and I attempted to rationalize the markings on the window as human

made and not claw-like as they appeared to be. The toy soldier returned to me so violently I cannot explain. My heart sank at the very thought of it. I knew it was a message, but it seemed to me to be more of a twisted joke, announcing the arrival of my childhood predator rather than something to be puzzled over or interpreted. I spent the morning checking out each room of my house and its contents. Nothing was missing. I could only hope that whatever that fiend had been in the backseat of my car the previous

night that it only wished to frighten me one last time and then be on its way. Perhaps its reach would be weakened so far from my childhood bedroom. It is all too easy for any sane person to persuade themselves that a traumatic event is something more benign, but in this instance I could not. That broken toy was not a mere joke, but a promise, a promise that it would return, for what I did not wish to know. My thoughts naturally tumbled inwards and back to those terrifying night. nights I had as a child. I was now reintroduced to the apprehension of bedtime, the longing for the

day, and the anxiety of night. Like an old and restless enemy, my fear grew throughout the day, festering inside of me, leading to strange and ominous thoughts about the consequences of unwittingly bringing that thing home. Do not misunderstand me. My fear was not simply for my own safety. As a child, I believed my nightly visitor was transfixed and consumed by wanting me, but I did not feel that my loved ones were in any danger. This, however, had changed. I did worry.

This time, I did feel nothing but fear for my loved ones, because, you see, I do not live alone. My girlfriend and I moved in together over two years ago. I have caused enough damage now that I do not wish to speak her name and will simply refer to her as Mary. Mary and I had a happy existence, and in fact we were very, very much in love. This coming Christmas morning I was going to propose to her, but that beautiful moment has now been bitterly taken away from me by that rancid abomination. I knew that Mary would be home that evening.

She works in events and promotions, and as a result, is often away from home for days at a time, traveling around the country, coordinating various conferences and exhibitions. I do not complain about this, and she and I both know that I am a solitary character and that the odd days of solitude normally do me good, allowing me to dive headlong into my writing, absorbing each and every word undisturbed. Despite this, I always miss her, and with the events of the past week, reliving those torturous nights and then allowing them to return, I had missed her far more. She arrived around 6 p.m. I greeted her with a smile, a warm and braced, and braced.

and a passionate kiss. I tried to hide my perturbed state of mind from her. Mary knows me better than anyone I've ever met and immediately inquired. What's wrong? I tripped and fumbled through my words as I explained to her that I had written a story about my childhood and that exploring those dark and twisted memories had left me distraught. Mary has an incredibly caring nature, and she immediately lay her suitcase and bags on the floor, sat me down on our couch, and with her soft and gentle way, asked me to talk about her.

about the whole ordeal. But I couldn't. I couldn't mention this thing, this wretch which had now found its way to our home, an invisible and twisted invader which had been led there by my idiotic curiosity. At the time, I felt that she would think me mad, but now I wish I had told her the truth. If there's one thing more damaging to a relationship than a lie, it's a half-truth. Not because it is deceitful, but because it is a corruption of the truth. I heard it and abused to suit the teller's needs.

I told her my half-truth. I told her about my story, that of the thing in my narrow room and the watcher at the end of my bed, but that is where the truth ended, and the lie began. I deliberately and deceitfully mentioned that it was, of course, just my imagination as a child, and neglected to talk of my experiences of returning to that house. Knowing that she would see the damaged window latch and claw marks, I spun my web. as I told a grand tale about waking up to a burglar attempting to break into our house and having to chase them away.

I was quite the hero. I lied to her, and she showed me great sympathy and kindness from my deception. I was embarrassed by the truth then, and I am ashamed of my lie now. If I had been truthful, then perhaps we could have faced this menace together, but instead that thing took advantage of my dishonesty and put a wedge between us. The events of last night desecrated the most important thing in the world to me. Nighttime arrived in all of its bleakness, and was unwelcome. I lay in the darkness, waiting.

Mary was sound asleep next to me, each breath a soothing reminder of companionship, but despite my growing aversion to loneliness, I would have no sleep that night. I knew from experience that when my uninvited guest would show itself it would do so with subtlety, increasing its grip on me with each visitation as if requiring time to build up its strength, a leech feeding on my fear. My nerves kept me on edge, which fought back the oncoming onslaught of sleep admirably. In the end though, biology won, and as my bedside clock lumbered towards 4 a.m., sleep took me, the relaxing blanket of nightly oblivion, anxiety washed away, my worries a distant memory,

sinking deeper into the soft mattress below, and finally into a long, sought-for rest. Sleep, no matter how deep, is rarely all-encompassing. For as I hovered over the cusp of a dream, something began to bother me, something invasive, yet distant. I slowly opened my eyes and allowed them to adjust to the darkness. Mary lay soundly asleep, and I calm myself by listening to her breathing in the night. was followed by exhale, again and again, rhythmically, hypnotically, I began to drift towards sleep once more.

But no, there it was, something else, distinct yet undefinable. It was distant, out of the way, almost obscured or smothered, as if coming from behind something. I strained my ears in an attempt to define it, but it was all too quiet. I remained in the bed for several more minutes, but with each path to the bed. Passing second, that almost inaudible sound grated on me like broken glass on a raw nerve. Sleep was now abandoned, and with much frustration, I decided to reluctantly investigate the source of the noise. I sat up in the bed and listened intently.

It was unlike any other sound I had ever heard. Quiet, low, but as my mind adjusted to the noise, I slowly began to piece its nature together. It was most certainly obscured by something. But the closest thing I could relate it to was a repetitive murmur. I heard something similar previously when I was a child, visiting my grandmother in a nursing home, a place which had left an impression on me, seeing the wandering residents confused and of a fractured mind, meandering around the grounds like lost inmates, murmuring repetitively to themselves of days gone past, repeating nonsensical phrases and words.

This is what it reminded me of, a continuous stream of indecisement. decipherable words uttered by someone in the throes of confusion. I turned to check on Mary, watching her chest rise and fall with each breath. Assured that she was undisturbed, I left the bed. As I stood up, I recognized immediately that the murmuring was louder. While dark, I had left a light on in the hall, as I always do, which crept under the door and allowed me to view the room in a dim but visible way. I looked around to see if anything was out of place, but the room appeared as a

expected. My mind ambled back to that night as a child in the second room, when noises could be heard from some unseen yet ever-present menace. I took a step forward, and as I did so, the noise once again grew in volume. While I was still at a loss in deciphering the words, I can now hear the character of the voice. It was old, scratched by age, with a harsh, guttural tone to it. The words were being repeated at a frantic pace and seemed anxious, yet much. muffled by some unknown barrier.

I was frightened, but I drew strength from Mary being in the room, and, with a deep breath filled with trepidation, I took another slow and silent step forward. My bare feet cushioned by the cold floor below. Again, the voice became louder. I wasn't sure if I was imagining it, but I could have sworn that it had become more agitated as I drew closer. The next step I took shook me to my very core, for as that murmuring, garbled voice grew louder still, amongst the rambling, gravelled sound of it, I heard a word, a word which shot an

icy shudder through my bones, a word to be feared. It spoke my name. Dear God, it knew my name. To me, it was as if knowing who I was somehow endowed that thing with an unlimited reach, that I may never be rid of it, that it could kill me at any moment. Something suddenly caught my eye, a movement accompanied by a ruffle of cloth. I knew now where that rhythmic, agitated voice originated. I knew now why it was so muffled and difficult to decipher. I can now see it only a few feet in front of me, standing behind the closed curtains. The moon was ascending outside, and while its glimmer could not entirely penetrate the thick cloth, it could barely and faintly outlined the thing watching me between the window and the curtains.

I cannot now convey the strangeness which then overcame me. My anxiety and terror had heightened, but an unusual compulsion, an untimely sense of purpose took me over. I had to see what it was. I took another tentative step towards the curtains. They swayed slightly, as if caught by a breeze, but I could not tell whether the movement had been caused by myself or the hand of that thing hiding behind a shroud of cloth. I was now close enough to hear its labored breathing, the displacement of fluid at the back

of its throat, palpable with each inhalation. This was it. I was going to confront this monstrosity from my past, this tormentor of children, this coward. Raising my right hand slowly, I accidentally touched the fabric of the curtain, causing a subtle ripple which parted them momentarily. I gasped, for through that temporary slit, only for a moment. I saw it. My God, how can I describe what was standing there?

Even now, I close my eyes and wish that I could erase it from my memory. It shivered and shook as it continued to murmur, repeating some indecipherable phrase, sounding like a bizarre mixture of numerous languages. Its emaciated skin stretched over an unnatural frame of brittle and prominent bones, vertebrae, ribs, and other inner workings almost protruding through its paper-skinned. pale and almost protruding through its paper-thin, pale and almost bruised-looking husk. As malnourished as it appeared, the stomach was distended in places, and its bony appearance did nothing to diminish the feeling that it was capable of exerting itself with brute,

perverted force on any of its victims. Sickness swelled in my stomach, a tainted, offensive smell filled the air, and as it murmured and whispered in the darkness through what sounded like broken, fractured teeth. I could not help but feel pity for this wretch, quivering in the night as if a victim of long starvation. I quickly came to my senses and realized that this thing was not to be pitied, but feared, not to be understood but exposed. It was not shivering because it was cold, it was shaking with excitement, like a drug addict

anticipating their next dose. Standing there, contemplating what I had just seen between the curtains, I once again prepared myself to remove its shrouded cloth protection and to reveal it for what it was. As I once again raised my hand to draw the curtain, something caught my attention. Its incessantly confused, gravely, and inarticulate whispers squeezed through that broken mouth and uttered the three most terrifying words I've ever heard. A cold breath slid down the back of my neck. Momentarily, I froze, but love is a powerful motivator. I'd been on my own, fear would have taken me, shaking any possibility of resistance from my mind,

but with Mary sleeping soundly in the same room as that thing, shielding someone I loved from that wretch was my only thought. I turned around slowly, and as I did so, I could hear it wheezing, gasping, groaning for air. At a quarter turn, I could smell its breath, the stench of death hung in the air, plague-like and foul. Then I heard another voice. It was not that horror in the darkness, but Mary. She let out a scream which startled and distressed me in my very core,

a scream which will haunt me for the rest of my days. I turned quickly and laid eyes on it, but it wasn't behind me. It was on the bed. It writhed and rasped, wheezing in delight. Its bony spine curved with the anguish of countless years, protruding through a ragged, torn piece of cloth which hung loosely over its torso. in a vain attempt to appear almost human. But was it human?

Had it once been human? I sprung forwards towards it, grabbing, hitting, and pulling at that thing with every ounce of my strength. Its loose skin slipped through my hands. It squeezed and forced Mary's face into her pillow with glee. As its other limbs arched and contorted, tearing at her nightdress,

Mary's screams were muffled by the pillow as I began to fear that she was being suffocated. I shouted, I yelled, I pleaded with that thing. to leave her alone, to take me, to do anything it wanted, but that only served to animate the theme to even greater depths of depravity. It was hurting her, cutting her, my beautiful Mary. Suddenly it stopped attacking her, but it still kept one of its brittle, gangly, and gaunt, yet weighted hands on the back of Mary's head, pushing her face further into the pillow.

I had my hands around its putrid neck, trying as best I could to strangle the beast, but my efforts were in vain. Fannie frame belayed its overpowering strength. I watched in sickly disbelief as it began to run its cadaverous fingers through Mary's hair, slowly and almost with affection. I could now hear the twisting and cracking of bone, the popping of cartilage, the snapping of tendons. Thank God it was not coming from Mary.

I was now on its back with my arm wrapped around its throat and my chin rubbing against the abrasive skin of its shoulder. As its spine dug sharply into my stomach, it took sharply. twisted its head in an entirely inhuman way. Its neck clicked and groaned under the strain with every arthritic movement as if hindered by a thousand years of rigamortis. It was now looking at me. I have heard it often said of some people that they cannot see the forest through the trees. But now I truly appreciate that sentiment. So close was I to its black, icy stare that I could not take in its surrounding features. I increased my grip. I swore I

I scream, I would have torn its throat out if I could, but it was all in vain as it continued to run its scrawny fingers through Mary's hair nonchalantly while looking at me. I don't think I'll ever truly recover from the sound that seeped through its grin. A wheezing sigh, a grunt, something which sounded very close to a sinister, otherworldly laughter. As its face touched mine, its eyes stared deep into me, not even my reflection was returned. Two looking-glasses into a sanctuary for the dark, devoid of light, happiness and love. It was staring as if it wished to say something, as if it was trying to communicate a simple idea to me.

Malice. With a retching, stuttered, and violent movement, it tore an entire fist of hair from Mary's head, leaving behind an open wound. Then it was gone. Mary did not scream. She merely whimpered. I turned the bedside lamp on, but no words of care. care or sympathy could console her.

She wept uncontrollably. The bed was soaked in blood which had seeped from the numerous scratches on her back and the large cut where an entire section of her hair had once been. I hugged her, told her that everything would be all right, then she looked at me. Looking at her tear-filled eyes, I knew what she thought immediately. She thought that I had attacked her, that I had done those terrible things to her. Of all the experiences I have had, the look of betrayal, disgust, and contempt on Mary's face will remain the most painful.

She is gone. After composing herself, she gathered up some things and left. I tried to explain. I tried to tell her everything that had been happening, but she would not listen. Who would believe such a preposterous story? She simply said that she would not call the police, but if I ever attempted to contact her, she would do just that. To her, I was the aggressor, not that thing.

As she left, she turned to look at me one last time and then burst into tears. I know now that I have lost her forever. The woman I love more than anything on this earth thinks that I am a violently hideous human being. If only she could understand that whatever did this, it was not human, and if it ever was, it had long since abandoned that nature. It was 5 a.m. when Mary left. It's 9 a.m. now.

I am sitting here in the cold light of day at my kitchen table, recording this so that there is some record of what has transpired, so that people know, so that Mary knows, that whatever happens, that whatever occurs from here on in, that it was that despicable creature from my childhood, from that cursed, narrow room all those years ago which reigned this misery down upon me, upon us. I must now dispense with the sentiment. I could easily sit here mourning the loss of my relationship with Mary, or I could allow myself to be overcome with fear, to do nothing, but that simply will not do.

I can hear the laughter of my neighbor's children outside. At different stages in my life, I remember that same feeling of joy and happiness from something as simple as playing with friends or climbing a tree or kissing the woman you love, or even drifting off to sleep at bedtime, to dream of what could be in the safety of of a happy family home. Memories. Only memories. I fear I will never experience that happiness again.

This thing has broken me, but I am resolute. Whatever that hideous wretch has in store, whatever it desires to do with me, I will not allow that thing to harm another person or to invade another child's life as it did mine all those years ago. There isn't much time now, before it gets dark, before it returns. My plans are made and with any luck they will succeed, but I wish I could say we will speak again, but I think that is unlikely. I hope you understand what must be done, because tonight I'm going to kill it.

I was released by the police less than two hours ago, and I'm compelled to record the events of the past day and night as quickly and accurately as possible. In some ways I want to forget, but I know that I cannot, I know that I should not. After my own sanity, I must divulge what has happened. It is far too important. Should I ever allow myself to be swayed by the mechanical, rational nature of the world once again, these words should serve to remind me what is unseen as both mysterious and frightening.

After Mary left, I knew that I had lost her forever, but rather than be consumed by depression and inaction, I was invigorated by one purpose, by one thought, by one idea that I knew I knew I had to carry out. I had to destroy that thing, for I could not allow the chance that it may one day hurt my loved ones or desecrate the innocence of another child. I also knew that I faced death, but feeling that I had already lost everything, that was a small price to pay. It is said that revenge is a dish best served cold, but having waited my entire adult life

to be rid of this thing, its memory and the shadow that is cast upon me, I met the proposition of killing this fiend, this corrupt and perverted force with a smile on my face. That night it would be dead, even if I had to drag it to hell with me. Busying myself for the next few hours, I packed a bag and wrote a letter to Mary and my family explaining what had happened and that they weren't to blame. I phoned my mother and father, then my brother, just to hear their voices one last time. I did not let on know that I may never speak to them again. My mother's intuition led her to ask if everything was all right. I smiled and told her that I loved her before reluctantly saying goodbye. At about seven o'clock, I made my way out to the car. The sun had already set,

and the street seemed eerily quiet, as if the scene of an unattended funeral. I sat in the driver's seat, leaving the door on the other side open, awaiting my most unwelcome passenger. By nine o'clock, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The place remained deserted, and the cold night air flowing through the open door was beginning to bite. As I sat there, contemplation echoed through my mind. I ruminated on the nature of this cadaverous parasite. One question rose out of the sea of bots, towering above all else, unmoving and continuous. Can you kill something which is already dead?

I did not know if this was a thing of the grave or some unworldly specter which could be considered alive in some way, but just as I was. was reevaluating my plan. There it was. It was subtle at first, but there was a small, almost indistinguishable shift in the suspension of the car. It was in the car with me. Unseen, yes, but there nonetheless. As I heard the slightest of whispered breaths from the back seat, I leaned over and calmly closed the passenger door. I turned the key in the ignition, and as I pulled out of the street, I could have sworn I heard a quiet yet distinctly malicious snicker. as if someone was mocking me. Did it know what I had planned for it? Our destination was not far,

but the roaming hills rose up and diminished with regularity, a stark reminder of the ominous isolation of night. Occasionally on the way I could hear something from behind, but I refused to look for that thing in the dark. Patience. It would not be long before I would confront it. The irony hit me. I was worried about scaring off the same thing which had terrified and tortured me as a child. I had to be resilient, and so I drove carefully and calmly through the countryside, swamped by darkness, hoping that my unearthly passenger would not suspect me. I arrived. The wheels of the car struggled and slid on the undergrowth as I headed off the narrow country road. The landscape had opened up, and as I looked at the broken and rotting trees around me,

I felt that it was fitting to come to this bleak place in the cold night to destroy that bleakest of things. The land suddenly came to an abrupt end, a cliff etched out from an old quarry looking deep into the black waters of the lake below. The cliff edge was relatively flat and had in fact at one time housed a road which had subsided into the lake decades earlier. The local kids would tell stories about vengeful ghost of those killed, but they were just stories, or perhaps they weren't.

In the past I would have disregarded such tales, but who would believe mine if I told it? them now. I switched off the engine and parked several meters away from the cliff edge, switching off any lights and composing myself for what would come. I sat in the car for what seemed like a lifetime, the only company given to me by the occasional splash of water against the cliff below. I waited. This thing was smart. Of that there was no doubt. It had toyed with me, relishing the pain and torment it had caused as only something of a coldly frozen intellect could. For this reason, I knew it would suspect me, and perhaps even flee if I brought the car too close to the cliff's edge.

I had to wait for it to attack, let it feed, let it revel and gorge itself on me, perhaps then it would not notice as I slowly plunge the car into that dark icy water below. I was going to drown the bastard. I had appraised the potential consequences in my head and reasoned that there would be a moment, a singular moment where I would have a slim opportunity to escape from the car. just before it reached the edge. Mary and I used to go there occasionally, a place to be together, away from everything else, and it did not look as stark during a summer's day.

I therefore had the place in mind and knew it well. The drop was at least thirty feet to the depths below, and I did not want to be in that car as it hit the water, nor trapped inside with that abomination. I waited. Then I heard it. Slowly at first, then increasing in rate and volume, a rasping, wheezing breath from behind. Strangely, it sounded more labored than before.

Each breath a struggle filled with fluid, rotten, and decayed. A shiver ran up my spine. A rank, foul smell began to fill the air. The breath drew closer from behind. My heart began to race, beating hard and fast as I looked up and saw the windscreen began to ice up from inside. I could see my breath. I turned slowly.

I was staring at it, and it at me, hunched over, covered in darkness, contorted, gaunt hands ceased as if fighting rigamortis. It slowly moved towards me. One bony leg cracked and groaned as it slid over me. It pulled itself in close to me, and through a shard of light provided by the moon, I saw its face. Skin hung from its ragged features. Glassy eyes stared deep into me as its grin spread through its face,

Unnaturally wide as the result of its half-wroughton flesh, exposing the muscle, broken teeth and sinews of its rancid smile beneath. Pulling closer, it opened its mouth, revealing a wet and putrid tongue, which could be seen through parts of its missing jaw, wheezing, breathing heavily, a foul stench which stung my eyes and filled my mouth. It stopped for a moment, and then cackled to itself, happy and content, staring into its icy, cold eyes, it gave the impression of an afflicted and increasingly weak old man. It was still incredibly strong, but it seemed as though it had lost some of its potency.

Perhaps leaving that elongated room had somehow affected it? Its long, protruding fingers caressed my face, and then, as a show of intent, it stuck one of them deep in my shoulder. I screamed as it bent and twisted inside of me, the rotting fiend moving its finger to cause the maximum amount of damage and pain as it could. With my free arm, I turned on the ignition, and though my shoulder was still pinned to the seat, I managed to fight through the pain, put the car into gear, and took off as fast as I could. The creature flailed and screamed.

It attempted to climb over me into the back seat, but I held on with all my strength, the thoughts of what it did to marry enough to fuel my rage. We raced towards the edge of the cliff, and I eyed the driver's door frantically. As we neared our icy plunge, I screamed in anger at its festering, rancid face and pushed it off of me. It scrambled into the back seat for dear life, as I scrambled from mine by unlocking the car door. It was too late. Car careened over the cliff face, and before I knew it, we hit the dark water, splitting the black, glass-like surface with tremendous force. I should have died then, but the airbag took the brunt of my impact, although I still managed to scrape my head across the doorframe.

Dazed, I looked around. The sound that I heard coming from that thing was malformed yet familiar. The squeal of some demonic child soon gave way to the anguish and rage of an ancient intelligence which knew that it faced almost certain death. The water was frozen and poured through the now twisted open car door with such force that it winded me. I gasped for air as my unwilling prey now did. It writhed and twisted as it looked for an exit, spying the open door.

it pulled itself through the water towards me. I curled up my fist and smashed it into the thing's face. Pieces of rotten flesh flaked off under the impact as dark black liquid oozed from the resulting wound. Again it attempted to get past, and I knew that to keep it in the car, long enough to drown, that I would have to die with it. I felt numb as the frozen water slipped over my chin. My heart struggled against the cold, and with a sudden surge I was submerged and had breathed my last. I held my breath, but only to compose and ready myself for an icy, suffocating death. I hoped that it would not be painful. My thoughts returned to Mary and my family, an all-consuming sense of sadness and despair

overcame me. But as I struggled with that thing trying to get past me and through the door, grabbing and flailing with its arms, I looked down and saw it. Its leg was trapped between the seat and the floor by the impact of the fall, and although Though it could move, it could not leave. I turned immediately for the door. I could barely see but a foot in front of me in that black water, but there was enough moonlight to light my way.

Just as I got to the door, the wretch grabbed hold of me and pulled me back to it. It had given up all hope of escaping, but it wanted to drown me with it. We fought for what felt like an age in that cold, bitter grave as the car slowly sank deeper and deeper into the darkness. I could now feel my body pleading with me to take a little bit of the dark. a breath to exhale my last gasp of air and then inhale the frozen water. I'm happy to say that I used my wits to get out of such a terrible fate. Orientating my body, I pushed my feet against the dashboard with enough force to at last

escape its slippery grasp. I do not remember much else, bar the anguished and hateful scream that my tormentor let out as I left it to die at the bottom of that icy lake. I found myself walking through the wilderness, cold and wet, but in a lot of the last. The wound in my shoulder slowed me down, but I kept the bleeding at bay by applying pressure with my other hand. It took me two hours to walk home, and I am amazed that I did not collapse from exhaustion or hypothermia.

When I saw the familiar sight of that street I lived on, I was filled with a sense of accomplishment, a sense of pride and triumph. I had beaten that thing once and for all. That is, until I went inside my house and found a trail of large, wet footprints leading from the front door to my bed. Disbelieve took me, despair so sharp and overwhelming that I am unable to convey it with mere words. It was lying in my bed, waiting, a white sheet covering its emaciated body from sight. The human mind is a wonderful thing, just as you believe your body has reached a level of exhaustion that it cannot recover from, that your emotions are so afraid

that you feel you cannot continue. A thought springs as if miraculous from a moment. Weary mind. Let it rest for now. I quietly crept through the dark and picked up my wallet which I had left on a small coffee table in the center of my living room. Leaving the door unlocked, I left to attend to a new plan and returned an hour later. With a moment's preparation, I slipped into the spare room. There I lay in that unsullied bed, waiting.

I was sure that this was the end game, that instead of toying with me, it would come to kill me. How it had escaped that watery grave, I did not know, but I would be damned if it would escape again. I could only hope that it would sense me from the other room. I closed my eyes, preparing to be sound asleep. Time lumbered onward, and although I fought it, exhaustion finally took me, sending me into a deep slumber. I awoke with its hands around my neck, it coughed and sputtered on top of me, a rancid black liquid dripping on my face as it oozed from its facial wounds. I struggled, gasping for air and hoping that I had the strength in me to escape its grasp,

but it was too strong, and my hands could not grip it with any sense of conviction, as it was still soaking wet from its plunge in the lake. It may not have seemed rational at the time, but as my vision dimmed and as the last light of my consciousness extinguished within me, I did, as many animals do in their last moments. I played dead. Lying motionless, holding my breath, it shook me violently by the neck and then, released me. I waited for my moment, my last chance to destroy this thing. Its labored breathing relaxed slightly and seemed to stare at me almost quizzically. Leaning down close to me,

its wide, crumbling sneer puckered, gathering its putrid saliva in its mouth and in what was left of its cheeks, its spat its festering fluid onto my face, the remnants tripping down onto me through the hole in its jaw. I wanted to scream, to do anything to remove such a vile smear on my skin, but I dared not move. The time was not right. Leaning in closer, it prodded and scratched at the wound on my shoulder, the pain searing through my body. With all my resistance, I remained motionless. Then it slowly and patiently slid two of its long, distended fingers into my mouth. The taste was overwhelming, rancid, rotten. The arthritic clicking of its knuckles shook my resolve. As it arched its back in glee, it suddenly pushed its fingers down into my throat. I gagged an instinctive reaction. Instead of being shocked,

a garbled laugh emanated through its broken teeth as it thrust its fingers deeper into my mouth. I felt its cold, hard flesh scraping against the inside of my throat, pleading without words for it to stop. I rolled onto my side, using its weight against it, and finally managed to break free. I fell onto the floor, its long reach grasping at my feet. I kicked and screamed, and at least, Last was free. It stared at me only for a moment, rising up on top of the bed, its brittle bones cracking under its own force. It now towered tall and gaunt, ready to pounce. This thing had terrorized me since I was a child, attacked Mary and broken my life. I would not stand for it anymore. As it groaned, shrieked, cracked, and contorted, readying itself to pounce, in one swift motion,

I removed a blanket from the floor, revealing a bucket filled with gasoline which I had bought in that short time of preparation. I threw it as hard as I could, the liquid splashing all over that horror in the bed. It grinned at me, mocking my very existence, making light of my pain and the agony it had caused. From my pocket I pulled out a lighter, lit it and threw it onto that wretched thing. It writhed and screamed in agony, parts of its flesh crumbling away, searing into nothing in front of my very eyes.

That was the last thing I remember. Thankfully, a neighbor heard the screams and saw the smoke and called the fire department. I spent several hours in the hospital being treated for light smoke inhalation and the painful burns to my hands. It still hurts now, but it will heal. Perhaps there will be a few scars, but I can live with that. I was arrested shortly after, on suspicion of arson. I told them that someone had broke in and that the fire is. It started accidentally, but they found no remains, nor any evidence that someone else was

there, except a strange outline of a figure etched deep into the bed and wall. It looked as though whatever had been there had attempted to escape, but I do not think it accomplished this. A weight has now been lifted from my shoulder, one which I now realized was always there, since I was a child, in fact. I believe that thing had an effect on me, even from a distance, and now that it is gone, I feel whole again. I'm devastated that I've lost Mary, and my house can be written off, as I'll probably

be charged with arson after they realize I started the fire. My hands ache, as does my shoulder, but my spirit does not. I'm recording this from a hotel room. It's small and unassuming, but it will suit my purpose. Tonight I intend to sleep and dream, as I did as a child, before that wretch invaded my life. I believe that it was my rationality which saved me, my logical thought which allowed me to destroy such an evil, but I will never escape the conclusion that there is much more to life beyond the veil, out there in the darkness.

It is a world I have seen, and I do not care to revisit, but tonight I will rest, and tomorrow I will rebuild my life with the confidence that my unwelcome guest is gone forever. It will take time for me to adjust, and perhaps my mind will play a trick or two on me along the way. It is difficult to abandon the paranoia of a lifetime. I must learn to accept my safety once again. I refuse to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my days, but I will always be cautious. As I was when I was in the hospital this morning, lying on a bed in a quiet ward, I thought

I felt the bed shake for the briefest of moments, but I know that it was just my imagination. I am glad I have recorded my experiences. It has illuminated much about myself to me, and most importantly, should anyone ever, God forbid, find themselves in a similar situation, then maybe you will know what to do. Now it is bedtime, and I must rest, for I have never known a weariness such as this. Good night and sleep tight.