The moon’s crisp, clean, pure light seeps through a poorly drawn curtain, bouncing its self off an amassed collection of action figures lined up on display. It slithers over the room’s hero themed wallpaper and creates the shadows the room’s owner fears. Looking out from his quilt fortress Charlie sees faces screaming from his wardrobes grainy, varnished wooden panels. Throwing his quilt over him he holds onto his lucky charm hanging around his neck.
“It’s all in my head; they’re not real. It’s just the way the tree was grown.” He tells himself, convincing his mind that there is nothing scary in his room.
“Come now Charlie, we’ve talked about this. Why would you want me in your head?” A deep but soothing voice says. Trembling, Charlie looks out from under his quilt convinced that the voice is made up by his mind. He sees nothing; just the moonlight doing what light does best, destroying darkness.
“You’re in my head, you’re not real.”
“But if I’m in your head, I’m with wherever you go; why not believe what I tell you, I’m beneath you.”
Looking around the room for the source of the voice, Charlie is still unable to see anything.
“You know where I am, all you need to do is look.”
Charlie feels his eyes move of their own accord, staring down next to his bed, his mind telling him in a moment of weakness. Just, one, quick, peek. A static shock from his charm races through his hand knocking him out of that train of thought. “No, you can’t get me when I’m on here.” His heart pounds against his chest like a sledgehammer with sweat running off his forehead like fresh morning dew.
“Do you know what I am?”
“A monster.”
“Of sorts, I’m everything you fear. And you, fear; everything.” Laying flat on his bed looking at the calming patterns on his ceiling, believing. I’m dreaming, this is all a bad dream. I want to wake up now. The voice continues: “I am those faces you see in that wardrobe, I am the shadows in all dark places, I am the spiders hunting from the corners of your walls and the rats that feast under your house.”
“That doesn’t make you real.” Charlie states whilst closing his eyes as tightly as possible.
Replied to only by silence, Charlie cautiously peeks through the minuscule gap between his eyelids. The rising moon lights up more of his surroundings showing him he is truly alone, the faces on the wardrobe and the shadows fade back away to where they belong. I knew it. Wrapping himself up in his warm quilt, relieved that he beat his mind at its own game.
A weak chill wraps around his leg, seeping into the quilt and duvet.
“Then what does make me real? Does this?”
The weak chill around Charlie’s leg turns ice cold with a freezing grip, squeezing him tightly. Flailing his leg around uncontrollably, panic stricken to his core, the freezing feeling spreads deeper into his leg through muscle and tissue, touching his bone. He tries to cry out for help but the words get caught in his throat. He is too scared to force them out. With a final kick of his leg, the chilling grip is gone. He is free.
Cautiously looking down at his bed, his eyes see a thin, bony shadow hand slither like a snake off the edge of his mattress, curling around back underneath him. He dives back under his quilt squeezing his lucky charm, closing his eyes and whispering over and over again: “It’s not real, that wasn’t real. It’s all in my head, its all in my head.”
When he opens his eyes the darkness has been vanquished by the dawning sun, its light destroying any remnants of the night. After a couple of moments wondering what’s going on he throws his quilt off him in a panic stricken daze, franticly rolling up his pyjamas to see his leg. Charlie’s eyes quiver with disbelief – not at what his eyes are telling him, but what his body is feeling. There are no marks on his leg, even though his body is telling him it remembers being grabbed. Charlie runs his hand over his leg; it’s freezing to the touch but his body doesn’t acknowledge this change in temperature.
Was it all a dream? Or did that really happen?
With a feeling of security owed to the presence of the sun, Charlie shifts his body around, positioning himself at the edge of his bed prepared to lean over. Lowering himself down, gripping onto the edge of his bed he tells himself one final time. “It’s all in my head.”
“No; It’s not, Charlie.”
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