The Man In The Window

I knew something was off before I opened my eyes. As I pulled my consciousness up from the depths of my dreamless sleep, I could feel the itchy, foreign clothes on my body. Something wasn’t right. The sensation of a pair of eyes watching me made me shiver and I snapped awake ready to fight. Heart beating fast with adrenaline, I sat up in bed with my hands in front of me, shielding me, but what I saw was even worse.

This was not my room. This was not my bed. Those weren’t my windows or my clothes. I didn’t know where I was. I could feel the springs beneath me as I shifted to peer around the room. It was dark apart from the small film of moonlight filtering into the space. The curtains fluttered in a breeze that sent shadows dancing across the wall. Apart from the bed and window, there was nothing, like someone forgot to finish making it. The corners of the room were dark and uninviting, but so dark that it seemed unnatural with the moonlight that scattered through. My mind marked the absence of a door and saved it for later as I examined the wall behind me. It was blank like everything else in the room, that feeling of unfinishedness settling in next to my fear. I pulled back the thin, hospital-like sheets and examined my clothing. The idea that someone else had dressed me while I slept made me shiver, and the feeling of being watched fell over me again. I snapped my eyes up to search the room but all I saw was the window.

A window. I sprung out of bed and began to run for the window when I felt a tug on my ankle and I threw my hands in front of me as I fell face-first into the floor. Nose aching, I slowly turned in horror to see a thin band wrapped around my ankle. I trailed the chain as it snaked around the bedpost and mysteriously disappeared under the bed. For a moment, I just sat there, lip trembling, nose bleeding, willing myself not to cry because that would be an admittance of hope lost. I still had hope. Somewhere down there, deep inside me, there had to be a sliver of hope willing itself to peek back out. There had to be.

And it started with finding out how to get my ankle out of its chain. I grabbed it and tugged. The thin band had little to no give and would certainly not slip off my foot. Huffing, I scanned the room once more. No door. No entryway. No sign of an exit other than the unattainable window. 

A single tear escaped down my face when a hand grabbed the edge of the windowsill from the outside. Slowly, their nails scraping against the wood, they inched their face into view. I quickly shuffled backward until my back hit the edge of the bed, sending me jumping on my nerves. 

He was staring blankly at me, his body contorted into a crouch as he twisted himself through the window. He silently placed himself in front of it, still staring at me with that blank expression while I froze in fear. 

Some people run when they are afraid, but not me, I freeze up and sit in my fear until you can taste it in the air and my muscles are as tense and hard as a tree and I have no hope of ever escaping. So I sit there, staring at this man in front of me as he slowly tilts his head to the side, shifting the rags of clothing that hang loosely from his body. I knew that I would die at some point in my life, but I’d always hoped it would be painless. I was never afraid of death, just the idea that I could die horribly like those women do in documentaries, and I knew I could never withstand pain like that. That I would likely go insane. So I sat there, heart racing, thinking about how I never thought I would die like this and really have no hope of a way out, that there had to be some way out, when he smiled at me. A wide-eyed, thin-lipped, mouth stretched smile that reached his eyes in a psychotic, bone-chilling way that only gave me a glimpse of my horrid future before something took control of me. He began reaching his arm toward me and I don’t know how I did it, but I snapped out of it. The ankle shackle must have been subconsciously running through my brain as I sat there, because the image of it snaking under the bed was the first thing to come to mind, and suddenly I was on my elbows frantically crawling under the bed to find where it went to. 

First, I saw where it connected to the wood paneling on the bed, and second, I saw the gaping hole in the bottom of the floor that stole the light. No matter the blown open window letting in the moonlight to my adjusted eyes; the hole was one of pure darkness that light entered and never came out of again. I hesitated for a moment when I felt his dry, cold hands caress my calf and I jumped, banging my head on the bottom of the bed. In that moment, my right hand slipped into the darkness and I lost my balance. An intense cold feeling washed over my arm and I tugged it back quickly in pain. I examined my arm but my skin wasn’t even cold when it returned, so I dipped my fingertip into the hole with hesitation. Just as I touched the surface, his hand gripped my leg and began to yank me backward. The idea that I could not see what he was doing above me sent pangs of undulated fear into my body and I threatened to lock up again, but my mind came back to the man dragging me from under the bed and I knew the hole was my only way out. I kicked my legs as his nails dug into me and I shoved both my arms into the unknown and hoped that I would die a less painful death than the one that awaited me with him. He pulled me harder the farther I reached down, like he was so opposed to me reaching whatever lay at the end of this hole, so I knew it had to be my way out. I threw myself into the darkness with one last push, and his nails left a gash in my calf. I fell out of his grasp and soared into the void as everything dulled around me. 

I floated there in the darkness, devoid of light, sound, touch, taste, or smell, and for a moment, it was nice, but then I began to panic. Against my better judgment, I clawed my way up, like swimming up from the bottom of a pool. A pool so deep I was running out of breath, and when I finally gasped for air, I was sitting up in my bed, hair sweaty, sheets pushed back, heart racing. 

A dream, it was a dream. I slowly laid myself back down and pulled the covers back up, looking around my familiar room to prove to myself that the man never existed and that I was safe. That my fears were so far-fetched that I turned away from the door that haunted me. I often dreamed of a man walking through my door in the middle of the night and taking me, but never my window. As I slowly shifted to face the window, a feeling of aching in my calf started to find me, and my lip felt damp. I reached my hand up to wipe my nose and blood rubbed off onto my fingertips. That feeling of being watched dawned on me, and I pulled my eyes to face the window in horror, coming face to face with the man in the window staring back at me with his wide-eyed grin. I opened my mouth in a silent scream before he grabbed me.