The Dark, The Dark, The Dark

I’ve always felt it when the lights were off. 

Not physically, I mean, not like a hand on my shoulder or fingers curling in my hair. I’ve felt it the way you feel someone standing behind you in line at the grocery store or at an ATM, the filling of a space you aren’t looking at, don’t want to look at, looking at it is redundant because you can feel it like it’s breathing on your neck. It’s not though, just like it’s not jabbing long, sharp nails into the small portion of your back when you pass by the light switch. You don’t feel it as something happening, but as something that’s about to happen, you just need to be a little more hesitant when you turn on the light, then it changes from something about to happen to something that’s already happened, but you won’t be feeling it anymore by that stage, will you?

I don’t remember much of my childhood. I don’t remember the names of any of the friends I've had or any of the big things I’ve accomplished that any little boy has to do if they want to be a real man. I do remember when I first felt this sensation, that anticipatory bulging of the air just behind me, right where I can’t see it. 

It first happened when I was nine, when I was still sleeping under Hot Wheels bed sheets, just across from my parents' room. I had to get up and go pee and that meant going out in the hallway. I knew where the toilet was, but I didn’t turn on the light because mom and dad used to sleep with their door open back then, and the light always woke them up. I wouldn’t do that to them, they worked long hours, and I didn’t want to cause them any undue stress that night, so I stayed in The Dark and tiptoed down the hall.

I felt it almost instantly. There was the briefest delay where it wasn’t there. That stopped when I was three steps out of my bedroom. I didn’t look, can’t look, but I still knew it was there, a little further away than it is now. It stayed far away until I was just outside the bathroom. I know it moved before I turned the light on. I spent a while after using the toilet working up the nerve to walk back to my bed. It didn’t move then.

I heard it for the first time when I was just fourteen years old.

There was no bathroom trip this time. My parents got fed up with my complaints about it a few years prior to this incident, so they did what they felt was needed to get my act together. It worked for a time; I didn’t feel it behind me at night. I got overconfident and was ready to take out my nightlight when I heard it. 

The sound of a floorboard creaking for no reason, of your house settling, groaning, making a fuss like it’s trying to warn you about that thing you can feel but can’t look at. It was in the corner of my bedroom, the corner I couldn’t see in the dark. I knew it was there though. Knew it was watching me, waiting for a chance, however slim, of getting me. It could see me; I couldn't see it. 

I know what it looks like though. I know it has jagged talons for fingers. I know its teeth are all blunted molars, that its mouth is big enough to fit my whole body in it. Mashing my bones but never breaking skin so that it lasts longer. I know it’s grown as I’ve grown. That it’s always bigger than me.

This kept happening as I got older. Anytime I walked in The Dark I felt it and heard it, knew it was getting closer. It’s right over my shoulder now, it’s long, sharp nails ready to stab into the small portion of my back. Its teeth are ready to flatten my skull.

I no longer walk in The Dark. I try to stay in the light when the sun finally goes down every night, not to sleep because sleep is just as much my enemy as The Dark. The insomnia is worth it because I know the moment, the smallest moment, that I stand in The Dark, it will have me. It will have only me. That’s why I stay under streetlights, and why I don’t talk to my parents anymore. They still want to get my act together, but I know what will happen if that happens. That’s why I smashed my phone, the phone I’ve had since I was finishing eighth grade. 

They bought it for me. I can’t miss it; I can’t miss having them in my pocket no matter where I go because I’ve been over this already. I’m saying the same thing over and over again because it’s been happening over and over again. It’s gotten as close as it can get without having me, and it will have me. It will have whatever it wants, and no one will stop it.

Oh god, I can’t sleep. It’s gotten behind my eyelids and I can see it taking the shape I’ve known it’s had since that night when I was nine years old. The talons and blunted teeth. The eyes it uses to watch me. I will not see it. It will not have me. I’ll tear my eyelids out of my skull, and I will never be in The Dark again. 

It will be worth it. It has to be worth it. Insomnia and isolation have to be the only defense because the other option is ludicrous in its horror. I feel sick just considering that hopeless idea that I’ve been doing this for no reason. I haven’t. My eyelids need to come out. I must conquer it, and I must be happy with my choices after. 

There can’t be anything worse than that monster waiting for me in The Dark.