By Julia Akre

“Can’t I have it just a little longer?” I pleaded with my mom. 

“Rebecca, you’re far too old for this,” Mrs. Inkheart said as she yanked out my only hope of a peaceful night’s sleep. My nightlight.

“I told you it’s the only way to keep out the Moving Darkness!”

“Not this again. One more clam of a Moving Darkness and I’ll ground you for acting like a child. You’re fifteen now, Rebecca, when will you drop this childish fantasy?”

“It’s not a fantasy, how many times do I have to tell you? There’s movement in the shadows when it’s dark. It doesn’t matter where I sleep or what time of day it is.” Mrs. Inkheart rolled her eyes and begun walking out my door. “Please, mom!” I got out of bed and ran towards her.

“That is quite enough, Rebecca! I’ve had it with your lies! Bring it up again and I’ll ground you for three months! No phone, no friends, no late nights, you’ll work all your after-school time with me at the office. Have I made myself clear?”

I blinked, taken aback at the threat. “Mom, I’m… just trying to express my fears to you…”

“Fears that should have died out a long time ago. I’ve been too lenient with you. Let you get away with too much. I’ve played into your fantasies for far too long and now look at you. I’m sorry, I’ve failed you, but that ends now.” My stomach fell through the floor as she reached into the room and gripped the door handle. “When you wake up tomorrow with every hair accounted for, you’ll see there is nothing to fear.” With that, she slammed the door shut.

On the other side, my mother’s master key slipped into the lock of my door and turned it. Each click of the lock pins clanked through my head like a death toll as I struggled to make out the details of my door. I dove for the handle and tried desperately to open it… but it was too late. 

It had been so long since I last saw total darkness like this. My eyes couldn’t adjust. Rising panic filled my veins.

I needed to get under my covers. Who knows what will happen if it shows up and I’m just out in the open like this? I wanted to move, to run to my bed and jump in but…

My legs wouldn’t move.

They stayed plastered to the ground. My eyes trying desperately to make out some kind of familiar shape. 

I took a deep breath, then another, and another… I could feel my head beginning to tilt.

I was hipper ventilating. My lungs filled with air, but I still couldn’t get enough oxygen to my head. 

‘Move! You can’t just stand here, Rebecca!’ I screamed in my head. 

It took all I had not to scream as my flesh prickled. Like small bugs running along my neck and down my spine. The spell broke over my stiff limbs and I reached up and franticly scratched at the skin. My flesh burned under my wild nails as they raked back and forth. 

“Mom… mom! Please open up!” I tried the handle again with my free hand. 

Nothing.

Not even a wispier came from the other side. I looked to the floor, hoping to see some semblance of the light in the hallway. 

Nothing. 

Dark, colorful spots dusted my vision. I stepped back; I ran through everything I had in my room, trying to remember if I stashed something that would chase the darkness away! Anything at all I could use to bring light back into the room or give my eyes something to go off of. My mom had confiscated all my candles and flashlights. Going so far as to unscrew the light bulbs from my ceiling light. 

The moon!

As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I turned and dashed for the window. Metal scraped on metal as curtain hooks grated along the bar. White light trickled in as the crescent moon shined in the clear sky. A tear wetted my face as I gazed at my bright saver. Without knowing it, my eyes had begun to water when I faced the door. 

A horrible crashing sounded from behind me. I spun on my heels to find my ceramic piggy bank scattered in paces on the floor. Doller bills, coins, and sharp clay were flung carouse across the floor. 

But behind the dresser in the corner where the piggy bank once lived, a small moving mass like the legs of a tentacle shifted in the dark shadows caused by the moon. My stomach welled with dread as my legs began to shake. My hands gripped tighter on the curtains like if the fabric could cover me, I’d be safe. 

I stared at the Moving Darkness for longer than I ever had before, longer than my body would allow. Now that I looked longer, the moving seemed to stop.

Small drops of confidence stared in my veins. 

What if mom’s right?

I stepped closer to the corner.

Maybe if I can see that it’s only a shadow…

Another step. 

Maybe I made it up, and this is all an elaborate childhood fear that I’ve never shaken. 

“… o-okay, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” I whispered under my breath. The light slowly drifted back as I moved forward. The room became darker as I reached the end of my line and looked closer at the dark shadow behind the dresser. I looked beyond the wooden rectangle to the darkest part of the room. My vision cist to provide detail of the wall in front of me. 

“I know you’re not real…” I said, quieter than I wanted. “It’s all in my head.” 

“Am I now?” something guttural and deep spoke. I stood still as stone. Like loud music pumping through the base of a car, every inflection passed over my bones. “If this is the fears of your childhood,” the dark corner moved, inky dark tendrils twisting in and out of each other. The voice tumbled along my veins like rocks down a cliff. “Then what does that make me?”

Something started coming out of the shadows.

Something white as bone, a stark contrast to the black void behind it. I fall, crashing down to the floor, franticly trying to push myself back, away, to get as much distance between this thing and me. I moved right over the fallen piggy bank, its serrated edges bit into hands and feet, but I didn’t care, not now that I looked at something found only in nightmares. 

A skull of some animal came into perfect view. Where eyes should have been, dark nothing occupied the space. Its elongated face pointed down and ended in a snout of some sort. The slits in the skull where nostrils should have been two long cracks split its face. The cracks had spread up and past his eyes. 

I screamed. Tarring my throat apart, I screamed and screamed and screamed. Hopping to alert someone of the danger I found myself in. Desperately trying to regain some sense of self. 

Despite the lack of skin, I could have sworn the monster was grinning at me and my terror. 

The monster chuckled. The sound rippled through me. “there’s no use shouting. No one can hear you.” The thing fully stepped out into view. Its face might be bone, but its body is not! It was thin and covered in dark fair. Its hunchback poster curved its body down. It stood on its back hunches. Leaving its front arms free for use. The bony arms reached the floor where it ended with long fingers and sharp claws. “Not now that my little shadows have consumed everything.” 

I looked around, expecting to see my unmade bed and poster filled walls. Instead, I saw nothing. Nothing but black shadows moving in and out of each other. It had engulfed my room with darkness.

“Oh, how long I’ve waited for this day.” It said again. “You’ve made my job difficult these past few years, haven’t you? Constantly sleeping with some kind of light to fill the room. Even at friends’ houses, you slipped past me.” My entire body trembled in tandem to its rumbling voice. “Finally, that worthless mother of yours did something useful and took it all away.”

“What?” I murmured, shocked I spoke at all. 

“How do you think I came to haunt you? You didn’t think you were special? You were convenient!”

Tears welled in my eyes as a thought consumed my mind. “She knew?” I squeak, my throat throbbed after all the yelling. 

“It was her idea.” The thing laughed. 

“Why?”

“So many questions!” The creator walked farther into the space, clicking as it moved, I glanced over and saw dear hooves covered in matted fur. “None of them matter. Not now that I have you.” It stood behind me now. I didn’t have the strength to move or turn to face it. What can I do against something like that? “No need to dwell on the past.” 

Electric hot pain consumed my back. As dark, colorful spots dusted my vision, the world began to tilt.