We

• Bride Duff, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2015

You can’t always feel us, but we’re there. We’re watching, waiting for the right moment to lunge and sink our teeth into your fear, your vulnerability. Lurking in the shadows, we growl softly, the sound rumbling in the bottom of our throats, ricocheting around our ribcages, tearing through our skin and making our hair stand at attention. We’re what you hear when you’re lying in your bed, unable to move, petrified by the thought that something is there, waiting for you.
“There’s nothing,” she coos as she smooths your sweat-slicked hair away from your forehead. “Close your eyes, go back to sleep. Nothing is going to hurt you.”
Oh, how she lied. The words seeping from her mouth like putrid tar, dripping from her tongue as she assures you of something about which even she isn’t entirely certain. A promise was made to you at the time of your birth, the unbreakable vow that she would never mislead you; she would never break your trust in such a way that compromises your safety, but she has and she does. Maybe it shouldn’t be called a lie, as such; her awareness to the truth, the danger, is limited. She doesn’t know about us. To her, as to all other beings roaming this planet, we are nothing but a feeling. We are the shadow that stands behind you as you gulp down a cold glass of water in the middle of the night. We are the presence that makes you want to seal your eyes against the pitch black surrounding you, pretending you don’t see the tendrils and tentacles of the darkness twisting around your bedhead and the doorhandles. As long as you don’t see us, we don’t exist.
We do not show ourselves. Our shields are firmly fixed and any removal would be fatal to you… to you. We are not shielding ourselves from the world, but the world from us. We are the monsters, we are the dangerous ones, and if no being can be aligned with the chilling tales that haunt you then those tales will never be recreated in reality. The lack of a face, a physical being that proves the existence of the evil and malevolent, keeps you safe.
But what happens if there is one?
Why do you think you see faces etched in the darkness beside your door? Why do you think you have the compulsive need to look behind you as you walk down the street although you know that, logically, there is nothing behind you? Is it because you’re imagining things? Is that what you tell yourself?
This is the reality, my darlings. We must be careful; selection is the most important part. We are only allowed a few in a short space of time, and they have to be the ones drenched in terror, dripping with dread. This is why we don’t show ourselves, this is why we hide; if you see us…









… you die.