A work of fiction based on real events:

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The shadows in my closet demand my life. No, they don't have any desire to kill me, they merely want to take my place in this plane of existence. Their envy and hatred radiate from this place in my room that I shut tight every time I go to bed.

And every night they peer out from under their prison door with the sole intention to hate me. I'm not unfamiliar with experiencing a spirit's rage. Even as a child they would do everything in their power to make me cry out alone in the night. Can you blame them? I suppose that such aggressions against a child's psyche only helped ease their fears that they were truly forgotten......


Nothing, in every sense of the word, is frightening enough. To be nothing, I cannot fathom.


This is why I sympathize with the shadows in my closet. Night after night, they've tortured me in the hopes that their own existence would be reaffirmed.

Nightmares wrenching me awake only to make it horrifyingly clear that I had left my door open, allowing them free reign while I slept. Get up, they would beckon. Close the door. Ashen faces gazing out from behind my hanging shirts, only to disappear behind the darkness once my eyes met theirs.

A trap. It must be a trap. Shut your eyes, close the door in the morning. They can't hurt your body, but they can destroy your mind. These are no ordinary spirits.


Demons, perhaps?

Pray. Sleep does not come easy in the room where the shadows lurk. Oh God, I have to pray, only then will they let me sleep.


Dear God, please protect me. Dear God, please protect me. Dear God, please protect me. Dear God, please protect me. Dear God, please protect me. Dear God, please protect me. Dear God, please protect me.

The wind from my open window creates a vacuum, opening my closet door wider..... wider........ and slamming it hard enough to crack the wooden frame. They will let me be, but they revel in my soundless sobs. This is the extent of their rage. How can such beings despise an eight year-old boy?


Sit with me, my guardian angel. I'll sleep knowing you're here.


The wind took my helicopter zip-toy into the drain pipe. Weeks go by, the frame has been repaired, and I can hear them snickering each night. The helicopter buzzes inside the drain pipe on windy nights, jerking me from my slumber. They are planning something. How they love to hate a child..... monsters must truly exist in my closet. The thought would almost be amusing to me, if there were no truths behind it.

But I feel my own anger swelling. The next night I will taunt them myself. How dare they spend their eternity this way? To waste such time on the living....... these monsters are cowards.


I give them their opportunity. Show me this plan. More nightmares? I can deal with those. I'm almost curious to see what they have in store for me.

Hours go by, and I begin to drift. The grip on my crucifix tightens, when I hear wood grind against wood. My body goes cold, and my mouth is dry. Such fear I have never experienced in my entire life after the moment I had realized my window just opened.


I must fight back.



I sit up and turn towards my open window. There is a figure standing over me. I do only what I know. My arm moves forward and I show him the only object I believe can protect me. My God is my only defense. I feel myself speaking, not words of my own, but words nonetheless:

"Leave my room. My God demands it."


The figure obeys.

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Was he a man? Was he not of this world? I shall never know. I only know one thing:




The shades, who hated me with every ounce of their own existence, are now silent.

I sleep.......