Ever since I was little, I’ve had this irrational fear: that something was hiding under my bed.

It sounds silly now — the kind of fear you grow out of, right? But even as an adult, there’s something about the creak of the floorboards, the flicker of shadows on the wall, or the wind tapping against the window that brings that old childhood dread rushing back.

I’ve always brushed it off as imagination. I mean, monsters don’t exist.

Or so I thought.

Last night, something happened that made me question everything.

I had just crawled into bed, turned off the lights, and was getting comfortable when I heard it — a faint rustling, like fabric shifting… or a whisper. I froze. My heart started pounding, and my ears strained to hear more. There it was again — a low shuffle, too soft to be certain, but too strange to ignore.

I lay there for what felt like forever, torn between logic and fear. One part of me wanted to jump out of bed, flip on the lights, and laugh at myself for being paranoid. But another part — the one that still remembered being six years old and afraid of what lived in the dark — wasn’t so sure.

Finally, I reached for my phone and turned on the flashlight. Slowly, hesitantly, I leaned over the edge of my bed… and looked underneath.

Nothing.

Just a couple of dust balls and a lost sock.

But even as I climbed back under the covers, heart still racing, I couldn’t shake the feeling. That chill in my spine. That quiet whisper of doubt.

Because the scariest thing isn’t always what is under the bed.

Sometimes, it’s not knowing if something was ever really there at all.