Ever since I was little, nighttime has never sat easy with me.

Maybe it was the way the floorboards groaned when the house settled. Or how the shadows from my nightlight danced like they had a mind of their own. Or those strange gusts of wind that rattled my window at just the wrong moment.

And of course — the bed.

That sacred, terrifying space. Safe on top of it… but God forbid you ever dangle a hand or foot over the edge.

As I grew up, I chalked it all up to an overactive imagination. Childhood fears. Just stories. Monsters weren’t real — at least that’s what I told myself.

But last night, something changed.

I’d just turned off the lights, pulling the covers up around me like I always did — more habit than comfort. And then I heard it: a soft rustling. Not loud. Not alarming. Just… there. Like fabric shifting, or a whisper without words.

I froze.

Ears straining. Heart pounding. Every instinct in me screaming to not move. Not breathe. Just listen.

The sound came again — clearer this time. Deliberate.

I wanted to bolt. Turn on every light in the house. Prove to myself it was nothing. But part of me hesitated — not out of bravery, but fear. That old childhood fear, the one I thought I’d outgrown, whispered:

What if this time… it’s real?

Still, I couldn’t leave it alone.

I reached for my phone with trembling hands, thumbed on the flashlight, and slowly — slowly — leaned over the edge of the bed.

The beam cut through the darkness.

Dust bunnies. An old sock. Nothing else.

I exhaled. Laughed at myself, even.

But here’s the thing.

That feeling — the chill at the base of my spine, the sense that something was there, just beyond what I could see — it hasn’t gone away.

Even now, I keep glancing at the space beneath my bed. Not because I think I’ll find anything.

But because some part of me… still believes I might.