The Shadow Under the Bed

Grace had always hated the dark. Even as a child, she would sleep with a nightlight, the soft glow offering her a sense of safety. Now an adult, she thought she had outgrown her fear. But in this new apartment, with its old wooden floors that creaked beneath every step, she felt uneasy once more.

It wasn’t the creaks that bothered her, though. It was the shadows.

The apartment had an odd layout, with a large bed in the center of the room and a wide, space underneath it. Grace never liked the idea of looking under the bed—too much empty space, too many possibilities for something to hide. But she forced herself to ignore it. She had to be grown-up about this. Right?

One night, after a long day at work, Grace collapsed into bed, too tired to even bother with turning off the light. The soft glow from the bedside lamp cast long shadows across the room. She rolled over, burrowing her face into the pillow, and began to drift off to sleep.

That’s when she heard it.

A sound, low and soft. Like the faintest scrape of something against the floor.

At first, she thought it was a mouse, maybe something in the walls. She rolled over and glanced at the darkened space beneath her bed. But the darkness under there looked… wrong. It was deeper, darker than it should have been.

Her heart began to pound in her chest, and she turned to glance at the clock on the nightstand. 2:42 a.m.

Another noise. A faint scuffling sound, closer this time.

Grace’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t ignore it anymore. Slowly, she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, the floor cold against her bare feet.

She stared at the shadow beneath the bed, her hand trembling as she reached for the flashlight on the nightstand. The beam of light cut through the dark, illuminating the space beneath the bed. At first, she saw nothing.

Just the clutter of boxes and old shoes she hadn’t yet unpacked.

Then, she saw it.

A pair of eyes. They glinted in the flashlight’s beam, just barely visible.

Grace froze.

The eyes were dark, wide, and completely motionless. But they were there.

Before she could react, the shadow shifted. Something moved under the bed—slowly, deliberately. The scraping noise returned, but now it was louder. Closer.

Her stomach twisted with terror as she stood up, her body instinctively backing away from the bed.

“Who’s there?” she whispered, but no one answered.

The shadow under the bed shifted again. It seemed to grow, stretching like a dark mass of ink, swallowing the light from her flashlight. Then, in an instant, a figure emerged.

A hand—long and spindly—gripped the edge of the bed, pulling something forward.

Grace gasped as she saw the face. It was hers. Her own face. But twisted, distorted, with empty eyes and a grotesque grin.

“You never should have looked,” it whispered in a voice that was hers but wrong. “Now you’re mine.”

Before Grace could scream, the shadow under the bed surged forward, engulfing her. The flashlight clattered to the floor, its light fading into nothingness.

In the morning, the bed was empty.

The shadow was gone.

But the whisper remained, echoing through the room: “You’re mine…”