The Unseen

Alice woke up to find her five-year-old son standing near her bed. “Tim, why are you out of bed? Did you have another nightmare?”

“No, mommy, there is a monster under my bed.”

Alice’s husband, Lex, was awakened by their conversation. “What’s going on?”

When Tim told him what was wrong, Lex grabbed his bat and said he’d scare the monster away, but Tim asked him to leave the bat behind.

“We don’t know if it’s a bad monster,” he said. “Maybe he’s lonely.”

Lex smiled. “Well, it’s best to be safe either way, so I’ll keep the bat with me, just in case.”

As he got off the bed to accompany Tim to his bedroom, Alice said, “If he’s friendly, we can invite him for dinner tomorrow.”

Lex chuckled as he walked out of the room with Tim. A few minutes later, he returned to the bedroom and left the bat next to the bed before getting under the sheets.

“Is he okay?” Alice asked.

“Tim or the monster?”

They both laughed before turning in for the night. Not even an hour after, however, Alice was woken up by strange noises—whispers that floated in the air and loomed over her head.

“I mean no harm,” a voice said. “I only wish to be seen.”

Alice sprang awake and looked around, struggling to retain the air in her lungs as her head began to pound. The voice was so vivid, as if someone were right beside her. She woke Lex up and asked if he was pranking her, but he insisted that he was asleep. Alice would have known if Lex were lying, which made the experience all the more frightening. Lex said it was probably a dream, but Alice wasn’t so sure. Even though she fell asleep again minutes later, her eyes would barely even blink.

Two more hours passed as she stared up at the ceiling aimlessly. When her eyes finally began to grow heavy, the voice suddenly returned.

“I just want to be seen. Will you help me?”

Alice leapt off the bed and grabbed the flashlight that was on the desk. She switched it on and looked around the room. There was no one there. “How can this be?” she wondered, and then her body began to freeze as her eyes were drawn below the bed. Someone—no, something—was crawling underneath. A soft hiss echoed from below, its reverberations sinking chills deep into her skin. Swallowing the growing knot in her throat, Alice bent down and directed the light towards the bed. There was nothing there. But before she could form another thought, she was suddenly encircled by a dark mist.

When Alice regained consciousness, her vision was so blurry she could barely recognise her surroundings. As she rose to her feet, however, she realised that she was in her basement. Her head felt heavy even though her body felt like a feather, but only when she attempted to wipe her eyes did she realise that something was off. She felt no sensation in her hands, even though she knew she was touching her face. She couldn’t even feel the warmth of the room.

“What… What is happening?” she asked herself, looking around. It was then that she saw the basement door open; through it walked two cops. Alice yelled and screamed, but it seemed that they could neither hear nor see her.

“They can’t see you,” a voice rose from behind her. It was the same voice from before.

Alice turned around to find a dark mist materialise into a humanoid form, revealing itself to be a tall figure with eyes that were aflame.

“Wh-what are you?” Alice asked, finding her legs move back on their own yet collapse upon themselves after just a couple of steps.

“I am the Unseen, same as you shall be soon. And so will your husband and son.”

Alice felt her entire body begin to tremble. “No… No!” She tried to crawl back up to her feet, but the Unseen dispersed into a dark mist that enshrouded the entire room, dragging her along the floor and into the walls as she struggled so desperately to cling to anything.