The Lurking

As a child, I always had the feeling that someone was watching me. Whenever I was travelling, I could sense that someone or something was following me, even though I found nothing whenever I looked around. My parents didn’t think much of it at first, but seeing how scared I was, they made it a habit to never allow me out of their sight.

These feelings lingered as I grew older, although they weren’t as strong as before. I would sometimes sense a presence around me whenever I did my homework—and I could have sworn I heard whispers echoing in the air sometimes in the dead silence of the school library.

This weird experience led me to write short stories in my spare time, and I even got the idea to write a novel one day. Writing helped me pour out my experiences in a way that nothing else did, and I often found it soothing. Following my parents’ advice, I also saw a therapist as a teenager, but while the sessions helped me to some degree, the sense of brewing danger never truly faded.

In time, I learned how to mask that lingering feeling of danger from others, and my parents slowly allowed me to have the freedom I wished to have as I grew older. After graduating, I moved out of town and started working as a teacher. During my free time, I worked on my novel, which was nearing completion; I couldn’t wait to hand it over to an editor.

Something strange that I noticed while working on my book, was that while the presence I sensed still remained, it did not feel as dangerous as it did when I was working on something else. Sometimes I’d get lost in writing that I’d miss calls and texts from family and friends. Mom even came over to check on me once; she was proud that I was just a few days away from finishing my draft.

Five days later, I finally completed it. I took my hands off my keyboard and sank into my chair in relief. However, it was right then that things grew darker. All the lights in my house went dim, and winds began coursing through the room even though the windows and doors were all locked. The air around me grew cold and heavy; I fell to my knees and began to crawl away, gasping for air.

And then I felt it once again—that presence. It was stronger than ever before, and more threatening. I looked behind me and found my book spiralling into the air as a mass of shadows swirled out of it and took humanoid form before me.

“Thank you for finally bringing me into this world,” the shadow-being whispered.

A sudden chill pierced my flesh and sank into my bones. The room was growing colder by the second, and I couldn’t move a muscle. “What… What are…” The icy grasp would not let me finish my sentence.

“I am your creation, and I am also your end.”

Those were the last words I heard before my vision faded to black…