The Creak Beneath

Beneath the wood splintered floor of my old home laid a sinister labyrinth of the terrors of the unknown. As a child not even old enough to ride a bike this fear kept me up all night long. I would challenge the thought of something lurking in my room. Afterall, every child contemplates the idea at one point. It may be rather silly but with the eternal abyss of our minds we create something unspeakably that no genius in the world could explain.

On a particularly cold winter night I laid bare to the cold draft that flew in and out my room like the waves of the ocean. Why didn't I close the window to warm myself? This question bounced up and down in my mind, but with each time I asked I answered even faster. The hair of my neck stood up. My hand red from how hard I was strangling the blanket. My teeth shut together with the strength of the strongest glue. Something was in my room and every sense in my body and mind was sure of it.

Our house was one hundred years old. This house had seen the decades come and go like seasons. It was a two-story house with more windows than a normal house needs. In addition, it was in the middle of the woods where every noise sounds unreal, unnatural and creepy. My grandmother once told me about stories about when she was my age and how she would fear that the closet in her room was a gateway into the unknown. She feared that each night a new entity would enter her room and allowed itself to explore the house. She said that she had seen the entities numerous times but couldn't create a solid image of what it looked like. Though one thing that she could explain clearly was that they all looked like shadows. Never bounded by human physics or movements.

Her story was kept fresh in my mind even after she'd pass away. Whatever she had told me was not fiction but something that she feared when she was my age. So, I decided that I ought to discover what was lurking in my room. To suppress my fear of these entities and fill the void in my mind of what these creatures looked like once and for all. I turned about and slowly peaked my head over the bed. There was nothing there. No shadow creatures or entities hiding beneath my bed.

My confidence had kicked in and admitted to the fact that all these tales were nothing but campfire stories to tell around little children like me. But as I thought this, I heard something being dragged under my bed. Once again, I froze and looked to the side of my bed. As I did two hands with fingers the size of a foot held on to the box side panel of my bed. Slowly the entity dragged itself out from the bottom of my bed. At that moment I saw the most terrifying sight in all my life. The creature's body was completely black and void of any features like if it was cut out from cardboard. The slender face that resembled the linage of a wolf and not of a human. The bright white eyes with the pupils the size of single grain of rice. But the most hideous feature were the bright teeth that were shaped like teeth from a shark. This was the entity that I have heard so much from.

I covered myself with my blanket and shut my eyes, waiting for the entity to go away. I was under my blanket for a long time until I eventually ran out of air. I lifted the blanket from myself and saw an incredible sight. My bed was in a foreign land that had no features except the gray sand the was beneath. There were no trees, bushes or hills as far as the eye could see. When I looked up I was beheld a behemoth creature that hovered over me. It was unlike anything that the mind could create. The body was the size of the tallest mountain and its octopus-like tentacles where each as long as the River Nile. Its features were indescribable, hosting every known part and shape of animals that existed in our world and any other world.

Many years later the house is now gone. Torn to the ground and erased from the forest's presence. I sleep a lot better now in my new home knowing that whatever horrors were present in that house had perished with it. Were my experiences nightmares or just figments of my imagination? Either way I still have the sensation that I am not alone.