There is a distinct difference between the taste of a falling dream and the taste of a monster-in-the-closet dream. The former is airy, crisp, with a hint of vertigo that pops on the tongue like champagne bubbles. The latter is heavier, earthy, rich with the musk of adrenaline and the damp soil of primal instinct.
Most of my kind—the ones you call "Shadow People" or "Night Terrors"—are gluttons. They feed in hospitals and war zones, gorging themselves on the sour, rot-gut terror of adults who fear taxes, death, or loneliness. It is fast food. It is greasy. It lacks nuance.
I am different. I am a connoisseur. I am an addict.
And my addiction is a seven-year-old boy named Leo.
I live exclusively under his bed, amidst the dust bunnies and the lost Lego bricks. I have been here for six months, three weeks, and two days. In the hierarchy of the dark, I am a squatter, a parasite. But God, the boy’s fear is exquisite.
It is 3:14 AM. The Graveyard Shift. This is my dinner time.
Above me, the mattress springs creak. Leo is tossing. I can smell the appetizer drifting down through the fabric: a light anxiety about tomorrow’s math test. It smells like chalk dust and dry paper. I extend a tendril of darkness, licking the air. Bland, but an acceptable palate cleanser.
Then, the main course begins.
Leo’s breathing hitches. His heart rate accelerates—I can hear it thumping against the mattress slats like a frantic bird. He is dreaming about the Thing in the Woods.
I slide out from under the bed, keeping my form flat, two-dimensional. I pool on the floorboards, rising like black smoke. I hover over his sleeping face.
The fear coming off him is intoxicating. It is a vintage red, full-bodied, smelling of cold pine needles and the sharp, metallic tang of pure survival. It is innocent fear. Leo doesn’t fear malice; he fears the unknown.
I open what serves as my mouth and inhale. I draw the nightmare out of his ear, a wispy grey stream of vapor. I swallow it whole.
Leo sighs in his sleep. His brow smooths. The terror is gone, digested in my gullet. He rolls over, safe.
This is my function. I eat the bad things so he doesn’t have to. I tell myself it is a symbiotic relationship. He provides the meal; I provide the peace. But I know the truth. I am obsessed. I am hoarding him. I have frightened away three other shadows who tried to enter this room. Leo is my vineyard.
Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room shifts.
It is not a spiritual shift. It is physical. The air pressure drops. The temperature spikes.
The doorknob turns.
I freeze. I am not supposed to be seen. The Ancient Law of the dark is simple: Feed, but never Manifest. If we are seen by waking eyes, we calcify. We die.
I retreat instantly, slithering back under the bed, wrapping myself around a shoebox of crayons.
The door opens. The hallway light cuts a jagged yellow scar across the floor.
Heavy boots step inside. Thud. Thud.
The smell hits me before the sound does. It is a vile, rancid odor. Stale whiskey, unwashed sweat, and the acrid, burning scent of adult anger.
It is the Father.
This is not the first time he has come during the Graveyard Shift. Usually, he stands in the doorway, swaying, muttering about bills or the wife who left him, radiating a sour, fermented misery that I refuse to eat.
But tonight is different. The air tastes violent.
"Leo," the Father grunts. His voice is wet gravel.
Leo wakes up. I feel the vibration through the bed frame.
"Dad?" Leo’s voice is small, trembling.
"Get up," the Father snaps. He stumbles, catching himself on the dresser. A glass of water falls and shatters. "You think you can hide my keys? You think it's funny?"
"I didn't..." Leo whispers. "I was sleeping."
"Liar."
The belt buckle jingles.
Under the bed, I recoil. This is a new flavor.
Leo’s fear changes. It is no longer the sweet, cold pine of the Thing in the Woods. It is hot. It is scorching. It tastes of betrayal and salt tears. It is the taste of the prey realizing the predator is in the nest.
It is too spicy for me. It burns my sensors.
"Get out here," the Father commands, stepping closer. The boots are inches from my face. I can see the mud caked on the soles.
Leo starts to cry. It is a high, thin sound that slices through my amorphous form.
I am hungry, but not for this. I am an addict, and my supply is being tainted. If the Father hurts him, the "vintage" will be ruined forever. Leo’s fear will turn permanent, bitter, aged in barrels of trauma. I cannot digest trauma. It is poison to my kind.
The Father reaches down. The mattress groans as he grabs the blankets.
"No, Daddy, please!"
I have a choice.
I can stay under the bed. I can survive. I can wait for the storm to pass, then try to salvage whatever scraps of innocence are left in the boy’s psyche tomorrow. That is what a parasite does.
But I am not just a parasite anymore. I am a sommelier. And I protect my cellar.
The Father raises his hand.
I break the Law.
I do not slide out. I erupt.
I pour out from under the bed not as a wisp, but as a flood. I expand, knitting my shadows together, stealing the darkness from every corner of the room to build myself a body. I rise up between the boy and the man.
I am eight feet tall. I have no eyes, because eyes are a weakness. I have only a mouth—a gaping, vertical maw that splits my head like a cracked plate. I borrow the shape of the Thing in the Woods, adding razor-wire edges and the density of a black hole.
The room goes silent. The temperature plunges to freezing.
The Father freezes, his hand raised, the belt dangling. His whiskey-soaked brain tries to process the impossible geometry standing before him.
I lean down. My face is inches from his.
I do not roar. Roaring is for animals.
I whisper. I use the voice of a thousand nightmares I have digested over centuries. It sounds like shifting tectonic plates.
"LEAVE. THE. BOY."
The Father’s reaction is immediate. His anger evaporates, replaced instantly by a terror so pure, so white-hot, that it nearly blinds me. It is the fear of a man looking at his own damnation.
He screams—a sound that has no dignity in it. He drops the belt. He stumbles back, tripping over his own feet, scrambling on the carpet like a crab. He hits the doorframe, scrambling into the hallway, and I hear him running, crashing down the stairs, out the front door, into the night.
Silence returns to the room.
I turn to Leo.
I am fading. The effort of Manifesting is tearing me apart. My edges are dissolving into gray smoke. I am dying.
Leo is sitting up, eyes wide, clutching his blanket. He looks at the monster that just saved him.
He should be terrified. I am the stuff of legends. I am the shadow under the bed made flesh.
But Leo is a child. And children see things differently.
He sniffs. He wipes his nose. He looks at my dissolving form, at the gaping maw, the claws of smoke.
"Thank you," he whispers.
The fear is gone.
For the first time in my existence, I feel something other than hunger. I feel... full.
I dissolve completely, scattering into a million particles of harmless dust. The addiction is broken. The vintage is saved.
And as I drift away into the ether, nothing more than a memory of a shadow, I decide that it was the finest meal I ever had.