She woke up.  Not startled awake or shaken awake but the awful sort of awake from the feeling of being watched.  The awake you become when something, or worse, a someone somewhere they should not be.

                Too scared to move or open her eyes she lay awake simmering in her own untamable fear as she listened to the room around her for a hint of proof to the sinister feeling of a presence she had awoken to.  A creak of a floorboard, a rustle of the carpet, anything to verify a presence without having to open her eyes.  She could hear the familiar bubbling of her fish tank, the sound of the heating monitor dutifully keeping her bedroom warm on a cold winters’ night.  She restrained her breathing to low and shallow breaths. As if she were trying not to make invisible air ripples that would disturb the evil presence that had found its way to her bedside on this one, of many god forsaken nights to come. She kept listening, straining her ears as hard as she could for any clue as to what was lurking at her bedside.

That is when she heard it.  Ever so faint. The sound of breathing.  She did not hear normal breathing; however, she heard the kind of breaths someone takes when they are in a room they shouldn’t be in. In a room they shouldn’t be in, trying not to wake the tiny innocent person that is sleeping in their bed.

She lay as still as she could as her heart began to hammer inside of her chest, barely managing to continue pulling in fresh breaths of air to purge her carbon dioxide filled veins.  But the breathing, that horrible, labored, strategic breathing from beyond the cover of her bed sheets would not go away.

The girl painfully slow began to move her hands up towards her head to cover her eyes and protect her sanity from the cruel ceaseless entity that had taken up watch at her bedside. Its breathing kept on.

With her eyes covered and closed in an attempt to shield her from a flawed and cracked reality that should not be, a darkness began to form in her mind.  A perfect shadow for the little girl to curl up into. A perfect sacred place for seeking safety from the world outside. And into this shadow the girl crawled, not knowing that the innocence and pure light of her childhood had just ended and that it would never come back.  This darkness birthed a blackness inside of her that she could hide in and rely on.  A friend who was more than a friend, always there, always summonable to her in a time of need. Her own self-created prison of darkness to provide its own twisted comfort and protection at a time when she needs it most.

The girl began to inwardly whimper. Hardly breathing as if the lack of fresh breaths would keep the presence away. The little girl grasped even tighter and pushed even deeper into that black of darkness as the horrors of the sinister entity began; horrors of its own self pleasure it commenced upon her innocent body.  Without hesitation she ventured ever deeper inside of her mind. Far passing the point of return, she traveled as the darkness began to become her, and as she, in turn, began to become it.

Voiceless words of self-disgust and shame exploded inside of her head like microscopic sticks of dynamite strategically placed to destroy her sanity and breach the dam of light inside of her mind. I light that when poached would let flood out her innocence.

She could no longer take it.  She had to open her eyes and see. See what, she did not know. Slowly she peeled each eye open, each tiny little terror filled eye. Desperately trying to will-herself courage and tame her frightened curios mind.

                Laying with her back towards her bedroom door and the presence between the door and her she could see its shadow on the wall from the sickly yellow light that bled forth from the hall.  But in surprise the girl saw that the shadow was not that of some cursed beast or terrifying entity, it was only that of a man.

                Slowly she began to relax her muscles and give into the sleep that was suddenly beginning to breach her consciousness, knowing that the shadow must be that of her father checking on her while she slept.  Overcome with comfort and restfulness she gave into the comforting thought.

Just Dad.

Then she felt it.  The cold dead hand that began to move her messy sleep strewn auburn hair from the pool it formed at her neck.  She snapped shut her eyes. Catching one last glimpse of its shadow on her wall.  The shadow this time she was sure of a monster and not that of a man. A monster that devours light and sacrifices children to a darkness she has yet to understand. 

With eyes shut she gave into the breaching of her internal dam.  She gave into the darkness as it over came the touch of a sinister entities hand.  The shadow of a monster and yet that to of a man. 

She gave into the darkness. Letting the familiar journey of fake sleep become her.  She did not know how many more times she would take the journey to black, but she once again eagerly gave into the darkness because it was so much better than the touch of a sinister fathers’ hand.