Chapter 2

The nightlight flickered twice before dying completely, plunging the room into darkness. Lila lay very still, clutching Mr. Whiskers to her chest, her heartbeat loud in the sudden quiet. “Mom?” she whispered into the blackness. No answer—just the faint hum of the refrigerator downstairs. The streetlamp outside cast a pale glow through the half-open curtains, painting stripes of silver across her pink bedsheets. Something moved in the corner where her stuffed animals sat piled in a bin. Just the shadows, she told herself. Just the shadows. The stuffed animals shifted again—not a settling, but a deliberate slide, like something was pushing them aside from beneath. Lila held her breath, fingers digging into Mr. Whiskers’ plush fur. The moonlight stretched the shadow of her rocking chair into something jagged and wrong. Then, between one blink and the next, the shadow *twitched*. It wasn’t the chair’s shadow anymore. It was too tall, too thin, its limbs bending at angles that made Lila’s stomach hurt. The figure tilted its head to the side in a jerky motion, and Lila heard the wet crack of bone. A strand of greasy hair swung into the light. The thing straightened its neck with another sickening pop, and Lila whimpered into Mr. Whiskers’ fur. Then, all at once, it folded forward like a snapped ruler, joints bending backward before it dropped onto hands and feet with a thud that vibrated through the floorboards. Moonlight gleamed off its knuckles—too long, too many—as it crouched there, motionless except for the slow drip of something dark from its chin. Lila didn’t breathe. The thing didn’t either. Its eyes—if they *were* eyes—reflected the moonlight like puddles of grease, unblinking. She could smell it now: wet earth and old pennies, the scent wafting toward her in pulses, as if the room itself was breathing it out. The thing lunged—not in a human way, but in a series of jerking, spidery movements, its limbs scuttling across the floorboards with a sound like snapping twigs. Lila’s scream tore through the silence, sharp and terrified, just as the hallway light flicked on. One second the woman-thing was mid-leap, greasy hair flying, fingers hooked into claws—the next, she was gone. Vanished mid-motion, as if someone had snipped her out of existence with scissors. The room was suddenly just a room again: stuffed animals in their bin, rocking chair casting a normal shadow, moonlight pooling harmlessly on the sheets. “Daddy!” Lila sobbed, scrambling backward against the headboard as the door burst open. Her father stood there in his rumpled t-shirt, hair sticking up on one side, eyes wide with panic. The overhead light from the hallway spilled in, warm and yellow, chasing away the last traces of silver. “Lila? What’s wrong, peanut?” He crossed the room in two strides, kneeling beside her bed. His hands hovered, unsure whether to scoop her up or check for injuries. “Did you have a bad dream?” Lila gulped air, her throat raw from screaming. She wanted to tell him—about the shadow, the popping bones, the way it *smelled*—but the words tangled in her mouth. Because now, with the light on, it all seemed impossible. The thing had moved wrong, smelled wrong, *been* wrong—but maybe… maybe it *was* just a dream. She wiped her nose on Mr. Whiskers’ ear, then immediately felt guilty. “I… I thought something was in here,” she whispered. Her father’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and he smoothed her hair back with a calloused hand. “Something like what, sweetheart?” her father asked, his voice carefully neutral. Lila hesitated, watching the way his eyes flicked to the stuffed animal bin—still slightly askew from whatever had pushed through it moments ago. But the light was on now. Nothing moved. “Just… shadows,” she mumbled, curling her toes under the blankets. Her father exhaled through his nose, that little puff of air he always made when he was deciding whether to push further. Her father hesitated for just a heartbeat longer, then cracked a small smile—the kind that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. “Want me to check under the bed?” he asked, wiggling his fingers in mock-seriousness. “Full monster inspection. I’ll even look in the closet for gremlins.” His voice was light, but Lila noticed how his gaze kept darting to the moonlit stripes on her sheets, how his fingers twitched toward the curtains like he wanted to yank them shut. Lila nodded quickly, clutching Mr. Whiskers tighter. Her father dropped to his knees with an exaggerated groan, making a show of peering under the bed frame. “Nope, no monsters,” he announced, tapping the wooden floorboards twice. “Just some dust bunnies and… huh. Is that a lost crayon?” He held up a stub of blue wax, and Lila almost smiled despite herself. He moved to the closet next, swinging the door open with a flourish. The inside was a riot of color—dresses crammed together, a tangle of shoes at the bottom. Her father rummaged through a pile of stuffed animals with one hand, tossing a unicorn plush onto the bed. “Gremlin-free zone,” he declared, then paused. “Unless…” He snatched up a polka-dot rain boot and peered inside. “Aha! Found one!” He tipped the boot upside down, and a single Lego brick clattered to the floor. Lila giggled, then immediately clapped a hand over her mouth, as if laughter might summon the thing back. Her father pressed a kiss to her forehead, his stubble scratching lightly against her skin. “Sweet dreams, peanut,” he murmured, tucking the blankets snug around her shoulders. “No more scary shadows, okay?” He hesitated—just for a second—before flicking off her bedroom light, leaving only the hallway’s glow spilling through the half-open door. Lila watched him leave, counting his footsteps down the hall. The moment his bedroom door clicked shut, the hallway light winked out. Darkness swallowed everything—except for the thin stripes of moonlight creeping back across her sheets.

Something wet dripped onto the floorboards.

She didn’t dare look. But she didn’t have to. The mattress sagged near her feet, the springs creaking under sudden weight. A knuckle popped—then another—closer now, moving up the bed in jagged increments. Lila squeezed her eyes shut, but she could still *feel* it: the mattress dipping with each crawling movement, the smell of damp soil flooding her nostrils.

A strand of greasy hair brushed her ankle.

Lila’s eyes flew open. The woman was there, crouched at the foot of her bed, moonlit joints bending the wrong way. Her head jerked to the side with a wet, popping sound and Lila’s bladder gave out as she fainted, but not before she saw her eyes—bulging, white, and pupil-less, and staring right at her.