When I was a kid, I used to sleep over at my grandma’s a lot. I was an unexpected baby and my parents weren’t ready to say goodbye to their social life yet, so they dropped me off at my grandmother whenever they made plans with friends. I’d also spend a lot of my daytime at my grandma’s because my parents also worked late. These two things combined made for an arrangement that I’d just stay for my grandma for weeks on end. I didn’t mind, I love my granny very much.
My grandmother – Granny Bunny as I liked to call her because of the countless rabbits that’d roam around her garden – lived in a cute little cottage. A gravel driveway, rose bushes in front of the porch and big pine trees behind her house. The thing that fascinated me most about it was the old well in her garden. Bricks and roof tiles covered with moss and a very old bucket on a rope hanging from the mechanism attached to the roof. It came straight out of a fairytale. She’d tell me stories about it, made up or real, I’m still not sure. She’d say she saw little faeries flying around the well at night (in hindsight the faeries were just fireflies).
One day I was sitting at the kitchen table, eating the sandwich my granny had just prepared for me. She was reading the paper and telling me about some of the things that were happening in the neighbourhood. Some kid had tried to rob the local supermarket the week prior, and they had just arrested him. “Serves him right! Stealing from a local business”, she mumbled as she was shaking her head. I wasn’t paying much attention to what she was saying. I was fascinated by the bunnies in the garden. A brown rabbit was practically begging me to come out and chase it. “Granny, can I go look at the rabbits?” I asked her. She looked up from the paper and nodded. “But finish your sandwich first!” she said as I was getting ready to get off my chair. I sulked a bit but did what she asked of me. I was almost five years old at the time but I knew better than to disobey my grandmother.
As soon as I had my little boots on, I sprinted after the bunny that had caught my attention. Of course it didn’t appreciate it and it started bolting away from me. It made its way to the well and disappeared behind it. I followed the bunny but when I reached the other side of the well, the bunny had vanished into thin air. I walked a bit further and looked around in hopes of still being able to spot the bunny. It became clear that the animal had found a safe space to hide from my tiny hands. I pouted and decided I’d just look for another bunny to chase around the garden. When I heard a groan, I turned around, expecting to see my grandma standing by the door to ask me to come back inside, but I was met by something I hadn’t anticipated. Crawling out of the well, I saw a white figure with almost no facial features, just shadows where its eyes and mouth should be. It moved almost as if it were a spider, using its legs way more than a human would. It crouched next to the well and seemed to be staring at me, although I couldn’t be sure because it didn’t have any eyes. I stumbled back in fear. The creature got ready to crawl towards me but when I blinked, it was gone. I kept staring at the spot I’d last seen it in, eyes wide open and a lump in my throat. When I blinked again, it was standing right in front of me, bent over so its face was aligned with mine. I screamed and closed my eyes.
“Lola! Lola!” My grandmother came running for me and picked me up. “What happened?” I tried telling her what I had seen, but I wasn’t making any sense and she didn’t understand what I was saying. “It’s okay, baby. Let’s just go back inside.” It’s safe to say I had a horrible night’s sleep that night. I was too scared to close my eyes because that meant the figure could creep into my room without me seeing it move. I only got some sleep after I crawled into my granny’s bed and she put her soft arms around me. Nothing bad could happen when your grandmother was holding you.
After that one time, I never saw the figure again. I made sure not to go into the yard alone anymore and would always ask my grandma to come with me when I wanted to chase bunnies. If she was too tired to come outside, I’d just stay inside and sit beside her on the couch, trying to understand what she was reading in the newspaper. Some days passed and the image of the creature vanished from my brain. I was able to sleep again without having to be in Bunny’s bed. Peace had returned, but I spent the rest of my childhood avoiding the well like the plague.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. My mother gave me a call and told me that Granny Bunny had passed away. I was defeated by this news and told my mother I’d travel with her to my grandmother’s house to gather some of her stuff and arrange the funeral. The trip to her house was heartbreaking and emotional.
My mother and I had put all of my grandma’s smaller belongings in boxes. I didn’t know what my mom was going to do with it. Probably donate it to some thrift shop or just throw it out. Maybe she’d keep some of it. I was standing in the living room, holding a picture frame with a photo of my grandma and my grandpa on their honeymoon. I smiled softly and wiped a tear away. I was going to miss my grandma very much. “Lola, could you go and see if grandma kept things in the shed?” The sound of my mother’s voice made me look up. “Yeah, sure”, I shouted back. She was in my granny’s bedroom, throwing my grandma’s dresses into a box. I put down the frame and went through the door that led to the yard. I had also played in the shed a lot as a kid. It’s where grandma kept the summer activities. An inflatable pool, some chalk, you name it. I forced open the lock that kept the shed closed and entered it. The cobwebs had taken over most of the inside and the dust in the air made me cough. There was barely anything left from the old days. “She must’ve gotten rid of it when I stopped coming over so much”, I muttered to myself. I left the shed and closed it again behind me.
I brushed some dust of my shirt and turned around so I could go tell my mother that there was nothing noteworthy left in the shed. My heart sunk as I was met by the emotionless face of a white creature staring me down from behind the well. It crawled across the opening of the well. Just like I had done when I was still a little kid, I took a step back and felt my back press against the door of the shed. This time blinking didn’t help and the figure ran towards me on all fours. I made a run for the door and almost made it, but the thing got a hold of my leg and made me trip. I screamed and hit my head pretty hard.
I don’t know if I was actually unconscious or not, but when I opened my eyes again, my mother was crouched next to me, asking me what had happened. When I didn’t reply straight away, she sighed and shook her head. “Can’t trust you with terrain that isn’t flat.” I didn’t disagree. It was easier to make her believe I tripped over my own feet than to make her believe that a faceless, white creature dragged me down. I’m just glad my mother heard me scream, because I don’t know what would have happened if she hadn’t come running.
I won’t bore you with the details of what we did with my grandmother’s belongings, house, or how the funeral went. The only thing that’s important to tell you is that when they were lowering my grandma’s casket into the ground, I blinked a few times to keep tears from streaming down my face and during those blinks, I could see the white figure standing in the darkness of my closed eyelids. It made me shiver, but I shrugged it off.
The last few days have been rough on me though. I’m single and living alone. The only time I really have a conversation with anyone is at work, and I don’t really feel like talking to my co-workers about the death of my granny, let alone the things I experience when I’m alone at home. The creature hasn’t gone away like it did when I was younger. It doesn’t appear to me the way it did those two times at the well, but I can see him when I close my eyes. At first this was very scary but still somewhat okay, but now it has started to terrify me. He seems to be getting closer. Yes, you read that right. Every time I close my eyes, he seems somewhat closer to my ‘eyes’ (if you can call it that, he’s standing in the void of my closed eyelids but moves closer). I don’t want to find out what happens when he reaches me. This fear has resulted in me forcing myself to keep my eyes open. I blink as little as possible, but it’s starting to take a toll. My eyes feel incredibly dry and they’re very red.
Today my co-worker asked me what was going on with me. She had noticed that I wasn’t blinking much and told me that a few customers had mentioned it as well, saying it creeped them out how little I blinked. I can’t blame them, I also would be freaked out if some woman was ringing up my items and barely blinked while doing so. It was what my colleague said after that scared me. Severe cases of dry eyes could lead to blindness. I’m the type of person to trust my gut, and my gut was telling me that this was all very bad. I blinked, thinking this would magically cure all the dryness that my eyes were experiencing, and I quickly regretted it. The creature was now almost just in front of me, but something had changed about it. It no longer had no facial features at all. Now it had a huge, terrifying grin on its face.
I think it’ll kill me once it reaches me. But I don’t even want to know what happens if I go blind. I fear it’ll turn me into its own kind.