When I was a young child, everything about my life was normal. Everything except for the light in my closet. That wasn’t normal at all.
I lived in a creaky old house with my parents. My room looked like any other kid’s room—it had posters on the walls and toys on the floor. It had a big closet with its own light switch. All that was normal. What wasn’t? There was a presence in my room that turned on my closet light every night before I went to bed. Definitely not normal.
For a while I thought it was my parents playing a joke on me. But they were so boring and colorless. When they were home they’d mostly sit on their computers or make calls to clients. They would probably have called a prank like that “unbecoming and unprofessional.”
Besides, I had tried to catch whoever was turning on the closet light, and I had never seen anyone. One evening I brushed my teeth in the hallway so I could watch my bedroom door for intruders. I only looked away when I had to spit in the sink. In the few seconds that took, there was no way either of my parents could run upstairs and turn the light on. Even if they could have, I still would have heard the creaky floorboard at the top of the stairs. Yet when I got back to my room, the light was on just like always.
I tried to trick the nocturnal presence a few times by skipping my usual toothbrushing and going straight to bed from downstairs. But when I would get up to my room, the light would be on every time. It was like it knew somehow, like it was watching me.
At first, this whole phenomenon creeped me out. The first few times it happened I turned the light back off before going to bed (it could be turned on and off normally). After a while though, there was something I began to find strangely comforting about the light’s appearance every night. No matter how good or bad my day was, I would always be welcomed to bed by its rectangular glow. I didn’t understand it, but it felt nice to feel like someone or something out in the universe was keeping an eye on me. So, I started leaving it on when I slept. It’s surprising how something so strange can become so normal.
I tried talking to my parents about this mystery, but they had very little patience for anything that wasn’t normal. They told me to stop leaving so many lights on, and that my imagination was “becoming an encumbrance.” So, I dropped it.
On the worst night of my life, the light didn’t come on.
That night, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth like always. As I walked past my parents’ room to my own, I heard the streams of their usual snoring coming from under their door. When I reached my room, I froze in fear in the hallway. My room was pitch dark. The closet light was still off. Gazing into the unfamiliar darkness in my room, my stomach lurched uncertainly. The leftovers of my toothpaste tasted like minty fear in my mouth. What did it mean?
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t wake my parents—they wouldn’t understand. I tiptoed across the gloom and climbed into bed, leaving the lights off. I lay in bed for a while, unable to fall asleep.
From my covers, the newfound murkiness pressed against my face. It smothered me. Blind, I breathed faster. The air felt thick and deadly, like poisonous smoke. My head spun. The walls of my room begin to close in on me. I imagined shadowy snakes and wolves prowling the darkness around my bed. I heard their hisses and howling as they waited for the right moment to strike. I tried to move, but my body had stopped obeying me. In my peripheral vision I watched the inky predators circle my bed hungrily. I lay there sweating and staring at the ceiling for a long time.
I desperately tried to think of a way out, but my brain was running in slow motion. Escaping the room was impossible—the door to the hallway was on the other side of the room. I’d never make it. But the switch to my closet light was much closer. I could picture its exact location on the wall near me. Could I reach it? In a sudden burst of determination, knowing I had to act quickly before I lost my nerve, I leapt from my bed. My feet barely touched the ground as I dashed over to the wall, turned the light on, and jumped back under my covers. I huddled underneath them, shivering with terror.
I felt my feet for bite marks. Realizing I was unharmed, I felt a little braver. I poked my head out from my blanket sanctuary and looked around. The closet light was on, offering its usual circadian radiance. Everything looked normal. Gathering more courage, I looked down at the floor. No snakes, no wolves. Just a few forgotten pieces of clothing.
I breathed out slowly in relief. My heart began to slow, and I wondered what to make of the absence of the presence. Everything would be ok now that the light was back on, right?
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of breaking glass coming from downstairs.
Time froze. I could still hear my parents’ soft snoring in the room next to mine. The sounds of a door opening and more glass breaking came up the stairs. Our back door was made of glass…
I’d heard of houses being robbed, but I never thought something like that could ever happen to me. It wasn’t normal. My heart beat faster again, but this time I didn’t panic. Think. Get Help. My parents!
I crossed my room as silently as I could. My closet’s illumination ended near the border of my room, so I was in almost full dark again as I stepped into the hallway. I strained my ears and tiptoed towards my parents’ room. From the first floor I heard a voice say something in a low growl. Another voice rasped back. Hearing that got me scared again. This was really happening. Distracted, I almost stepped on the creaky floorboard, but I caught myself at the last second.
I made it to my parents’ room, let myself in, closed the door, and quietly explained the situation to their groggy figures. One good thing about having such serious parents—they believed me right away. We listened again. Over our noisily pounding hearts, we heard footsteps and more grunting conversation from downstairs.
We had to hide. The three of us crept into my parents’ closet and closed the door. We sat on the ground as my mother called emergency services in an almost inaudible whisper. I breathed in the leather smell of my dad’s shoes, and held each breath as long as I could. We waited wordlessly in the darkness.
A minute passed, or an hour. It’s hard to say just how long. Eventually we heard footsteps coming up the stairs slowly, like someone trying to be sneaky. We looked at each other’s terrified faces, barely visible in the gloom of the closet. My father gripped a handful of my nightshirt in a tight fist. We heard the unmistakable creak of the floorboard at the top of the stairs. Whoever it was, they were on the second floor now.
Just then we heard the sound of police sirens coming towards us. Whoever was in our house must have heard them too because we heard panicked steps run down the stairs and out of the house, making no effort to stay quiet this time. As the sirens got even louder, a second set of footsteps chased the first out the back door.
To make a long story shorter, the intruders ran out of our house into the arms of the arriving police. We found out later that they both had long criminal records. They had done some bad stuff. I mean bad bad. When they were caught, they had a backpack with a bunch of…tools in it. I shuddered, wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t been awake to hear them break in.
After that night, my closet light never turned on by itself again. I’ve never known why. The presence had vanished completely from my life, taking with it that feeling of consistent comfort it had always provided.
So, I started turning the light on myself at bedtime. But I swear it wasn’t because I was afraid. The thing was, I would find myself lying in the dark for hours, waiting for the presence of my childhood to return. Each night the anticipation would rub my nerves raw like drips of water torture on my head. Part of me desperately wanted the mystery to come back, so I would know it hadn’t just been my “over encumbered imagination.” But another part was filled with dread; I wanted to be done with anything unusual altogether. So I started turning my light on by myself to eliminate the suspense. I still do today.
My family moved a few months later. It was too difficult for us to live in that house after all that. I never told my parents the real reason I was awake all those years ago. They wouldn’t want to hear it. I never told anyone else either—who would believe it? Do you?
Whether you do or not, I want you to know this: at some point, you’ll face the darkest night of your life. And if you find yourself facing the shadows all alone, you have to show up for yourself and light your own way out. After all, those wolves and snakes you imagine prowling around you? They’ve got nothing on the fiends that are really out there in the night.