Fiction

When the Mind Plays

At night.

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A Fictional Story.

The little lights illuminating my headboard are the only light I have during my night, a night when I should supposedly be sleeping, but I’m not. Whenever I go to bed, I take all my stuffed animals off my bed. Why do I do that? At night, they seem to come to life, at least that’s the feeling I get when I’m alone.

My room is upstairs, and the wooden stairs creak when everyone is asleep. I feel the steps, I hear the wood cracking. Is someone coming up? Or is it my fertile imagination playing tricks on me? I pull the covers up to my head, I hear only silence, only the steps on the stairs, and I only feel the cold. I cover my head.

Now, it seems like everything comes to life. The invisible has become visible in my head. I’m under the covers, and out there, in my room, there seem to be entities that like to roam. Are they just here to annoy me? To scare me? Maybe. But my dad always said that monsters don’t exist; they only exist in our heads, in our imagination. Really?

My dad also told me that often the mind likes to play tricks on us as if it were a game. I don’t like these games… The mind seems to turn the unreal into reality to keep us alert. Since I can’t see, I can only hear, I can’t understand. And that’s what fear is: we’re afraid…