My name is Alexia, and when this friendship started I was about eight or nine. He had moved in under my bed recently, for reasons I would find out about in my teens.

 Late one night, I heard a faint electrical swooshing sound. I woke up right away, always having been a light sleeper, and as soon as I opened my eyes, I saw a light coming from somewhere. But where? I followed the light under my bed, and saw a small silhouette among the light. 

I waited a few moments after the light had gone away before I decided to speak.

“Hi...” I tentatively whispered into the darkness. The figure's head seemed to jolt at the sound of my words. 

“Oh, sorry if I scared you, are you ok?” 

No response. I saw that the shadow started moving around under the bed again, seemingly looking for something. I quickly grew impatient and pleaded,

 “Can you come out please? I can’t really see you.” The penumbra stopped and turned its head. 

I heard words spoken barely above a whisper, in a shaky tone: 

“Please don’t hurt me.”  I’m slightly taken aback at the low pitch of the voice. The creature’s a he! He doesn’t sound much older than me. 

“Oh no, I promise I won't hurt you!” I wondered how old he was. “O-ok.. But you have to pinky jurare.” I stared at him blankly. “Uhh, pinky what now??” I asked, completely dumbfounded.

 He let out a light chuckle. “It means pinky swear, you silly little devil. It’s Latin.”  

We both laughed a little too loud at that. Without warning, my dad walked in. As soon as he did, I risked a glance to where the light was and saw that the little boy was gone. 

“Who were you talking to?” My father asked, eyes narrowed in scrutiny. 

“No one, daddy, I just heard a little noise outside and woke up, but when I looked outside, it was just a bird.” He carefully examined my face to try to figure out if I was lying or not. Luckily, I’ve always been a pretty good liar, so I didn't seem suspicious. 

“So then why were you laughing?” 

I giggle, and say, “Because I was scared of nothing!” 

Father huffed and said, “Okay, then go back to sleep, Alexia. Goodnight, I love you.”  As he left, he gave my room one last look over, to make sure no ‘monster’ had come in to try and take me away. When the door shut, my room fell completely silent. I waited a few moments to see if I could hear anything before I realized that the little creature might not be coming back tonight.

 “Goodnight,”  I whispered into the night as I nodded off back to sleep. “I’ll see you later.”

Just before I retire to the magical land of dreams, I hear a small voice say, “Goodnight dearest, see you in the morning.”