Ever since I was four I have had a fear of what might be under the bed or watching me from unseen places. At that age, I had heard my classmates, family and people on TV talk about how so many people believe there to be something under the bed or how people are scared of the dark because they think that there is something out there.

It was strange. I’d never really thought about that much before then but once people started talking about it it was all I could think about when I was lying in bed.

I had also been watching things about animals on the TV and was always trying to learn more about them. I had a book called Earth and Space at that age too. It had become my favourite, partly because of the holographic cover that changed from the Earth to the sun at just the right angle. I read that book whenever I could so I ended up almost memorising each page. I could always find what I wanted in that. Especially if it was a favourite page.

But that book and my hunger for information were what fueled my fear. At night I dreamed of all sorts of creatures hiding under my pink, velvet bed.

I had two sorts of dreams. One was me waking up and finding an animal somewhere in my room, staring straight at me and then jumping onto my legs and making its way towards my face. I could never move in those dreams. I was paralysed, whether from fear or not I have never figured out. They always ended when the creature was on my chest launching for my face. Sometimes I would recall the fangs or open maws of the creatures all week.

The other dreams were of me waking up with one of the creatures hiding under my bed. I would appear to have woken up needing to go to the bathroom or get ready for the day. I always recognised that there was something underneath but my body would continue on getting up, ignoring my brain's protests to stay. As soon as I had taken one step away from the bed a paw or hand reaches out to grab my leg, and a shadowed head would have also appeared under the bed, grinning up at me.

The two dreams were different in the type of creatures that appeared too. The first type has normal creatures that are still around and in the country such as snakes and crocodiles, spiders and other bugs. But in the second lot of dreams, I saw prehistoric creatures, hordes of spiders, snakes and even a crocodile, and sometimes I saw a human-like one. The human dreams were the worst.

The human creature was almost indistinguishable from us but there were a few differences. The skin was pasty and grey. They wore black combat boots, long grey pants, a grey shirt and long grey and black cloak. Their hands were normal except for at the ends of their fingers they had claws of bone. The claws started like a normal humans nail but was a normal added finger bone. After the flesh ended the bone extended out by double the length of the first bone on the finger. This bone was also the purest white ever seen. They were completely hairless and appeared to be neither male nor female.

The mornings after all of these dreams I would get out of bed by standing upon it, making it and then jumping off it as far as I could.

My fear evolved even more as the years went on. It changed so that it could follow me wherever I went. I started to believe that there was always something watching me. Something that remained unseen to my eyes and those around me. Something that hid in the crevices. Something that made its home in the shadows.

Some nights, while I was lying in bed I would get a shiver and feel as though whatever it was focused on me. When I felt that I would move towards the middle of the bed as inconspicuously as I could. I pull the covers up to my chin and just lay there, wide eyes scanning the room for hours.

On the nights filled with the drumming of rain, the crash of thunder, howling wind, and sudden bursts of light, I feel more of a presence. After watching movies, TV shows, or staying up late, the presence is also more noticeable. When the night is still, my hair stands on end.

When there is someone else in the room or I hear someone in the house, I’m comforted because I know I’m not alone with the creature — only if I recognise them though. If there are people in the house who I have only just met, I will be more likely to remember the mysterious watcher. In crowds, I’m able to believe it doesn’t exist. No one sees a person that seems so strange they point them out. No one ever seems alarmed. And in a crowd, it’s easy to get lost in the flow. It’s easy for someone to be mistaken for another. It’s hard to disappear with no one noticing.

Though most days and nights I was able to ignore the feeling and completely forget about it. I was able to live normally. I was able to fall asleep with no problems. At least until I saw it again. Not in a dream, but late at night. It could have been my imagination. It probably was. I hope it was.