The diagnosis was comforting because it was common.
“Separation anxiety,” Dr. Aris said, leaning back in his leather chair with a sympathetic smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s classic, Elena. New school, first grade, big developmental leap. Mason is processing a changing world. He needs reassurance.”
Elena nodded, clutching her purse strap. She looked at her husband, Mark, who was nodding along vigorously. Mark liked answers that could be fixed with a routine chart and a nightlight.
“So, the not sleeping?” Elena asked. “The screaming if I look away?”
“Control,” Dr. Aris said smoothly. “He’s testing boundaries. If he can make you sit there, he feels safe. It’s a power dynamic. You need to be firm but loving. Wean him off the presence.”
Elena wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that her six-year-old son, who used to sleep like a stone, was just going through a phase.
But Dr. Aris hadn’t seen Mason’s eyes.
He hadn’t seen the way Mason scanned the corners of his bedroom ceiling, not like a child looking for monsters, but like a soldier clearing a perimeter.
That night, they tried the “weaning” method.
“Okay, buddy,” Mark said, tucking the duvet around Mason’s shoulders. “Dad is going to sit right here in the chair. But I’m going to read my book, okay? I’m right here.”
Mason sat bolt upright. His knuckles turned white gripping the sheets.
“No,” Mason said.
“Mason, lay down,” Mark said firmly. “I’m not leaving.”
“You have to look,” Mason whispered.
“I am looking. I’m right here.”
“No!” Mason’s voice pitched up, bordering on hysteria. “Put the book away! You have to watch!”
Mark sighed, shooting an exasperated look at Elena in the doorway. “Okay. Fine. No book. I’m watching.”
Mark put the book down. He crossed his arms. He stared at his son.
Mason stared back. He didn’t blink. He didn’t relax. He held his father’s gaze with an intensity that was unnerving.
Ten minutes passed.
Elena went downstairs to load the dishwasher. She felt a knot of guilt in her stomach. She was so tired. Her bones felt like they were filled with sand. She just wanted to sleep in her own bed without the feeling of being held hostage.
Twenty minutes later, Mark came downstairs. He looked victorious.
“He’s out,” Mark whispered, grabbing a beer from the fridge. “Took a while, but he finally crashed.”
“Did you stay until he was asleep?”
“Yeah. Well, I closed my eyes for a second because my contacts were drying out, but when I opened them, he was snoring.”
Crash.
The sound came from upstairs. It wasn’t a thump. It was the sound of something heavy—like a bookshelf—slamming against the floor.
Then came the scream.
It wasn’t a “I had a bad dream” cry. It was a blood-curdling shriek of pure, animalistic terror.
Elena dropped the plate she was holding. It shattered, but she was already running. Mark was right behind her.
They burst into Mason’s room.
The room was in chaos.
The heavy oak bedside table was overturned. The lamp was smashed on the floor.
Mason was backed into the far corner of the room, standing on top of his toy chest, pressing himself into the angle of the walls so hard it looked like he was trying to merge with the plaster.
“Mason!” Elena yelled, stepping over the broken glass.
“You stopped!” Mason screamed at his father. He was pointing a trembling finger. “You stopped looking! You closed your eyes!”
“I… I just blinked,” Mark stammered, looking at the heavy table. There was no way a six-year-old could have thrown that table with enough force to dent the floorboards. “Mason, what happened?”
“They saw you stop!” Mason sobbed. “They saw you stop and they came!”
“Who came?” Elena asked, reaching for him.
Mason flinched away from her hand. He looked at the closet door. It was slightly ajar.
“The Waiters,” he whispered.
That was the night the “phase” officially ended and the siege began.
They didn’t talk about Dr. Aris anymore. They didn’t talk about boundaries.
They established a watch schedule.
Mark took the first shift, from 8:00 PM to 1:00 AM. Elena took the second, from 1:00 AM to 6:00 AM.
The rules were strict, dictated by Mason in a voice that sounded far too old for his body.
-
The Light: The hallway light had to be on, but the bedroom light had to be off. Shadows were allowed, but only if they were “still.”
-
The Position: The chair had to be placed at the foot of the bed, facing the pillow directly.
-
The Gaze: You could blink. But you couldn’t close your eyes for more than a second. You couldn’t look at your phone. You couldn’t read. You had to look at him.
“If you look at me,” Mason explained one afternoon while playing with his Legos, “then I’m real.”
“You’re always real, baby,” Elena said, stroking his hair.
Mason shook his head. He didn’t look up from his construction. “No. Only when you see me. If nobody sees me… I’m just space. And they can walk through space.”
It was a chilling piece of metaphysics for a first-grader. Quantum immortality, Elena thought vaguely. Schrödinger’s child.
The first week was brutal. Sitting in the dark for five hours, forcing yourself to stare at a sleeping child, is a form of torture. Your mind wanders. Your eyes play tricks on you.
Elena found herself hallucinating.
Around 3:00 AM on a Tuesday, she was staring at Mason’s rhythmic breathing. The room was silent.
She watched the shadow of the curtains on the wall. It looked like a long, thin hand.
She blinked. The shadow moved.
She snapped her eyes back to Mason.
He was stirring. His brow furrowed. He whimpered.
“I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m watching.”
He settled instantly.
It worked. As long as she focused—really focused—he slept peacefully.
But the moment her mind drifted? The moment she started thinking about the grocery list or the bills?
Mason would twitch. He would gasp.
It was as if he could feel the weight of her attention lifting, leaving him exposed.
The breakdown happened three weeks in.
Mark couldn’t handle it. He was falling asleep at work. He was irritable. He started arguing that they were enabling a delusion.
“He’s training us, Elena,” Mark whispered furiously in the kitchen. “He’s got us wrapped around his finger. There are no monsters. There are no ‘Waiters.’ It’s just a kid who wants attention.”
“Did you see the table, Mark?” Elena hissed. “Did you see the bruise on his arm last week?”
“He did that to himself! Thrashing around!”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m done,” Mark said. “I can’t do the staring contest tonight. I have a presentation tomorrow. We’re buying a video monitor. A high-end one. Night vision. Motion alerts. We can watch him from our bed.”
Elena felt a surge of panic. “He said it has to be in the room.”
“He doesn’t get to decide!” Mark snapped. “We are the parents.”
They bought the monitor. It was a terrifyingly expensive piece of technology with a 4K camera and a large tablet screen.
That night, they set it up.
Mason watched them install the camera on the dresser. He sat on his bed, hugging his knees, saying nothing.
“See, buddy?” Mark said, forcing a cheerful tone. “This is a magic eye. Mommy and Daddy are going to be watching you on a big screen right next to our bed. It sees everything. Even in the dark.”
Mason looked at the camera lens. It was a cold, unblinking black eye.
“It’s not a person,” Mason said quietly.
“It’s better than a person,” Mark said. “It never blinks.”
Mason looked at Elena. “Mom?”
Elena bit her lip. “We’re going to try it, Mason. Daddy and I are very tired. We’ll be watching. I promise.”
Mason didn’t scream. He didn’t fight. He just lay down and pulled the covers over his head.
“He gave up,” Mark whispered as they walked out. “See? He knows he lost.”
They went to their bedroom. Mark put the tablet on the nightstand between them. The image was crisp, glowing in eerie green night-vision. They could see the lump of Mason under the covers.
“I’m watching,” Mark said, tapping the screen. “See? He’s fine.”
Mark fell asleep within five minutes.
Elena stayed awake. She lay on her side, staring at the screen.
It felt wrong. It felt disconnected.
On the screen, the room was still. The digital clock in the corner of the display read 10:14 PM.
Elena watched. She waited.
At 10:30 PM, she saw movement.
Not from Mason.
From under the bed.
On the screen, a shadow detached itself from the darkness beneath the mattress. It was long and fluid, like oil spilling across the floor.
Elena gasped, sitting up. She poked Mark. “Mark! Look!”
Mark groaned, swatting her hand away. “He’s sleeping, Elena. Go to sleep.”
Elena grabbed the tablet. She brought it closer to her face.
The shadow was moving up the side of the bed. It didn’t look like a person. It looked like… fingers. Too many fingers.
They were creeping toward the lump under the blanket.
Elena scrambled out of bed. “Mason!”
She ran into the hallway.
She burst into Mason’s room, flipping the light switch.
The room flooded with light.
Mason was asleep. The blanket was undisturbed. There was no shadow. No fingers.
Elena stood there, panting, her heart hammering against her ribs. She checked under the bed. Nothing but a few dust bunnies and a lost sock.
She looked at the camera on the dresser. It was humming softly.
Mark appeared in the doorway, rubbing his eyes. “What? What is it?”
“I saw something,” Elena said, her voice shaking. “On the monitor. Something was climbing onto the bed.”
Mark walked over and checked Mason. He pulled the blanket down. Mason was sleeping soundly.
“Elena,” Mark said gently. “You’re hallucinating. Sleep deprivation psychosis. It’s real.”
“I saw it,” she insisted.
“Look at him. He’s fine. If there was a monster, wouldn’t he be screaming? Isn’t that the rule?”
Elena paused. That was true. Mason woke up if she looked away. She had been watching the monitor. Technically, she hadn’t looked away.
Maybe Mark was right. Maybe her brain was filling in the blanks.
“Come back to bed,” Mark said.
Elena hesitated. She looked at Mason one last time. He looked so small.
“Okay,” she whispered.
She went back to bed. But she didn’t sleep. She watched the monitor.
The clock read 11:00 PM.
12:00 AM.
1:00 AM.
At 1:15 AM, the screen glitched.
Just a flicker. A horizontal line of static rolled down the image.
Elena blinked.
The image stabilized. Mason was still sleeping.
But something felt off.
Elena squinted at the screen. The angle seemed slightly different.
Then she looked at the time stamp in the corner of the monitor.
1:15:03 AM.
She watched it.
1:15:03 AM.
It didn’t change.
She counted to ten.
1:15:03 AM.
Her blood turned to ice.
The image was frozen.
She looked at the alarm clock on her bedside table. 1:16 AM.
The camera had frozen a minute ago.
She had been watching a photograph. A recording of the past.
For the last minute, nobody had been watching the real Mason.
“No,” Elena whispered.
She jumped out of bed, not bothering to wake Mark. She ran.
She didn’t hear screaming this time.
She heard… giggling.
A wet, low, throaty sound that didn’t belong to a child.
She hit Mason’s door. It was closed. She had left it open.
She grabbed the knob. It was cold. Freezing cold.
She threw the door open.
The room was pitch black. The hallway light, which should have illuminated the floor, seemed to stop at the threshold, as if the darkness inside was a solid wall.
“Mason?” Elena screamed.
“Mom?”
His voice came from the ceiling.
Elena fumbled for the light switch. She clicked it.
Nothing happened. The bulb had been unscrewed.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and turned on the flashlight.
She swung the beam up.
Mason was there.
He wasn’t on the bed.
He was pressed against the ceiling, in the corner, directly above the bed. He was defying gravity, his back flat against the plaster, his limbs splayed out like a spider.
But he wasn’t holding himself up.
Something was holding him.
Shadows—thick, ropy shadows like tendrils of black tar—were wrapped around his wrists and ankles. They were emerging from the crown molding, pinning him to the drywall.
Mason’s eyes were wide open, staring down at her. He wasn’t screaming. He was paralyzed with fear.
And next to him, emerging from the corner shadow, was a face.
It was upside down. It was pale, like the belly of a fish. It had no nose, just two slits. And a mouth that was sewn shut with what looked like black wire.
The thing was looking at Mason. It was studying him.
“Look at him!” Elena shrieked, shining the light directly on her son. “I see you! Mason, I see you!”
The moment the light hit Mason, the shadows sizzled.
They recoiled like burnt skin.
Mason fell.
He dropped five feet and hit the mattress with a heavy thump.
The pale face in the corner hissed—a sound like a tire losing air—and dissolved into the wall.
Elena dove onto the bed, covering Mason’s body with her own. She shone the light into the corner.
Nothing. Just white paint and crown molding.
Mark ran in a second later, holding a baseball bat. “What? What happened?”
Elena was sobbing, clutching Mason so tight she could feel his ribs.
“The camera froze,” she choked out. “The camera froze and they took him.”
Mason sat up. He wasn’t crying. He was rubbing his wrists.
Elena looked at his wrists.
There were bruises. perfect, dark purple rings around his small arms.
Fingerprints.
But the fingers were too long. And there were only three of them.
Mark turned on the hallway light and looked at the bruises. He went pale. He dropped the bat.
“He was on the ceiling, Mark,” Elena whispered. “They were putting him into the ceiling.”
Mason looked at his parents. His face was devoid of emotion, the shock having wiped him clean.
“The camera doesn’t count,” Mason said softly.
“Why?” Mark asked, his voice trembling.
“Because the camera doesn’t have a soul,” Mason said. “Only a soul can make them stop.”
Mark looked at the bruises again. He looked at the smashed lamp from weeks ago. He looked at his wife’s terrified eyes.
“Okay,” Mark said. He walked over and dragged the heavy armchair from the corner. He planted it directly at the foot of the bed.
He sat down. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes locked on Mason.
“I’m looking,” Mark said. “I’m looking right at you.”
Mason lay back down. He pulled the covers up.
“Don’t blink, Dad,” Mason whispered.
“I won’t,” Mark said. Tears were streaming down his face, but his eyes were wide open. “I promise.”
PART 2: THE BLINK
For three nights, they survived.
They took shifts again, but tighter this time. Two hours on, two hours off. They drank coffee until their hands shook. They taped their eyelids with scotch tape in moments of desperation, though it stung.
They took the lightbulbs out of the lamps and replaced them with high-wattage floodlights. The bedroom was as bright as a surgery theater.
Mason slept. But he slept fitfully.
Because the house was changing.
It wasn’t just the bedroom anymore.
Elena noticed it first in the kitchen. She was making coffee at 4:00 AM.
She opened the fridge. The light inside was out.
She reached in to grab the milk.
Something cold brushed her hand.
She jerked back, slamming the door.
She opened it again. The light flickered on. The milk was there. Nothing else.
But on the carton of milk, there was a handprint. It was made of frost. A long, three-fingered handprint that faded as she watched.
Then, the sounds started.
During the day, when the sun was high and Mason was at school (where he sat in the front row, staring at the teacher), the house should have been safe.
But Elena heard whispering.
It came from the vents. It came from the drains in the sink.
It wasn’t English. It was a chittering sound. Like insects communicating.
Zzt-krr-click.
She called a priest. He came, blessed the house, sprinkled water. He left feeling uncomfortable, saying the house felt “heavy.”
She called a contractor to check the vents. He found nothing.
“Maybe it’s the pipes,” he said. “Old houses sing.”
“This isn’t singing,” Elena said. “It’s plotting.”
The escalation came on a Friday.
Mason came home from school with a note.
Mason refused to participate in hide-and-seek today. He became violent when another student tried to hide in the closet with him.
Elena crumpled the note. “Good for him,” she muttered.
That night, it was Elena’s shift. 3:00 AM to 5:00 AM.
She was exhausted. She had been awake for nearly 40 hours with only micro-naps.
She sat in the chair. Mason was asleep.
She stared at his face. Her eyes burned. Her vision swam.
Just one second, her brain pleaded. Just rest your eyes for one second. You can listen. If he moves, you’ll hear him.
No. The camera proved that was a lie. The camera proved they could loop reality.
She pinched her arm. Hard.
Then, the power went out.
It wasn’t a storm. It was a hard cut. The floodlights died. The hallway light died.
Pitch blackness.
“Mason!” Elena screamed.
She couldn’t see him.
“I’m here!” Mason yelled. “Mom! Look at me!”
“I can’t see!”
She fumbled for her phone.
“They’re here!” Mason shrieked. “They’re touching me!”
Elena got her phone screen on. The pale blue light illuminated the room.
The room was full.
They weren’t just in the corners anymore.
Standing around the bed were four of them.
They were tall—seven feet at least. They looked like stick figures made of charcoal smoke. Their heads were smooth and featureless, except for the sewn-shut mouths.
They were bending over Mason.
One of them had a hand over Mason’s mouth. Another was gripping his legs.
When the phone light hit them, they turned their heads toward Elena.
They didn’t vanish.
They hissed.
“They’re getting stronger,” Elena realized with horror. “Light isn’t enough anymore. They’re getting used to it.”
“Get away from him!” Elena roared. She threw the phone at the nearest one.
It passed right through the creature’s chest like it was smoke.
The creature laughed. A dry, rattling sound.
It reached out a long arm and swatted Elena.
It felt like being hit by a bag of ice. Elena flew backward, hitting the wall. Her head cracked against the plaster.
She slumped to the floor, dazed.
Through her blurring vision, she saw them lifting Mason.
They weren’t taking him to the closet.
They were taking him into the mattress.
They pressed him down. The mattress turned liquid, like black tar. Mason was sinking into it.
“Mom!” he muffled against the hand. “Watch me! Watch me!”
Elena tried to get up. Her legs wouldn’t work.
“I… see… you,” she groaned.
But she didn’t. Her eyes were sliding shut. Concussion.
No. If I close my eyes, he’s gone.
She forced one eye open.
She saw Mason’s face sinking into the black goo of the bed. Only his eyes were visible. He was staring at her. Begging her to anchor him to reality.
“I see you,” she whispered.
The creature standing over him leaned down. It brought its featureless face inches from Elena’s.
It raised a finger to where its lips should be.
Shhh.
Then, it reached out with two cold fingers and pressed Elena’s eyelids shut.
Darkness.
“NO!” Elena screamed inside her mind.
She fought the paralysis. She fought the darkness.
She ripped her eyes open.
The room was empty.
The creatures were gone.
The bed was made.
Mason was gone.
“Mason?”
She crawled to the bed. She ripped the sheets off. She tore the mattress.
There was nothing inside. Just foam and springs.
“MARK!” she screamed.
Mark ran in with a flashlight. “Power’s out—what happened?”
“They took him,” Elena wailed. “I blinked. They closed my eyes and they took him.”
Mark scanned the room. “Where? The window?”
“The bed! They pushed him into the bed!”
Mark looked at the destroyed mattress. “That’s impossible.”
“They are real, Mark! I saw them! Four of them!”
Mark went to the closet. He ripped the clothes out. “Mason! This isn’t funny! Come out!”
Elena sat on the floor, staring at the spot where Mason had vanished.
She felt a vibration.
It was coming from the floorboards.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Rhythmic.
SOS.
“He’s not gone,” Elena whispered.
“What?”
“He’s not gone. He said… if nobody sees him, he’s just space. He’s still here. He’s just… unobserved.”
She put her ear to the floor.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“He’s underneath,” she said. “Not under the floor. Under the… layer.”
“Elena, you’re scaring me,” Mark said.
“We have to see him back,” she said, standing up. Her eyes were wild.
“See him back? How?”
“We have to look where we’re not supposed to look,” she said.
She grabbed the flashlight. She walked to the wall where the shadow had first appeared.
“They come from the corners,” she said. “The geometry is wrong.”
She put her face right up to the corner of the room, where the two walls met the ceiling.
“What are you doing?” Mark asked.
“I’m looking for the seam,” she whispered.
And then, she saw it.
A tiny crack in reality. A thread of darkness that wasn’t shadow.
She dug her fingernails into the corner of the wall. She pulled.
It wasn’t plaster. It peeled back like wet wallpaper.
Behind the wall… was another room.
A dark room.
And in that room, she saw a pair of terrified eyes staring back at her.
“I see you!” Elena screamed.
She ripped the wallpaper/reality back further.
A hand reached out from the void. A small, six-year-old hand.
Elena grabbed it. Mark grabbed Elena.
They pulled.
It felt like pulling a root out of dry earth.
With a sickening pop, Mason flew out of the wall and landed on the carpet.
He was covered in gray slime. He was shivering.
But he was there.
Mark slammed the “wallpaper” shut. The crack sealed instantly.
Mason coughed, spitting up black bile.
“You looked,” Mason rasped, looking at his mother. “You looked in the deep place.”
“I will always look,” Elena sobbed, holding him. “I will look anywhere.”
Mason looked at the wall. The slime was already drying, turning into dust.
“They’re mad now,” Mason whispered.
“Let them be mad,” Mark growled, standing up and holding the flashlight like a weapon. “We know where they live now.”
Mason shook his head.
“No, Dad. You don’t understand.”
Mason held up his hand.
On his palm, burned into the skin, was a symbol. An eye. But the eye was crossed out.
“They don’t want to take me anymore,” Mason said.
“What do they want?” Elena asked.
Mason looked at his parents with a sorrow that broke their hearts.
“Now they want to take your eyes.”
The flashlight flickered.
And from the hallway, a thousand whispering voices said:
Blind them.
PART 3: THE LONG NIGHT
“Blind them.”
The whisper didn’t fade. It echoed, bouncing off the hardwood floors and the family photos lining the hallway. It wasn’t a single voice; it was a chorus of dry, rustling sounds, like dead leaves skittering across pavement.
Mark swung the flashlight beam wildly. The hallway was empty, but the air was filled with dust motes that swirled in unnatural patterns.
“Don’t rub your eyes,” Mason warned, his voice small and trembling. “Whatever you do… don’t rub them.”
Elena felt it immediately. A stinging sensation.
It started as an itch in the corner of her tear ducts. Then it burned. It felt like sand. Or ground glass.
“Mark?” she gasped, blinking rapidly. Tears streamed down her face, but they didn’t wash the grit away. The tears felt acidic.
“I feel it,” Mark grunted, dropping to one knee. He clawed at his face, his knuckles white. “It burns! God, it burns!”
“Don’t close them!” Mason screamed. He grabbed his father’s wrist with surprising strength. “Dad! If you close them, the wall opens again!”
Mark roared in frustration, forcing his eyelids open against the searing pain. His eyes were bloodshot, the veins standing out like roadmaps.
“We need water,” Mark choked out. “Bathroom. Now.”
They moved as a unit—a terrified, huddling organism. Mark in the front, swinging the flashlight. Elena in the back, gripping Mason’s shoulder so hard she knew she was bruising him.
They reached the master bathroom. Mark kicked the door open and slammed it shut behind them, throwing the deadbolt.
“Water,” Mark gasped. He turned on the faucet.
Black sludge poured out.
It was thick, viscous, and smelled of rot. It filled the white porcelain sink in seconds.
“No,” Elena whispered. “They’re in the pipes.”
“They’re cutting off the wash,” Mason said. “They want us to close our eyes to wipe them.”
The stinging was getting worse. Elena’s vision was blurring. Every blink was agony, like sandpaper sliding over her corneas.
“Mirrors,” Mark said suddenly. He grabbed a towel and wiped the condensation off the large vanity mirror.
“What are you doing?” Elena asked.
“Observation,” Mark panted. He shined the flashlight into the mirror. The beam reflected back, hitting the shower door, the tile, the ceiling. “Mirrors multiply the sight. If we look in the mirror, we see the room twice. We see behind us.”
“It makes the watching stronger,” Mason agreed. He looked at his reflection.
For a moment, it worked. The stinging subsided slightly. The bathroom felt secure, a fortress of reflective glass and chrome.
Then, Elena looked at Mark’s reflection.
Real Mark was standing beside her, panting, his eyes red and watery.
Reflection Mark was standing still.
Reflection Mark was smiling.
And Reflection Mark’s eyes were sewn shut.
“Mark,” Elena whispered, stepping back. “Don’t look at the glass.”
Mark looked. He froze.
His reflection raised a hand. It held a pair of long, rusted scissors.
Reflection Mark lunged.
In the real world, the mirror exploded.
CRASH.
Shards of glass flew outward. Mark threw his arms up to protect his face—instinctively closing his eyes.
“MARK! OPEN THEM!” Elena screamed.
She grabbed his face, forcing his eyelids up with her thumbs, ignoring the blood trickling from a cut on his cheek.
“I’m looking!” Mark yelled, his eyes wild and unfocused. “I’m looking!”
But the damage was done. In that split second of darkness, something had entered the room.
The shower curtain—a heavy opaque plastic—bulged outward.
It wasn’t a draft. Something large was standing in the tub.
“Mason, watch the tub!” Elena commanded.
Mason turned his gaze to the shower. “I see you!” he yelled. “I see you!”
The bulge froze.
“It’s too big,” Mason whispered. “Mom, it’s the Big Waiter.”
“We’re leaving,” Mark said. He grabbed the doorknob.
It wouldn’t turn. The metal was fused.
The lights in the bathroom flickered. The flashlight beam began to dim.
“Batteries,” Mark cursed. “I just changed them.”
“They eat the power,” Mason said. “They eat the light so you can’t see.”
The flashlight died.
Total darkness.
“Touching!” Mason shrieked immediately. “They’re touching me!”
Elena didn’t think. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the lighter she kept for candles.
She flicked it. A tiny, wavering flame illuminated the room.
It was enough.
The shower curtain was ripped open. Standing in the tub was a monstrosity. It was compressed, bent over to fit under the ceiling. Its limbs were too long, folded like a spider’s. Its face was a smooth, white slate with no features at all—except for a single, vertical slit where an eye should be.
But the slit was empty.
It wanted theirs.
The creature recoiled from the tiny flame, hissing.
“Fire!” Mark yelled. “Use the hairspray!”
He grabbed the can of hairspray from the counter. He sprayed it through the lighter’s flame.
WOOSH.
A flamethrower.
A jet of fire blasted the creature in the tub. It didn’t burn like flesh; it burned like old film reel. It shrieked—a sound that shattered the remaining glass in the medicine cabinet—and dissolved into black smoke.
“Out!” Mark kicked the door. The heat had weakened the lock. The door flew open.
They ran into the hallway.
The house was alive. The walls were breathing. The carpet felt like it was grabbing at their ankles.
“Car,” Elena gasped. “We have to get to the car.”
“Keys?”
“In my pocket.”
They sprinted down the stairs. The stairs stretched. It felt like running down an escalator that was going up. The front door seemed miles away.
“Don’t blink!” Mason yelled. “Keep looking at the door! If you stop looking, it moves further away!”
Elena widened her eyes until they throbbed. She fixed her gaze on the brass knob of the front door. It is there. It is solid. It is reachable.
They hit the door. Mark threw it open.
The night air rushed in.
But it wasn’t the cool night air of suburbia.
It was a thick, gray fog. The streetlights were gone. The neighbor’s houses were gone.
There was just a void. A gray, swirling nothingness.
“Where is the world?” Elena cried.
“They ate it,” Mason said. “We took too long. They unmade the outside.”
“No,” Mark said stubbornly. “The car is right there. I can see the outline.”
The minivan was sitting in the driveway, barely visible through the fog.
They ran for it.
Mark threw Mason into the backseat. Elena jumped in the passenger side. Mark dove into the driver’s seat.
He jammed the key in.
The engine sputtered.
“Come on,” Mark pleaded. “Come on, Betsy.”
The engine roared to life. The headlights flashed on.
The beams cut through the fog.
And revealed them.
The driveway was lined with them. Hundreds of them. The Waiters. Tall ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones. All pale. All eyeless. All facing the car.
“Drive!” Elena screamed.
Mark slammed it into reverse.
The car tires spun on the asphalt.
They shot backward into the street. Mark spun the wheel and floored it.
They drove into the gray void.
“Where are we going?” Elena asked, checking the rearview mirror.
In the mirror, she saw Mason. He was kneeling on the backseat, staring out the rear window.
“I’m holding them back!” Mason yelled. “I’m watching the road behind us! If I stop, the road disappears!”
“Keep watching, buddy!” Mark yelled. “Don’t stop!”
They drove for what felt like hours. The speedometer read 80 mph, but there were no landmarks. Just gray fog and the asphalt appearing under the headlights and disappearing behind them.
Mark’s eyes were swelling shut. The irritation was becoming an infection. Pus was leaking from the corners.
“I can’t… I can’t keep them open,” Mark groaned.
“You have to!” Elena grabbed his arm. “Mark, if you go blind, we crash.”
“I need… toothpicks,” Mark laughed hysterically. “Like in the cartoons.”
“Switch,” Elena said. “I’ll drive.”
“We can’t stop! If we stop, they catch us!”
“Then hold them open with your fingers!”
Mark took one hand off the wheel and used his thumb and forefinger to pry his left eye open. He drove one-handed, cyclops-style.
“I see a light,” Mason called out.
“What?”
“Up ahead! A real light!”
Elena squinted through the windshield.
Far in the distance, piercing the gray fog, was a yellow glow.
It wasn’t a streetlight. It was a sign.
Waffle House.
“You have to be kidding me,” Mark wheezed.
“It’s open,” Elena said. “Look at the cars. There are people.”
“Is it real?” Mark asked. “Or is it a trap?”
“It has to be real,” Mason said. “Waiters can’t make waffles. Waffles are too complicated.”
It was the logic of a six-year-old, but it was the best hope they had.
Mark swerved into the parking lot. He nearly hit a parked pickup truck.
The moment the tires hit the concrete of the parking lot, the gray fog receded. The world snapped back into focus. They could see the highway. They could see the trees.
They jumped out of the car.
They burst into the Waffle House.
The sudden brightness was blinding. The smell of grease and coffee hit them like a physical blow.
A waitress named Tammy looked up from the counter. She popped her gum.
“Table for three?” she asked, eyeing their disheveled clothes, Mark’s bleeding face, and the black soot covering Mason.
Elena started laughing. She couldn’t stop. She collapsed into a booth, shaking.
“We made it,” Mark whispered, sliding in next to her. “People. Witnesses.”
Mason didn’t sit.
He stood by the table. He looked at the other diners. A trucker eating eggs. A couple of teenagers. The cook.
“What is it, Mason?” Elena asked. “Sit down. You’re safe. Everyone is watching.”
Mason looked at the trucker.
The trucker was eating. But he wasn’t looking at his plate. He was staring straight ahead. Unblinking.
Mason looked at the teenagers. They were holding hands. Staring straight ahead. Unblinking.
Mason looked at Tammy.
Tammy was pouring coffee. She wasn’t looking at the cup. She was staring at Mason.
Her eyes were wide. Too wide. The lids were gone.
“Mom,” Mason whispered.
Elena looked around.
Everyone in the diner was staring at them.
They weren’t blinking.
“They’re not people,” Mason said.
Tammy smiled. Her mouth opened. It kept opening.
“WE ARE WATCHING YOU,” Tammy’s voice boomed. It wasn’t human. It was the sound of the house.
The diners stood up in unison.
“YOU WANTED TO BE OBSERVED,” they chanted. “NOW WE WILL NEVER LOOK AWAY.“
Mark grabbed a steak knife from the table. “Back off!”
“No, Dad,” Mason said calmly.
Mason climbed up onto the table.
He looked small in the center of the diner, surrounded by the monsters wearing human skin.
“Mason, get down!” Elena cried.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Mason said. He looked at the ceiling lights. The fluorescent tubes humming above.
“I figured it out,” Mason said.
“Figured what out?”
“Why they want our eyes.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re lonely,” Mason said. “They don’t exist unless someone sees them. Being unobserved… it hurts. It’s cold.”
The Waiters froze. Tammy stopped moving toward them.
“They didn’t want to hurt me,” Mason said, tears rolling down his soot-stained cheeks. “They just wanted to be real. They wanted to matter.”
Mason closed his eyes.
“Mason! No!” Mark screamed.
“I’m not looking anymore,” Mason announced. “I’m done.”
The Waiters shrieked. It was a sound of panic.
“SEE US!” Tammy screamed. “ACKNOWLEDGE US!“
“No,” Mason said. “You’re boring.”
“WE WILL EAT YOU!“
“You can’t,” Mason said, keeping his eyes squeezed shut. “If I don’t see you… and Mom doesn’t see you… and Dad doesn’t see you… then you’re just air.”
Mason reached out and grabbed Elena’s hand. “Close your eyes, Mom. Trust me.”
“They’ll kill us.”
“They can’t kill what they can’t touch. They can only touch what thinks they are real. Close them.”
Elena looked at the monstrous waitress looming over her with a coffee pot of boiling tar.
She closed her eyes.
“Mark,” she whispered. “Close them.”
Mark hesitated. The instinct to watch the threat was overwhelming.
“Do it, Dad!” Mason yelled. “Un-make them!”
Mark squeezed his eyes shut.
Darkness.
They waited for the blow. They waited for the teeth.
They heard the screaming intensify. It sounded like a hurricane tearing through a library. Paper ripping. Wood splintering.
“LOOK AT ME! I AM IMPORTANT! I AM HERE!” the voices roared.
“I’m thinking about ice cream,” Mason announced loudly. “Chocolate mint.”
“I’m thinking about the beach,” Elena stammered. “Waves. Sand.”
“I’m thinking about… taxes,” Mark yelled.
The roaring reached a crescendo. The heat in the room spiked.
And then… silence.
Absolute, heavy silence.
“Don’t open them yet,” Mason whispered.
They sat there for a minute. Then two.
“Okay,” Mason said. “Open.”
Elena opened her eyes.
They were in the Waffle House.
But it was empty.
Dusty. Abandoned.
The windows were boarded up. The tables were covered in a thick layer of grime. There was no coffee. No pancakes. No Tammy.
It looked like it had been closed for twenty years.
“They’re gone,” Mason said. He hopped off the table, kicking up a cloud of dust.
“Where did they go?” Mark asked, looking around the ruin.
“Back to the cracks,” Mason said. “They starved.”
EPILOGUE
The family moved to Arizona.
They live in a modern house. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls. Open concept. No corners.
Mason is ten now. He sleeps fine.
But the family has habits.
They never close the bathroom door. They never turn off the lights, not completely.
And every night, before they go to sleep, they have a ritual.
Mark walks the perimeter of the house. Elena checks the closets.
They aren’t looking for monsters.
They are checking for dust. For cracks in the plaster. For anything that looks like a seam in the world.
Because sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, Elena still sees movement. A shadow that doesn’t match the furniture.
And when she does, she doesn’t turn away.
She stares at it. She glares at it with ferocious intensity.
She whispers, “I see you. You are a lamp. You are nothing else.”
And the shadow stays a lamp.
Because Elena knows the truth now. The world is only real as long as you keep watching it. And if you blink…
Well, they’re still waiting.
THE END
