Shadow in the Corner

They say the mind plays tricks in the dark. It shows you things that aren’t really there, makes you hear sounds that don’t exist, makes shadows shift in ways that are impossible. I used to believe that. I used to think that what I saw during those nights of terror were just figments of my imagination, just the twisted dreams of a mind caught between sleep and wakefulness. But after years of enduring the same nightmare, I can no longer convince myself it’s all in my head. What haunts me is real, as real as the bed I lie in, the air I breathe, and the heart that pounds in my chest when I see it.

It started when I was a child, no more than eight or nine years old. I remember the first time it happened as vividly as if it were yesterday. I was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to take me. The room was dark, but not completely; the soft glow of my nightlight painted the walls in a warm, comforting hue. There was nothing unusual about that night—no storms raging outside, no strange noises echoing through the house. Just the ordinary quiet that comes after a long day. But as I began to drift off, something changed.

It was subtle at first, just a faint shift in the atmosphere, like the air had grown thicker, heavier. My eyes snapped open, and I was suddenly wide awake, every sense alert. I couldn’t explain it, but something felt wrong. The darkness seemed deeper, more oppressive, like it was pressing down on me, squeezing the breath from my lungs. I tried to sit up, to turn on the lamp beside my bed, but I couldn’t move. My body was frozen, pinned to the mattress by an invisible force. Panic set in as I realized I was completely paralyzed. I could only move my eyes, which darted frantically around the room, searching for something, anything, that could explain what was happening.

And that’s when I saw it.

In the far corner of my room, where the shadows were deepest, something moved. At first, I thought it was just a trick of the light, a shifting shadow cast by the branches of the tree outside my window. But as I stared, it became clear that this was no ordinary shadow. It had form, substance, a darkness that seemed to absorb the light around it. And it was watching me.

I wanted to scream, to call out for my parents, but no sound would come. My throat was locked tight, my voice trapped inside me. I was completely helpless, forced to lie there and watch as the shadow slowly took shape. It was tall, unnaturally so, with long limbs that seemed to stretch impossibly far. It had no face, no features at all, just a void of blackness where its head should have been. But I could feel its gaze, cold and unfeeling, boring into me from across the room.

For what felt like hours, I lay there, unable to look away, unable to move, while the figure stood silently in the corner, its presence filling the room with an overwhelming sense of dread. And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone. The paralysis lifted, and I bolted upright, gasping for air, my heart hammering in my chest. The room was just as it had been before—quiet, still, with the nightlight casting its warm glow on the walls. But I knew what I had seen. And I knew it would come back.

Over the years, the visits became more frequent. At first, they were sporadic, happening only once every few months. But as I grew older, they came more often, until the shadow was visiting me nearly every night. It became a routine of sorts: I would lie down to sleep, knowing full well what awaited me, and sure enough, sometime in the dead of night, I would wake up to find myself paralyzed, the dark figure standing in the corner, watching me. I tried everything to stop it. I moved to different rooms, rearranged my furniture, even tried sleeping with the lights on. But nothing worked. The figure always found me, no matter where I was.

By the time I reached my late teens, I had learned to live with it, to accept it as part of my life. I stopped telling people about it after the first few times; no one believed me anyway. They said it was just sleep paralysis, that it was a common phenomenon, that the shadow was nothing more than a hallucination brought on by my brain’s inability to fully wake up. But I knew better. This was no dream, no figment of my imagination. The figure was real, and it was growing stronger.

The first time I realized how powerful it had become was shortly after I turned twenty. I had moved out of my parents’ house and into a small apartment downtown, hoping that a change of scenery might rid me of the nightmare that had plagued me for so long. For a while, it seemed to work. The first few weeks in my new place were blissfully peaceful. I slept soundly through the night, with no sign of the dark figure. I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I had left it behind, that it was somehow tied to my childhood home and couldn’t follow me here.

But I was wrong.

One night, I woke up to that familiar feeling of dread, the air thick and suffocating, my body paralyzed. My heart sank as I realized what was happening. I hadn’t escaped it after all. Slowly, I turned my eyes toward the corner of the room, half hoping, half dreading what I would see. And there it was, the dark figure, more menacing than ever, its form almost solid now, as if it had been feeding off my fear for all these years, growing stronger with each visit.

But this time, it was different. It didn’t just stand in the corner like it usually did. It moved. Slowly, deliberately, it began to glide toward me, its long, spindly limbs stretching out as it approached the bed. My heart raced, my chest tightened, and I struggled with every ounce of willpower I had to break free of the paralysis. But I couldn’t. I was completely at its mercy.

The figure loomed over me, its featureless face just inches from mine. I could feel the cold emanating from it, seeping into my bones, freezing me from the inside out. And then, for the first time, it spoke. Not in words, but in thoughts, directly into my mind. The voice was low, guttural, like the rumble of distant thunder, and it filled my head with images of darkness, despair, and death.

You belong to me.

The words echoed in my mind, reverberating through my skull, filling me with a terror so intense I thought my heart might stop. I wanted to scream, to fight back, but all I could do was lie there, helpless, as the figure pressed its weight down on my chest, squeezing the breath from my lungs. The pressure was unbearable, like a massive stone crushing me, driving me deeper and deeper into the mattress.

And then, just as I thought I couldn’t take any more, it released me. The weight lifted, the paralysis broke, and I shot up in bed, gasping for air. The figure was gone, but the terror remained. I sat there in the darkness, trembling, my body drenched in cold sweat, my mind reeling from what had just happened. I knew then that I was no longer safe, that the figure was no longer content to simply watch me. It wanted more. It wanted me.

From that night on, the visits became more frequent, more intense. The figure no longer stayed in the corner; it would move around the room, circling the bed like a predator stalking its prey. Sometimes it would crouch beside me, its shadowy form looming over me, so close I could feel the cold radiating from it. Other times, it would sit at the foot of the bed, watching, waiting. The sense of dread it brought with it was suffocating, choking me with fear. And the worst part was, I knew it was just toying with me, biding its time, waiting for the right moment to strike.

My life began to unravel. I stopped sleeping, terrified of what would happen if I closed my eyes. I tried to stay awake for days on end, drinking coffee, taking pills, doing whatever I could to keep myself from falling asleep. But eventually, exhaustion would catch up with me, and I would drift off, only to be greeted by the figure once again. My friends noticed the change in me. I became withdrawn, jumpy, a shadow of my former self. I tried to explain what was happening, but no one believed me. They told me to see a doctor, to get help. But I knew that no amount of therapy or medication could save me from what was coming.

And then, one night, it all came to a head.

I had gone three days without sleep, the longest I had ever managed. I was on the edge, teetering between wakefulness and madness, my mind barely holding on. I was lying on the couch in my living room, staring blankly at the ceiling, when the exhaustion finally won. My eyes grew heavy, and despite my best efforts, they closed.

The darkness was immediate, and with it came the familiar feeling of paralysis. But this time, there was something different, something worse. The air was thicker than ever, almost tangible, like I was submerged in a pool of black ink. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. My heart pounded in my chest, the sound of it echoing in my ears, drowning out everything else.

And then I felt it—the cold, clammy touch of the figure’s hand on my arm.

I tried to scream, but no sound came. The figure’s grip tightened, its icy fingers digging into my flesh, and I knew that this was it. This was the moment it had been waiting for, the moment it would finally take me. My vision blurred, and for a brief moment, I thought I could see something behind the figure, something even darker, even more sinister. But then my focus shifted back to the figure, and all I could see was the void where its face should be, staring down at me, hungry, malevolent.

It leaned in closer, so close that I could feel the cold breath on my skin, could hear the low, guttural whisper in my mind.

You can’t escape me.

The words echoed in my skull, bouncing off the walls of my mind, filling me with a sense of hopelessness so profound it nearly broke me. I could feel myself slipping away, my consciousness fading, being pulled into the darkness that the figure carried with it. I knew that if I let go, if I surrendered, I would be lost forever, trapped in whatever nightmare world the figure came from.

But then, something inside me snapped. Maybe it was the primal instinct for survival, or maybe it was sheer, stubborn defiance. Whatever it was, it gave me the strength I needed. With every ounce of willpower I had left, I fought against the paralysis, against the figure, against the darkness itself. It was like trying to push through a wall of solid concrete, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I focused on one thing, one thought that kept me going: I will not let it take me.

And then, just when I thought I couldn’t push any harder, the wall broke. The paralysis lifted, and I shot upright, gasping for air. The room was empty, the figure gone. But the terror remained, gnawing at the edges of my sanity, a constant reminder that it was still out there, waiting.

I didn’t sleep for weeks after that. Every time I closed my eyes, I could feel it lurking in the shadows, just out of sight, waiting for me to let my guard down. I started seeing it everywhere—in the corners of my vision, in the reflections of mirrors, in the shadows that stretched across the walls as the sun set. It was always there, always watching, always waiting.

I knew I couldn’t keep living like this, trapped in a waking nightmare, always looking over my shoulder, always waiting for the next attack. I had to do something, had to find a way to stop it. But how do you fight something that isn’t human, something that exists only in the darkness of your mind? I searched for answers, scoured books, spoke to experts, but nothing helped. The more I learned, the more hopeless it seemed.

Eventually, I decided there was only one thing left to do. I had to confront it, face it head-on, and end this once and for all. So, I waited. I waited for the night when I knew it would come for me again, when I would be too exhausted to fight it off, too weak to resist. And when that night came, I let it happen. I didn’t try to stay awake, didn’t fight the exhaustion. I lay down in my bed, closed my eyes, and let the darkness take me.

The paralysis hit me almost immediately, the familiar weight pressing down on my chest, the air growing thick and cold. I opened my eyes and saw it there, in the corner, watching me. But this time, I wasn’t afraid. This time, I was ready.

As the figure began to move toward me, I focused on one thought, one single idea that had been forming in my mind for weeks. The figure was a creature of darkness, born from fear, sustained by my terror. But what if I wasn’t afraid? What if I faced it without fear, without giving it the power it craved?

The figure loomed over me, its shadow stretching across the bed, its featureless face inches from mine. I could feel the cold radiating from it, feel its breath on my skin, hear the low, guttural whisper in my mind. But instead of panicking, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and let go of the fear. I let go of the terror, the dread, the despair that had plagued me for so long. I let it all go, and I opened my eyes.

The figure recoiled as if struck, its form flickering, the darkness around it wavering. For the first time, I saw something other than cold, malevolent hunger in its eyes. I saw confusion, uncertainty, even fear. It stumbled back, its shadowy form beginning to unravel, to lose its substance.

And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone. The room was empty, the air clear, the oppressive weight lifted from my chest. I could move again, could breathe, could feel the warmth of the light that filtered through the curtains. I lay there for a long time, staring up at the ceiling, waiting for it to return. But it never did.

It’s been years since that night, and the figure has never come back. I still see shadows sometimes, still feel a chill in the air when I’m alone in the dark, but I know it’s just my mind playing tricks on me. The figure is gone, banished by the very thing it had fed on for so long—my fear.

I still don’t know what it was, or where it came from. Maybe it was a demon, a manifestation of some deep-seated trauma, or just a particularly malevolent figment of my imagination. But whatever it was, it’s gone now. And I’ve learned something important: fear only has as much power as you give it. Once you face it, once you confront it head-on, it loses its grip on you.

But even now, all these years later, I can’t help but wonder. What if it’s still out there, waiting, lurking in the shadows, biding its time? What if it’s just waiting for me to let my guard down, to fall back into that old pattern of fear and dread? What if one night, when I least expect it, it comes back?

And what if, next time, I’m not strong enough to fight it off?

These thoughts haunt me, even in the daylight. They’re the remnants of a fear I thought I’d conquered, a fear that still lingers at the edges of my mind. And though I’ve learned to live without fear, I can’t help but remember the darkness, the cold, the void where its face should have been.

Maybe it’s just paranoia, the lingering effects of years spent living in terror. Or maybe, deep down, I know that it’s not really gone, that it’s still out there, waiting, just as it always has.

And maybe, one day, it will come for me again.