something is wrong here

I sit by the window.

I’ve opened it a crack, gentle breeze caressing the curtains. I’ve already assessed the view outside—it is not the problem. Not the thing that is making me itch in an untouchable discomfort. An intangible minute difference.

I gaze around the room.

The walls are the same slate gray, the floor has the same wear on the same boards as before. The same drawer on the dresser is slightly ajar, unable to shut anymore. Shoes lay askew on the end of the plush rug. The TV flashes across what would otherwise be complete darkness, casting an almost eerie glow. Still, it is not the problem. I pull the curtain open more, letting in faint light from the streetlights. But the feeling persists.

I rise from my place and creep quietly out of the room, floating down the hall. Nondescript art hung on nondescript wallpaper. Unremarkable as hallways go. The wood creaks beneath my feet. Every door is shut save for a bathroom at the end. White, clean, pristine.

My next find is the kitchen, tucked away behind a hosting living room. All the appliances but a rogue red mixer match—silver and sleek. It all seems so perfect, so purposeful, so particular.

The living room is right where I left it. The throw pillows and throw blankets sit with an effortless poise in their places. I perch on the very edge of the far end of the loveseat. This room does not carry the uncomfortable weight. Heat isn’t creeping slowly up my back like a poisonous fog.

So I head back to the bedroom. Our bedroom.

The gnawing ache is back. I do what I haven’t been brave enough to since I woke. Knowing even in the darkness and my sleepy haze in the mere morning hour that a startling revelation was yet to be had.

I stand at the door and I stare at the bed.

It’s the folds of the sheets—no, the grouping of the pillows. Perhaps it’s the angle at which the shine from the streetlight is hitting the wooden headboard.

But it’s not, and I know it.

I let my eyes slide to my husband’s side of the bed. His form holds the same shape as it always has, lying in his usual sleeping position—stomach down, face turned away. His back rises and falls with the inflation and deflation of his lungs, but I know it must be a struggle. Even as it looks easy.

With the weight of the looming monster crouching on him, it can’t be easy.

The creature faces the wall, eyes trained on it but blank. Black. Soulless. It didn’t stir at my getting out of bed, or my venture down the hall, or my entering the room once more.

It just sits in wait—for what I never know. Staring. The rattle of its breath drowns out the sound of my husband’s slumber. The slobbery, grotesque growl echoes through the room.

This has happened every night for the past three months since we moved here.

I wake up every night unsure of why I’m awake but feeling the acute, unmistakable, clenching feeling of wrongness. I do my drill of going to the window, surveying the outside and then the in. I carefully avoid the bed almost unconsciously. I, of course, see the horrific shadow of a being out of the corner of my eye, but my brain refuses it until I do my rounds and come back into the bedroom. And when I see it, I remember.

I don’t know what it’s waiting for. It doesn’t watch me nor my husband. Even as I get back in bed and my weight shifts the mattress ever so slightly, the monster’s grumblings are undeterred. My husband never wakes, never questions the night come the morning. I lay back down and cocoon the covers around me, letting the constant of the crunchy wailing send me back into a dreamless sleep.

And when the morning does come, it is gone. And my husband and I remain.