Under the Bed

Under the Bed

It started with a whisper.

I was 10 when I first heard it. A soft, raspy voice drifting from beneath my bed as I was drifting off to sleep. My room was quiet, the kind of quiet that makes your ears buzz. Then it came—low, deliberate, unmistakably human.

“I’m still here.”

I froze. Every instinct told me not to look, but curiosity crept in like a fog. I peered over the edge of the bed, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my teeth.

Nothing. Just the usual mess of toys, socks, and forgotten crayons.

I told my mom the next morning. She laughed. Said it was a dream.

It wasn’t.

The whispers came again the next night. And the next. Always the same words.

“I’m still here.”

After a week, the voice changed. It didn’t whisper anymore. It mimicked.

It copied my voice.

I remember the first time it did it. I had just said goodnight to my mom. Minutes later, I heard her call from the hallway.

“Goodnight, sweetie!”

Except… it wasn’t her voice. It was mine.

And it came from under the bed.

⸻

By the time I was 13, I stopped sleeping in my room. I took the couch. My parents argued about it—said I was too old for silly fears. But I couldn’t explain the shadows that moved when I didn’t. Or the cold breath I’d feel on my neck at night.

I thought I was going crazy.

Then my dog went missing.

Milo never left my side. A mutt with more loyalty than sense. One night, he followed me into my room, growling at the bed. That was the last I saw of him.

There was no sound. No struggle. Just a faint whimper, then silence.

When we pulled the bed apart the next day, he was gone. Not a trace. Just deep claw marks on the wooden floor—like he had tried to resist being dragged.

Nobody believed me.

⸻

Years passed. I moved out. College dorms, cheap apartments, a tiny studio in the city. And for a while, the whisper was gone.

But horror isn’t a place. It’s a parasite.

And it remembered me.

⸻

It started again when I was 26.

Different bed. Different room. Same voice.

“I missed you.”

I broke the lease the next day. Moved again. Slept on floors, couches, avoided beds entirely.

Still, the voice followed. Always from underneath. Never behind. Never in front. Always beneath.

One night, desperate and drunk, I decided to confront it.

Armed with a flashlight and shaking hands, I crawled under the bed. Nothing but dust and silence.

I turned to leave.

That’s when it grabbed me.

⸻

It felt like ice and rot. Long fingers, too many to count, wrapped around my ankles and pulled. I screamed. Fought. Kicked.

I managed to crawl out, bruised and bleeding. The thing didn’t follow. It never left the underside.

But it left a gift.

On the floor behind me was a note. Torn, filthy, and scrawled in my own handwriting.

“You were right.”

⸻

I see it now. Always out of the corner of my eye. In hotel rooms. Guest beds. Even when I try to sleep in cars.

It’s not the bed.

It’s me.

The creature has latched onto me like a curse. It doesn’t want to kill me. It wants to exist.

Through me.

And it grows stronger the more I fear it.

⸻

Last week, I installed cameras in my room. I didn’t want to, but I needed proof. Maybe someone would believe me.

I watched the footage this morning.

Around 3:17 AM, something crawled out from under the bed. Not fully—just enough to show its face.

It was mine.

Not a mask. Not a copy.

It was me. Staring into the camera. Smiling.

And then it whispered:

“I told you… I’m still here.”

⸻

Final Thoughts

You probably think this is just a story. A piece of fiction made to scare you before bed.

But let me ask you something:

When was the last time you checked under your bed?

You might want to do that.

Right now.