They Watch While You Sleep
What if the darkness in your bedroom corner isn’t just shadows? What if the faint shifts you dismiss as imagination are something—or someone—far more sinister?
In They Watch While You Sleep, I explore the kind of unease that settles in your bones when the ordinary turns predatory. This isn’t just a story about what happens when the lights go out; it’s about the quiet horror of becoming a stranger to yourself, the insidious loss of control as something ancient and patient waits for you to falter.
This tale takes you to the edge of sleep, where reality bends and shadows breathe. It’s for those who have ever woken up and felt watched, those who sleep alone and wonder if they’re truly alone, and those brave enough to peer into the darkness… knowing something might just be looking back.
Read on, if you dare, and let me know if you’ll still feel safe turning off the lights tonight.
They Watch While You Sleep
by Jim LafLleur
The first time I noticed them, I dismissed it as a trick of shadow and overtired eyes. Three dark shapes clustered in the corner of my bedroom, barely distinguishable from the darkness itself. When I blinked, they vanished, leaving only the familiar landscape of my nighttime routine – the gentle glow of my alarm clock, the whisper of wind through partially closed curtains.
But they returned the next night, and the next, growing bolder with each visitation. The shadows began to take form, suggesting fluid silhouettes that wavered like smoke but held the density of ancient darkness. Their edges rippled with a terrible awareness that made my breath catch in my throat.
I started sleeping with the lights on, but they adapted. In the artificial brightness, they became negative spaces – holes in reality where light simply ceased to exist. They maintained their vigil from different corners each night, their positions shifting like a macabre game of musical chairs that I never heard begin or end.
Sometimes, in those liminal moments between wakefulness and sleep, I could hear them breathing. Not the soft, rhythmic breathing of living things, but the hollow, ancient sound of wind through forgotten tombs. The sound seemed to sync with my own breaths, creating a horrible harmony that made my skin prickle with primordial recognition.
They never touched me, never moved while I watched them. But every morning, evidence of their midnight wanderings haunted my apartment. Books rearranged on shelves, family photos turned face-down, my coffee cup moved from kitchen to bedside table, still warm with liquid I hadn't poured.
The worst part wasn't their presence – it was their patience. They had the unhurried certainty of predators who knew their prey was already trapped. They were waiting for something, and I began to understand that my role in their nightly vigil was not as observer, but as specimen.
Last night, I finally discovered why. As exhaustion dragged me toward unconsciousness, my heavy eyelids betraying me one final time, I caught them moving. Their forms flowed across the ceiling like oil on water, converging above my bed. As awareness fled, I saw them extend impossibly long limbs toward my face, their fingers translucent and hungry.
I awoke this morning feeling hollow, diminished. The mirror shows me as I've always been, but something vital is missing. My shadow doesn't move quite right anymore, always a fraction of a second too late. And when I catch glimpses of my reflection in windows or chrome, I sometimes see them peering out through my eyes, watching, always watching, as they search for others like me – the ones who sleep alone, the ones who will see them, the ones they can slowly hollow out and inhabit.
Tonight, I'll watch someone else sleep. And tomorrow night, another. We have so many empty spaces to fill.