Undercover Fears

Shudder.

Last night I woke up at around 5am frightened out of my mind because I truly believed that there was a monster in the room that was millimeters, and milliseconds, away from devouring my left foot. It took a while for me to wake up, too. Like, almost two whole seconds, which can feel like forever when a hungry monster you can barely make out in the darkness is about to consume your foot.

Don’t laugh, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I was in that half-awake, half-dreaming state that feels like you’re drowning as you struggle and fight for full consciousness knowing all the while that it’s going to eat you if you don’t wake up! You can see the room you’re in because your eyes are sorta-kinda open, but because you’re also still sleeping all the shadows move and gibber like hungry demons.

Especially the moving shadow right next to your foot.

As I bolted up from my slumber and feverishly searched the room for traces of the foot eating beast, I came to the slow realization that I had been dreaming and that there was, of course, no monster in my room. Looking down I sighed in relief as I discovered that the reason for my dreamy fear was nothing more than my lovely spouse’s penchant for hogging the blankets which had left my foot exposed to the drafty elements of the room.

See? A logical explanation for everything, right?

Of course, there was nothing logical about my actions as I quickly yanked the blankets away from my sleeping wife, carefully covered every piece of exposed flesh on my body, up to and including my neck, and proceeded to lay there wide awake and in the dark for the next hour searching the shadows for signs of movement. Because we all know that the dreaded monsters under the bed cannot get you if you’re under the covers. The covers are their kryptonite; they can’t eat you as long as you make sure you’re completely covered. But they’re always hungry, they’re always watching for an opening. And they’re patient. Very, very patient.

Constant vigilance, my friends. Constant vigilance.