What Haunts in the Night

Once upon a time, a little girl named Ashley was nine. She was deeply sad because she had a secret, she could not tell anyone. By nighttime, when the lights turned off, she tried to find security under the covers with her favorite dolls, My Buddy and Kid Sister.

However, as much comfort they provided, her heart was filled with terror. Every night, she panicked when she saw a Shadowing evil spirit slip through from the bottom of her closet.

The evil presence hovered over her bed as she desperately curled up, buried under the covers. Her eyes closed tightly, and she clutched her arms around her dolls. She frightfully whispered to herself repeatedly, “This isn’t real. It’s all my imagination. I am safe.”

The evil spirit she dared not look at filled the air with a deeper darkness than darkness itself. It was so suffocating that she could hardly breathe. Its breath was like fire.

She knew the evil spirit would leave in time, and she would finally be safe. So, with all the strength she could muster, she just held on to her dolls and waited for the deep darkness to pass and return to the closet.

Once gone, Ashley courageously got off her bed, and with hesitation, she opened her closet door to make sure the evil spirit was gone. When it was true that it was truly gone, she crawled under her blankets, squeezing her dolls tightly, and in utter exhaustion, she fell asleep.

She tried to tell her parents about what was happening every night, but they just told her she was too old to be afraid of monsters and reassured her that it was only her imagination playing tricks on her. They told Ashley she was perfectly safe, and it wasn’t real.

So, that is what she told herself night after night: that it was only her imagination. Over the years, she gained strength and courage to fight against her fears. At 11 years old, she realized it was in her imagination.

With the shadowing presence forever gone, she began to feel happiness and peace, knowing that her fear of monsters was silly. She learned the power of self-talk and her mind, believing that what you told yourself had the power to change everything.

What she told herself and believed gave her the courage she had always needed to face her demons head-on; to walk confidently that not all her fears were based on reality, and that the power of imagination can be both wonderful and frightening. We can sometimes blur the line between fact and fiction with our imagination.

Ashley