Darkness (3.3)

In those first moments after her mother turns off the light the darkness pulsates and shifts. The room is re-conforming itself. The floor shifts and creaks. As her pupils dilate, she can see the hallway light slowly leak under the door and into her room. Underneath the whirring click of the ceiling fan throbs an expectant silence. The girl presses her body into the cool cotton of her sheets, willing them to swallow her deep into the heart of her mattress. The stillness rushes in her ears. She is waiting for them to move. A sound from beneath her dresser cracks open the silence and floods the room. A wave of adrenaline crashes against the inside of her skull. She jerks up and waits, taught and motionless under the droning of the fan. It was as if someone had tossed a plastic bottle cap against the wall. A small pop of sound. From underneath the dresser. Or perhaps it was the sound of a knuckle striking the wooden underbelly of the bottom drawer. Her mother had insisted, repeatedly, that the noises were just old pipes in an old house but the sharp thud, whatever it had been, was not metallic. Although the mechanical whine of the ceiling fan always made it difficult to know for sure. More silence. As the minutes tick away the dimensions and textures of the sound slip from her mind. She can’t remember how loud it had been or whether it had been a knock or creak. She eases herself back down to the cool face of her bed and loses control of her thoughts as she slips into near sleep. Another hard rap erupts from the dresser and she is violently awake.