Don’t Look

It was 3:07 a.m. when James jolted awake, his heart pounding in his chest. The room was pitch black, the kind of darkness that felt heavy. He reached for his phone on the bedside table, but his hand brushed against something else—a piece of paper. Confused, he turned on the flashlight and read the note scrawled in jagged handwriting:

"Don’t look under the bed."

James froze. He lived alone. No one else had a key to his apartment. His breath quickened as he scanned the room, the shadows stretching and twisting in the dim light. The air felt colder, sharper, as if something was watching him.

He tried to convince himself it was a prank, maybe a friend playing a cruel joke. But deep down, he knew better. The handwriting was unfamiliar, and the paper smelled faintly of mildew, like it had been buried for years.

Against his better judgment, James leaned over the edge of the bed, his pulse roaring in his ears. The flashlight trembled in his hand as he pointed it downward. At first, he saw nothing—just the dusty floorboards. But then, something moved.

A hand, pale and skeletal, shot out from under the bed and grabbed his wrist. Its grip was icy, unrelenting. James screamed, thrashing to break free, but the hand pulled harder, dragging him toward the edge. The flashlight fell, rolling across the floor, casting erratic shadows on the walls.

In the chaos, he caught a glimpse of what was under the bed. A face—hollow-eyed, grinning, its skin stretched tight over sharp bones. It whispered, its voice a guttural rasp:

"You looked."

And with that, James woke up screaming, drenched in sweat. It was 3:07 a.m. He was alone in his bed, the room silent and still. Relief flooded through him—it was just a nightmare. But as he sat up, his hand brushed against something on the bedside table. A piece of paper and it reads

“Don’t look under the bed."