The Night Hag

Table of Contents

The boy had always been a deep sleeper, the kind of child who could sleep through thunderstorms and barking dogs. But lately, that peace had been broken. He woke each morning feeling wrung out and hollow, his legs heavy, his chest sore as though he’d been running for miles. And always, he remembered the same dream.

It began with the weight. He’d be lying on his back in the dark, unable to move, and something cold would lower itself onto his chest. The air grew thick, pressing against his lungs. Then he’d see it—the shadowy figure. It wasn’t blurry, but it wasn’t clear either, as though it shifted between shapes when you tried to focus on it. Its limbs were long, its face a void, but he could feel its gaze drilling into him. And worst of all, it spoke. The voice was wet and whispering, curling inside his head.

“Keep eating… keep eating…”

When he told his mother over breakfast, she looked concerned but not alarmed. His older sister, however, wasted no time in mocking him.

“It probably sees you as a pig,”

She teased, crunching into a piece of toast.

“Considering how you eat like one.”

Their mother frowned.

“That’s enough,”

She said sharply.

“You don’t tease people about nightmares.”

She turned back to her son.

“Maybe it’s just your stomach bothering you at night. You’ve been eating too much before bed. Tonight, we’ll try something different.”

And so, that evening, dinner was portioned differently. His plate had barely enough food to quiet his hunger, while his sister’s was heaped higher than usual. She smirked at him across the table.

The next morning, his mother noticed he looked… better. His eyes were clearer, and he didn’t have the sunken look he’d worn all week.

“Did you sleep well?”

She asked. He nodded, cautiously.

“Yeah… really well.”

But his sister’s face was pale. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and muttered,

“I had the weirdest dream. Something was… sitting on me. It was heavy. It kept telling me to eat.”

The boy froze. Their mother clucked her tongue.

“Probably those scary shows you two watch. That’s enough of that nonsense.”

The following day passed without further mention of it, though the boy caught his sister looking at him strangely, as though she wanted to say something but thought better of it. On the third day, their mother made a suggestion.

“Why don’t you invite a friend over for a sleepover? A change of routine will do you good.”

The boy hesitated, but then thought of Daniel, the quiet, bookish kid from his class who never teased him. He called, and Daniel’s parents were surprisingly agreeable when they heard it was for studying.

That night, their mother served dinner with the same unusual generosity she had shown before. Her two children received small portions again, while Daniel’s plate overflowed.

“Eat up,”

“he said warmly.

“You’re a growing boy.”

Daniel didn’t need telling twice. He cleared his plate while the siblings picked at their smaller meals. When morning came, Daniel looked awful. His skin was pale and clammy, his eyes dull.

“Man, I feel like I didn’t sleep at all,”

He mumbled.

“And I had this dream… There was this… thing. Sitting on me. Whispering about eating…”

The siblings locked eyes. Neither spoke. Over breakfast, Daniel’s plate was once again far fuller than theirs. The boy noticed the way his mother’s smile seemed just a little too satisfied as she slid the food in front of their guest. When Daniel’s parents came to collect him, their mother clasped his shoulder warmly.

“He’s welcome anytime,”

She said.

“Such a polite boy.”

Only after the car had turned the corner did the siblings relax. The boy exhaled slowly. His sister leaned against the wall, rubbing her arms.

“It’s gone,”

She said softly. The boy nodded. For now. That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t. Two weeks later, the boy began waking up tired again. The figure had returned—only now it didn’t sit on his chest. It crouched in the corner of his room, murmuring, watching. Its voice was lower, almost disappointed.

“You let me go hungry.”

The boy stopped telling his mother. He wasn’t sure if she had tricked it or simply fed it to someone else. And if she had… was she protecting them, or protecting herself?

One night, he woke to find the figure closer than before, its long hands splayed over his blanket. The weight on his chest returned, crushing his ribs. His vision blurred as the voice slid into his ear.

“I don’t need food from the table… I can take what I want.”

The next morning, the boy barely made it down the stairs. His mother didn’t comment on his appearance. She only glanced at him, then at the small plates in front of her children, and the larger one she was preparing for her own breakfast.

It occurred to him, for the first time, that she had never once said she didn’t see it.

That night, he dreamt of Daniel’s house. Daniel was in bed, but his skin was gray, and his mouth hung open in a silent scream. The shadow figure crouched on him, feeding. It lifted its head and looked straight at the boy.

“Thank you.”

He woke gasping, sweat-soaked. Downstairs, he heard the faint scrape of a chair being pulled back from the kitchen table, and the sound of someone, something chewing.

From then on, the boy avoided sleepovers, both hosting and attending. He began eating less in general, terrified of being appetizing. His sister did the same. And their mother? She kept cooking sometimes for them, sometimes for guests, and sometimes for no one at all. The empty plates would be stacked neatly in the sink by morning.

Every now and then, they’d hear from someone in town about a bad run of nightmares, about a strange heaviness in the night. The siblings would glance at each other but say nothing. The Night Hag had moved on. But she always came back.