The Visitor

There had been someone in his room.
He was certain.
He had started calling it 'the Creature', as he wasn't even sure what exactly had been creeping up to him at night, but something was there for sure. The Creature had made his first mistake when it'd left the door open and he would never, ever leave the door open – not since the dark still managed to scare him night after night, and the opened door didn't help at all, shadows in the hallway showing a synyster play on the wall.
That time he hadn't been sure.
Just his mother, he'd reassured himself, or his sister, and he'd even blamed it on the wind when at night, the thoughts started creeping up to him. He didn't sleep much that night, storm raging around the house, his mother's wide awake footsteps scaring him each time he woke up from claustrophobic nightmares. He'd gotten up and closed the door.
It wasn't open when he woke up and he'd blamed it on the nightmares and his mother's frantic footsteps.
The Creature's second mistake came in the form of dripping water. No matter how tight he would close the tap when he left for school, it would be softly dripping every afternoon, and the dripping started to trigger the paranoia.
A shadow on the wall became a claw.
Dust dancing in the sunlight became the Creature's breath.
The sound of his mother's footsteps at night became laughter when he was in that state between being awake and dreaming right after his nightmares, and the dripping was either the dripping of his own blood or the dripping of saliva from the Creature's watering mouth, jaw opening, waiting to rip the limbs off his body.
He knew the Creature couldn't be big enough for that.
It had to be delicate, maybe even fragile, to be able to tear off the paper of his chocolate bar so neatly that he could've folded it right back. Had to be delicate when he found his sheets just a tiny bit neater than in the morning, as if the Creature had been covering up it's traces just a bit too careless.
And Lord, careless the Creature did become.
He felt like the Creature was playing a game with him, waiting until he would show that he knew he wasn't alone at night anymore, if he'd ever been, and then, Lord, then, the Creature became so restless he looked over his shoulder all day.
Carelessly, his neatly folded clothes we placed back in the closet, inside out this time. And carelessly, the posters on his wall were ripped down and he had to tell his mother he no longer liked Batman. She ruffled his hair and told him she'd buy him new ones.
Carelessly, the Creature left dirt on the taphandle and spilled water on his floor.

And he was terrified. He no longer slept, didn't dare to drink from the tap anymore, walked around school like a zombie, dreading the minute he had to step back into that room again, and sleep there, even in the claustrophobic, threatening darkness, when his shoulders shook with tears and he was certain, Lord, so certain that he heard two pairs of footsteps that night -
He got up.
Turned on the lights.
Nothing there.
Turned around.
Stared in the mirror.
Saw the shadow on his wall.
Saw a shadow that wasn't his.
He heard the tap dripping and he closed his eyes in fear.
'Nothing's there,' he mumbled to himself – but he knew better. 'Nothing's there, nothing's there, nothing's there.'
He opened his eyes when he felt breath in his neck and he stared into the mirror, finally seeing it, finally witnessing what he had known was there.
It was tall, so tall, a grey body, grey as a shadow casted over asphalt, and it had thin, delicate fingers ending in professionnally sharpened nails and eyes, Lord, two blodshot, haunting eyes that stared at him, and then the mouth with the saliva-dripping teeth opened and the Creature finally made a sound -
'It's not so nice to ignore a guest, is it?'