At first, I only noticed how much room I had to move my legs around in bed. The sheets were cool on my bare feet as I slid them back and forth. All that free space. That was when it registered to me that Damage wasn't curled up at the foot of my bed like a stereotypical dog. That wasn't like him. Once I was in bed, he was as well. He never got up in the middle of the night unless he had to use the bathroom outside. But even then, he would whine and pace the room until I got up. Yet, I didn't hear anything. Strange.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and checked my clock. It was only just past two in the morning. I didn't want to have to look for Damage at this hour. He was a well-behaved companion. Though, in the five years that I had had him, he never once slept anywhere at night except with me. It was such an odd thing for him to roam the house at night. So, where was he now? While I was a bit reluctant to search for him, I couldn't help but feel a little worried about him.

Through my sheer exhaustion, I pulled myself into an upright sitting position. I didn't have to go far. I didn't even have to get up. Found him. There Damage was, standing next to my bed in the middle of my floor. He was as still as a statue. I couldn't even see him breathing with how dark the room was. I only just made out his dark shape. He didn't make a single sound. All he did was stare, motionless, straight out of my open bedroom door.

"Damage." I gave him a quick call. A name he had earned as a puppy when I had to replace many of my things during his chewing phases. To my suprise, he didn't even flinch. Didn't register my voice whatsoever. "Damage!" I tried again, a bit firmer this time, "come on! To bed!" Still nothing. What could have been distracting him?

I glanced up to my open door. Beyond the frame was solid black. Like a void of nothingness. I couldn't see anything at all. Yet he was staring hard, never breaking line of sight.

"To me, Damage!" I smacked the bed a few times, trying to coax him up to my feet. "Let's go to bed! What are you doing?" He never bothered to acknowledge me at all. He stared like his life itself depended on it. That was when an eerie feeling traced its way down my spine and caused the hair on my arms to stand on end. I had never seen Damage do this before.

I turned my attention back to the door again. In all of the pitch darkness, I still couldn't see a single thing. Was... was someone standing just beyond the doorframe? Only meters from my bed? Fear began to seize my muscles. Now, I felt about as frozen as Damage, just staring into the darkness, hoping nothing was staring back. I wished so badly I had closed my door before I slept. Even more, I wish I could move my legs in order to get up to close the door now.

There was no lock on my door, so if there was anyone there, they would very easily be able to merely open the door to enter. Why hadn't they entered already? Were they scared of Damage? The thought of closing the door vanished when the idea of being snatched away down the hall screaming by some horrifying monster played in my mind.

This standoff was dragging on. All the while, I felt so vulnerable and exposed, while at the same time, somehow safe under my blankets while sitting on my bed. What a childish mindset to have. As if sheets were some protective barrier from the things that went bump in the night. I may have been an adult, but just like a child, I was shaken to my core.

"Damage?" I whispered this time. As if it would have made any difference. Except this time, I wasn't instructing him to return to me out of tiredness. It was out of fear. I needed him in bed with me for my own security. To have him up on the bed with me would make me feel safer. Somehow. He still didn't turn to me. He was fully immersed in standing guard right where he was. In a way, I felt somewhat comforted that his stare just happened to be keeping whatever was outside my bedroom at bay.

"Whatever was outside my bedroom?" I tried to scoff off the idea. There was nothing out there! No intruder or monster would just stand there doing nothing while I was a sitting duck! I was an easy opportunity for anyone to come and kill or eat. That alone should have made it beyond clear that there was nothing out there. Nothing to be afraid of. Yet... still... I was afraid.

I couldn't explain it, but I could feel it. I could feel the heaviness in the air. That feeling you get when something is wrong. That feeling you get when you know someone is watching you. I could feel the weight on my chest that my heart was threatening to burst through. Something was definitely wrong. I knew it. Yet I was too frozen in place to do anything about it. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't just get up and shut the door, though I wished so badly that I could.

"Damage..." I whispered again. I just needed him to come back. I needed him with me. If he would falter from his watch, I would know that there was nothing out there. I needed him to let his guard down so I could let mine down. But he didn't.

I moved my eyes slowly to my nightstand to see if I had anything that could even remotely be considered a weapon. Only my bottle of water and a book I had been reading. Useless. I looked back to the opening of the void. I stared hard. I tried to focus my eyes as deeply as I could in an attempt to penetrate the darkness. I wasn't sure if it was beneficial. My eyes. Were they playing tricks on me? I thought maybe, just maybe, I saw a form out in the dark. Like something was hunched over. I pictured a horrible face looking back at me. Horrible fangs. Horrible dead eyes. A sharp nose. Or no nose at all. My mind kept changing the appearance. As if it were shuffling through every terrifying face I could possibly imagine to settle on the worst combination.

My fear was hightening. My heart throbbing. My breaths shallow. My fight or flight had been broken to a stage of simply fright. Frozen fear. But the more terrible things I imagined, the more my fright started to shift into fight. I couldn't take this anymore. I needed to see. I needed to prove once, and for all that, nothing was there. For myself and for Damage. I could only imagine how scared he was to be guarding for so long. This had gone on long enough.

I flung the blankets from my legs, ripping off my metaphorical protective shield. It was all or nothing now. I snatched up my book to use as a blunt object and raced to my door. They would have seen me coming and knew my next moves. I didn't care. I would kill anyone I found in my house. I immediately slapped the light switch to cast an orange glow all the way down the long hallway.

As it flooded with light, a breath of relief escaped my lips. Nothing. Exactly what I knew I would find. The whole time. It was nothing at all. Just my own thoughts getting to me. I let out a long sigh. My chest still hurt from my heart that had yet to calm itself. But I felt all too relieved all the same. Finally. I could relax.

"See?" I pointed down the hall and turned back to Damage, "Nothing th-" my words dropped back down my throat when I met his face. And Eldritch monstrosity awaited me in return. The light cast into my bedroom from the hallway and made his mass of tangled flesh and exposed teeth look moist and slimy. His eyes were black, but they were fixated on me now. His mouth opened. I wondered in that moment if whatever he was staring at in the hallway of darkness was the only thing that had been keeping me safe. Whatever entity I had cast out with the light. It all hardly mattered now. Damage was hungry.