A cold light blanketed the room.
My girlfriend sat beside me, gripping a pillow. Her breathing grew uneven as her eyes ping-ponged between me and the TV.
On it, a nightmare played.
A grainy image of a room with a massive wardrobe. Its warped wood absorbed the light, and something dark pooled beneath it. From behind the wardrobe, a serpent-like head emerged—its scales blacker than the depths of the ocean on a moonless night.
Its face remained turned away, focusing elsewhere. Even without its gaze, its suffocating, oppressive presence filled the air.
I glanced at my girlfriend.
Her unease turned to fear as the thing just idled there, still as stone. It made darkness look bright, an impossibly vivid silhouette without a light source.
She whispered, “Turn it off,” her hands shaking as she reached for, fumbled, then dropped the remote. “Please. I don’t like this.”
The thing snapped its head toward us; then, the perspective lurched forward in a disorienting zoom, centering on its molten red eyes.
She screamed, her expression twisting into raw terror. Tears streamed down her face. “It’s looking at us! We’re going to die! Please, just *fucking* turn it off!”
It alternated between staring at us and glancing toward the screen’s edges, as if probing the digital barrier between it and us.
Her body convulsed as she clawed at her face, nails dragging bloody lines across her cheeks. “It’s here!” she screamed, her voice rising into hysteria.
It began slamming its head against the screen as she howled in terror.
“NOW! NOW! TURN IT OFF NOW!" Her voice dissolved into primal cries. "OH FUCK, OH GOD, OH GAWWWWW—”
Then she went still—her carved, bloodied face contorted in despair.
I couldn’t move, either. I couldn’t speak. I was hollowed out and dragged back to the irrational fear of childhood monsters lurking in long-forgotten closets.
A final slam and the screen went black.
I woke with a sharp intake of breath. Our bedroom was dark except for the static on the television. My girlfriend stirred, then rolled toward me.
“Babe?” she said groggily.
Her voice pulled me back from the brink of pure terror, but only briefly. I didn’t answer. My eyes had locked on the wardrobe in the corner—its door slightly ajar, a pool of blackness spreading underneath.
*We don't own a wardrobe.*
I felt her begin to shake through the bed as she muttered under her breath, "Oh God... oh God... oh God..."