The brief moment, in which your eyes adjust to the darkness, have the switching off the

lights. That's the moment you should be afraid of. The few, drawn out seconds that your

vision is shrouded in pitch black as you wait for your eyes to make sense of your surroundings.

How many of those seconds before the outlines of your furniture come into view? Those are

the seconds, when you should be hiding.

This is what my mother told me a long time ago, long before she passed away. These words

have been stuck in my mind since the day I heard them, and they repeat themselves to me

each night when I shut the lights off for bed. I keep a night light by my bedside, just

like my mother always did. She told me this the day after my 11th birthday. I remember,

because we had spent my birthday and a day trip out of town to celebrate. My day was filled

with frolicing in the hot sand on the beach and taking countless ocean waves straight

to the face. Needless to say, I was exhausted. It was around 9pm when we got in the door,

and I dropped my things in the hallway and dragged my heavy body to my bedroom. This moment

should have been a blur, just like any other tired night. But I'm just changing into

my pajamas and switching off the light. Something happened.

I switched off the light, and the room around me became a dark void in every direction.

My mother had kept a night light in my room for as long as I can remember. But tonight,

I guess, the bulb had finally died. At that moment, I didn't give it a second thought.

I had walked to my bed thousands of times up to this point in my life, and I knew I could

navigate there easily. I made my way across my bedroom, keeping my arms extended as

to not bump into anything. Seconds passed of wondering across my room in the dark, and

I had not yet reached my bed. I thought this was strange, but I quickly wrote it off as

...