I prefer to keep a low profile. It’s not that I’m antisocial—I respect everyone’s right to be social and connect. I’m just more of a non-social type. I like to blend in, avoid too much attention, and leave without making a big splash. Just like the others who were here before me, who no one seems to remember anymore.
You feel it, don’t you? That subtle pressure in the corner of your mind, like an itch you can’t quite scratch. It’s why you glance toward the dark spaces—corners that stretch too deep, doorways that yawn open like mouths. You’re drawn to them, even as your pulse quickens and the tiny hairs on your neck rise in a silent warning.
You know I’m there.
You don’t know what I am, and that’s the fun of it, isn’t it? Something ancient, something patient, something that exists just on the edge of your comprehension. I’m not evil—don’t overestimate your judgement. But I am here, and I see you.
It’s funny, the games your mind plays. You invent monsters to fill the unknown, giving them claws and teeth, making them brutish and violent. But I don’t need to roar or scrape or threaten. My presence alone is enough. I am the quiet in the middle of the night when you wake and don’t know why. The unspoken question that lingers when your back is turned.
If I wanted to frighten you, I wouldn’t need theatrics. I’d simply let you know. A flicker of motion in the corner of your eye, the creak of the floorboards in an empty room—those are the things that would undo you. Not because I mean you harm, but because you’d realize you’re the prey.
I could let you see. I could reveal myself—not as some lumbering beast or blood-soaked horror, but as something very real. You’d be terrified, yes, but I’m not cruel. It would be the kind of fear that leaves you safe under the covers.
The shadow that watches, the silence that thrums. You could walk through that doorway, step closer to the corner, let the darkness take you?
Once you’ve seen it, it never leaves you.
A Fool's Handbook 