the pull

“There’s someone in my room.”

That’s how it started.

Dad shot out of bed. Mom held me close.

He came back minutes later, rubbing his eyes.

“Nothing there, Julia. Just a dream.”

Mom eyed him skeptically, unconvinced. She squeezed my hand and led me to my room.  

Dad was a scientist. He didn’t believe in God — or ghosts.

He believed in empirical evidence: reproducible, peer-reviewed.

He was cold and logical when faced with the potential paranormal. To him, it was just another phenomenon science hadn’t yet explained. But give it more research and surely we’d find the logic — the equation, the rules.

Mom was different. She had the sensibility of an artist, the empathy of a woman.

She saw things.

Felt things.

And she passed that down to me.

The room was just as I’d left it: lamp on, bed rumpled. But something was off.

The air felt warped — as if a fisheye lens had swallowed it whole. Shadows curved in strange directions.

The light looked wrong. Bent. The air had weight, and it was cold.

We checked the wardrobe. Under the bed. Behind the curtains.

But I don't think I was looking for something. I was trying to avoid seeing it.

Something was in there.

Watching.

Its stare burned into my back like a laser. My skin crawled. The hairs on my neck rose.

But whenever I turned around — nothing.

Emptiness.

Thick, pulsing. Intentional.

Mom’s voice sliced through the room.

“Whatever you are,” she said, tone sharp and steady, “Leave my daughter alone.”

The room creaked. Floorboard, maybe — or something heavier. Breathing?

The silence was thick.

She looked at me, shaken.

“Do you want to sleep with us?” She whispered.

I hesitated. I felt scared, but I was proud. Brave for my innocence. Or perhaps because of it. I must’ve been twelve, tops.

My eyes swept the room again. Nothing looked out of place. But it all felt… Off.

I pushed it aside, though. Tried to think like Dad. Maybe it was just my imagination.

“I’ll be fine.”

So Mom left, reluctantly.

I crawled under the blanket, skin buzzing, heart pounding.

But I didn’t turn off the lamp.

Couldn’t.

The silence began to grow — stretching from the corners with long limbs, crawling slowly across the room and up the foot of my bed.

It rang in my ears. But it wasn’t empty.

It listened.

It waited.

I curled tighter, clenching my eyes shut.

It started quietly.

A strain of thoughts that didn’t belong to me.

My body was warm under the blankets, but my mind went cold.

Pain.

Flashes of memory, jagged and relentless, tore through my mind. I whimpered, folding into myself, arms clutched around my knees.

Death.

People I loved, suffering. Dying.

Blood.

What if something bad happened?

A car accident.

A cancer.

A stroke.

Pain. Pain. Pain.

SCREAMS.

The feeling was overwhelming. I couldn’t breathe.

And then — all of a sudden —

Someone yanked my hair.

Hard.

Violent.

I gasped — maybe screamed — and shot upright.

The thoughts had been inside my mind. Dark, spiraling.

But the pull? It had been physical.

Aggressive.

My scalp ached.

I looked around, massaging my head. But I already knew the room was empty.

No sound.

No one.

No, nothing.

Just the lamp. Just me. 

And those dark thoughts.

This is a true story.