To anybody trying to get their creative juices flowing, I will always highly recommend trying a ten-minute free write. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept: set a ten-minute timer and open a blank word document or pull out your favorite pen and a fresh sheet of paper.

 It does not matter what you write- just that you keep writing. For the full ten minutes, do not let your hands stop moving. Even if you have no idea what to say- just write words. Nonsense. Explain your day, describe the chair you’re sitting on, what you plan on eating for dinner. Just go. It’s a great way to unbottle and sometimes it can lead to something that was buried in your subconscious. To show that I can handle my inner raw thoughts being aired to the internet, here’s my latest free write.

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Just freewriting here. Haven’t done this in a while- last time was when I came up with the Silverwing so let’s see what happens here. Just set the ten minute timer. What’s something that freaks people out? Something unknowable.

I bolt awake in my bed. The room is dark, always disorienting at first. I’ve always hated sleeping in a dark room. But I have to use the sleep timer on the TV because of my husband. How much of myself should I lose to make allowance for him?

There’s something at the end of the bed. It’s not a person. Just a… darker piece of the darkness. I know it wasn’t there when I went to sleep- nothing has changed in this bedroom for months, since my last re-decoration. It’s not a cat- it’s too big to be a cat.

It’s not moving. Well, maybe it is? If I stare at it long enough, it almost appears to move. Just slightly. As if its edges are soluble in the air. Is it alive? Does it know I can see it? Can it tell I’m awake?

A sound. A low sound, like the creak of an old door but slowed down two hundred percent. Like the groan of some long-suffering beast. Is it coming from the thing at the end of the bed?

CRACK

Shit. Just a cat pulling on the door. Made me jump. I look back at the thing at the end of the bed. Did it move? My eyes darted to the bedroom door when the cat scared me. I took my eyes from it for just a second, maybe two. But I can’t tell if it’s the same, because it has no discernable shape.

I’m certain it moved. Something’s… different. The sound… it must have stopped at some point. When did it stop? When the cat scared me?

Did it see me jump? Does it know I’m awake for sure now?

I stare at it. Its edges do not resolve, do not clear into a shape I can recognize.

But I know it’s watching me. Somehow… there’s a warmth. Coming from it. I can feel it heating the tips of my toes, only inches away from this thing. This indiscernable darkness, this impossible void. Should I pull my feet back?

Suddenly I know I have to. It sees my feet. It has realized at the same time as me that my feet are near it, near enough to be warmed by it.

Shit.

If I move it will know for sure I can see it. But shit shit shit I can feel it getting ready to grab me

Oh fuck okay just pull them back now it’s going to do it

Hurry up just move you’re not frozen

Whew.

Okay.

I pull my feet toward me, my knees pointing up, heels resting against my buttocks.

Feet are safe.

Safer.

But my knees are-

I can’t see it anymore. My knees are in the way move your knees hurry you can’t lose it it might be moving oh god

It’s gone.

Oh fuck oh fuck where did it go?

Was it really there? The warmth is gone. I lost it in those few seconds where my knees blocked it from view. It has to be gone. It was never there.

SWISH

Oh.

Oh god. It… It’s sliding around to the side of the bed. My side. How is my husband not waking up how can he not feel that thing in here with us

SLAM

Ohho god my nightstand it smacked my nightstand my vitamins my water glass they fell over. It’s so warm I can’t see it the bed’s too high but I know it’s right next to me

I can’t turn my head.

I close my eyes.

Don’t look. If you can’t see it it can’t see you just stay there. Everything will be okay if you just

DON’T

LOOK AT IT

Just don’t just don’t eyes closed come on

But I can feel its warmth next to my face it’s sliding up the bed

The groan. A low moan it’s doing it IN MY EAR RIGHT NEXT TO MY HEAD

It’s okay it’s okay just keep squeezing your eyelids shut you are safe if you just don’t look at it I promise

Okay okay we’re okay it’s breathing on my face but my eyes are shut shut tight nothing can get through

It touches my face

It

Touched it’s touching my face oh my god nothing else feels like this it’s touching me with something that’s from eternity

Cold now it’s cold it’s not warm anymore I’m crying shaking I can feel tears on my face how is my husband still asleep I want to check if he’s still there but if I move it will KNOW

It slides onto my chest.

Sits there like a cat.

It’s warm again. It’s not touching me with whatever its version of fingers is. It’s heavy.

So heavy I’m struggling to take deep breaths. If I take too deep of a breath will it know? Will it know I can feel it there, that I’m awake?

It’s still moaning. Sitting just right there on my chest getting heavier so heavy I can’t breathe

In my panic my eyes pop open

Nothing

There… there’s nothing there. I can’t feel its heat, its weight anymore.

It was never there.

The room becomes lighter. Dawn? I think dawn is coming in through the window.

What a terrible dream. That went beyond a dream. I know I felt it there. It was there for HOURS. It took thirty minutes to slide up the side of the bed, an hour sitting there breathing in my ear, two hours it laid on my chest until I couldn’t breathe.

It was forever. I remember that cold touch of forever. No dream feels like that.

It wasn’t a dream. It was here.

But now it’s gone.

My husband stirs beside me. He wakes with the sun, always.

He asks what I’m doing awake already. I’m a late riser. I tell him I had a nightmare. I need comfort but he wouldn’t understand the truth if I tried to explain it. He kisses me and gets out of bed.

I watch him open the bedroom door and

It’s there

Outside the door. He doesn’t see it. Says he’ll be in the shower.

It slides in the room past his feet like a cat sneaking in.

It’s not a cat. I don’t have a black cat and cats aren’t that big, aren’t shaped like that.

It’s not shaped like anything though.

It’s light in the bedroom now and somehow it’s only darker, like if I touched it I would become nothing, my atoms unmade in an instant.

It seems to revel in the victory of being let back into the room. It’s coming

Coming up to the side of the bed

It’s moving so much faster now

It’s here I don’t have time to close my eyes

#

I get out of the shower and go into the bedroom, assuming I would find my wife had drifted back off into sleep. She’s never up this early.

She’s gone.

I call out her name. Search the house. She’s nowhere. She left?

She left while I was in the shower.

#

She never came back. It was like one second she was there, then there was nothing.

Only darkness.

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Free writing is a fantastic brain warm-up not only for writing but any kind of creative activity. The practice allows your brain to run without restraint, to let your subconscious through without judgement. I highly encourage you, reader, to sit down with a timer just once a day and see what your brain vomits out.

Happy writing!

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