What Scared You As A Child?

Bloodsword - Phantoms of Twilight

As a child with a very active imagination, my days and nights were always filled with a plethora of creatures. Some were friendly, others not so much. But only a handful of those actually scared me. Some that scared me the most I called 'phantoms'.

Forced to wear glasses since the age of eight, I found nighttime, when my glasses were sitting on my dresser, a place filled with shifting shadows, uneasy sounds, and uncertain motion. I spent long minutes staring into the darkness of my closet from my bed to see if I had imagined that motion in there, or if something really was hunkering down inside and returning my searching look with a cold, hard stare of its own as it waited for me to finally fall asleep so it could come out.

Those motions and shifting shadows always left me in a cold sweat, heart pounding. But they never haunted me like the phantoms did. That's because I would see them while there was plenty of light in the room.

Being a child fascinated with the workings of nature, it wasn't unusual for me to spend time watching ants build their hill, a spider weave its web, or a thousand other things as they happened around me. So when I saw a small spider making its way across my bedroom ceiling one summer evening, just as the sun was dipping below the horizon, I found myself pushing aside my sleepiness to raptly watch it make its journey across the dappled stucco towards the light fixture in the center.

I continued to carefully watch even after the spider disappeared behind the pale white swell of the fixture's housing, fully expecting it to emerge on the other side as it continued its journey. I found myself frowning when, after several minutes, it didn't reappear as expected.

Thinking it may have stopped for the night, perhaps to start building a new web close to where other insects could be found, I was about to forget my tiny visitor and roll over and go to sleep when I saw it reappear. But not on the opposite side as expected. No, it was returning back the way it came. And it wasn't alone.

First it was joined by one spider just like it, both moving steadily across the stucco. Then came another, and another, then pairs of them, quartets, and then a flood. I could feel my eyes flying wide in shock as a veritable river of tiny shapes surged out from behind the light, heading straight for the wall my bed was placed against.

How did that many spiders hide in my light like that? Was there a hole in my ceiling that they were all coming out of?

Then all my questions dried up as the river of tiny spiders reached the wall and immediately headed down it, directly towards me. The only thing between them and me was the small ledge that ran along the room's perimeter and I shrunk away from it, knowing that if they kept on coming, they'd wash over it and right onto me.

On they came, the flood of spiders driving straight for the ledge. Then they were hitting it as the end of the river appeared on my ceiling. I yanked off my blanket, preparing to use it to defend myself even as I gathered myself to make the leap to safety off my bed, eyes staring at the ledge.

Only, ... nothing came over. Even as the end of the flood of spiders reached the wall and made their way down to the ledge, nothing spilled over it. After staring at it for several minutes, I finally got enough courage to get up and turn on the light. And found the ledge completely empty even as my heart continued to race and my hands trembled in fear.

It wasn't the last time I would see spiders, or ants, or darting centipedes in my room as the day's last light faded. Nor were my phantoms restricted to small things. Many times they took the form of people.

While most of my people phantoms merely moved through the room and ignored me, the handful of times they stopped and tried to interact with me were some of the most terrifying of my young life. One in particular etched itself into my memory, still making my heart thump uneasily to this day.

We had stopped at a hotel in a small town for the night after traveling for a school trip. I won the toss and got the double bed while the other boy assigned to the room got the cot. I was tired and was quickly falling asleep when I caught a motion at the edge of my bed.

I fumbled for my glasses then pulled on the cord to turn on the lamp sitting on the night stand. In the resulting light, I found myself staring at the form of a young man in a flannel shirt and jeans standing beside my bed.

Startled, I called out to the other boy, waking him up. The young man looked over his shoulder at the boy stirring groggily on the cot before he began stepping towards me through the bed, reaching out towards me as he did. With each step towards me he faded, becoming transparent.

I quickly scooted back from him, getting ready to shout if he managed to touch me. But, just before he could put his hand on me, he finished fading out and disappeared, leaving me staring into empty space, heart pounding as my roommate sleepily asked what was wrong. In a shaky voice, I said 'nothing, just a dream' and did my best to forget it. I got no sleep that night.

Twilight phantoms; definitely something that scared me as a kid. What scared you?