As this thought came to me, I noticed that my unwelcome visitor had ceased moving.
The bed sheets layed calmly, dormantly, however it had been replaced by something far more terrible.
A slow, rhythmic, rasping rumble heaved and escaped from the thing below, it sounded like a mix between a lion and a demonic force.
I could imagine its chest rising and falling with each wheezing, and heaving breath.
I shuddered at the thought of what it could be, and hoped beyond all hope that it would leave my room without occurrence.
The house lay, as it had the previous night, in a thick blanket of darkness.
Silence prevailed, all but for the breath of my, as yet, unseen bunkmate.
I lay there terrified out of my mind.
Just wanting this thing whatever it was to go, to leave me alone forever.
What did it want? I thought, why me?
Then something unmistakably chilling transpired; it moved.
It moved in a way different from before.
When it threw itself around in the bottom bunk it seemed, unrestrained, without purpose, almost animalistic.
This movement, however, was driven by awareness, with purpose, with a goal in mind.
For that thing lying there in the darkness, that thing which seemed intent on terrorizing a young girl, began breathing.
Silently it breathed, only a mattress and a few flimsy wooden slats separated my body from the unearthly breath below.
I lay there, my eyes filled with tears.
A fear in which mere words cannot relate to you or anyone else coursed through my veins.
I would not have believed that this fear could have been heightened, but I was so wrong.
I imagined what this thing would look like, sitting there listening to me from down below my mattress, hoping to catch the slightest hint that I was awake.