When you first meet him, you think he’s a dream.
You’re awake and you don’t know what time it is, but the darkness in your room tells you it’s late. You are calm, drifting in and out of sleep, in that blurry place in between dreaming and reality.
So when you see him, you don’t immediately scream, even though the way you’re shifting in your bed tell you: you can move and you can speak, and you aren’t paralyzed.
It’s dark in your room, but even in the gloom, you can tell he’s there.
It’s late, and you’re tired, so you don’t understand that you should be scared of him. You can’t comprehend the oddness of the situation, even when he starts moving, and the moonlight hits his form and blank eyes glint back at you.
He’s here. And you are too weak and vulnerable to escape him.