My son once told me, “Mommy, a big man comes into my room at night.” His innocent eyes looked up at me with a mix of curiosity and fear. I reassured him, “Tell him to go,” and brushed it off as a child’s imagination running wild. [read more]
Weeks passed without incident, until one night, at precisely 3 a.m., I was startled awake by a commotion in my son’s room. My heart pounded as I scrambled out of bed and dashed down the hallway. Flinging the door open, I found him sitting upright on his bed, his tiny frame silhouetted against the pale moonlight streaming through the window. He was looking out, his lips moving as if he were having a conversation.
“Sweetheart, who are you talking to?” I asked, my voice trembling. He turned to me, eyes wide and innocent, “The big man, Mommy.”
My pulse quickened as I peered across the street. There, in the lit-up apartment, stood what appeared to be a human figure, eerily still. A shiver ran down my spine. Every horror story I had ever read seemed to come alive in that moment.
Determined to protect my child, I squinted harder, trying to make sense of the shadowy figure. As my eyes adjusted, the terrifying silhouette transformed into an innocent arrangement of a lamp and furniture. The way the light hit them created a shadow that, from a distance, mimicked the form of a person.
Relief washed over me like a warm wave. I took a deep breath and sat next to my son, wrapping my arms around him. “It’s okay, darling. No one is coming into your room. It’s just a trick of the light.”
He rested his head against my shoulder, his breathing steadying as he drifted back to sleep. I stayed with him until his soft snores filled the room, then took one last glance out the window to reassure myself it was indeed a harmless shadow.
Returning to my bed, I couldn’t shake the lingering unease. My son’s innocent fear had sparked a protective instinct in me that was hard to quell. Each night after, I found myself checking the window, ensuring the shadows stayed as mere shadows and nothing more. It was a small price to pay for my son’s peace of mind—and my own.
In the weeks that followed, the nightly visits of the “big man” ceased. My son slept soundly, and I found comfort in the routine of our new nightly ritual. Through this experience, I learned that sometimes, the monsters we fear most are the ones we create in our minds. And in facing them, we find our greatest strengths, the fierce love and protection we hold for those we cherish most. [/read]
