The Bent Visitor

When I was thirteen, sleep was my sanctuary. My room in the attic of our old farmhouse was a narrow, slanted space where I could dream of escape from my parents’ constant bickering. But one autumn night, that sanctuary turned into a prison.

I had been tossing and turning, my mind refusing to quiet. The wind outside moaned against the eaves, and the house groaned like a living thing. I shifted onto my side, hoping to find comfort in the familiar dip of my mattress. As I turned, my eyes caught something in the corner near the closet. A shape. A figure. It was like a hole in the air, darker than the darkness around it.

At first, I thought it was a coat draped over a chair, but coats don’t stand. This figure was upright, pressed against the wall as if it had been there all along, waiting for me to notice. It was unmistakably female, but wrong. Her back was hunched, and a large hump deformed her shoulders, making her silhouette look like a question mark. Her head was tilted, and I could swear I saw the glint of an eye, but no face—just an absence.

My breath caught. My heart slammed against my ribs. I was frozen, my mind screaming at me to move, to scream, but my body refused. She didn’t move either. She just stood there, a permanent fixture in my room, as if she had always been there and I had only now gained the ability to see her.

After what felt like an eternity, I managed to yank the quilt over my head. I squeezed my eyes shut and called for my mother, my voice a trembling whisper at first, then louder. I heard her footsteps on the stairs, the creak of the door. The weight of her sitting on the edge of my bed. I told her I had a bad dream, afraid to speak the truth, afraid she’d think I had finally lost it like my grandmother. She rubbed my back, told me it was just the wind, and left.

My room was never the same. I begged to sleep with my parents, but they said I was too old. So I lay in bed every night, staring at that wall, waiting. The figure appeared sporadically—not every night, but often enough. Sometimes she was close, sometimes far, but always with that same humped back, as if carrying an invisible burden. I started sleeping with the light on, but that didn’t help; she seemed to absorb the light, becoming an even deeper black.

Weeks passed. I grew exhausted, my grades slipped, and I began to question my sanity. I started to convince myself it was a trick of the light, a shadow cast by the tree outside. But then I noticed the pattern of her visits. She always appeared when I was alone. And she was getting closer. The first time she was on the far wall. The next, she had moved to the foot of my bed. Then, one night, she stood beside me, close enough that I could feel a chill radiating from her.

I remember that night vividly. I had been crying, praying to any god who would listen. I turned to the wall, and she was there, so close I could see the texture of her skin—like cracked leather, but without color. And for the first time, she spoke. Her voice was a dry rustle, like dead leaves scraping on pavement. ‘I have been waiting, child. It is time.’

I didn’t wait to hear more. I screamed, Bolted from my bed, and ran to my parents’ room, babbling incoherently. My father, irritated, marched to my room with a flashlight, expecting to find a branch scraping the window. But when he came back, his face was white as a sheet. He didn’t say anything, just told us to sleep in their room that night.

The next day, my parents hired a priest to bless the house. He sprinkled holy water, muttered prayers, and left. But that night, as I lay in my own bed again, she returned, standing in the corner, larger than before. And she wasn’t alone. Behind her, I saw faint shapes, also hunched, gradually becoming distinct. I realized with horror that they were all versions of her—different ages, from young girl to ancient crone, all staring at me with hungry eyes.

I screamed again, and my parents rushed in. This time, they saw her too. My mother fainted, and my father grabbed me, and we fled the house that very night. We never went back. The house, that old farmhouse, was sold at a loss, and we moved to a city apartment, trying to forget.

But the memory lingers. I’m an adult now, with a family of my own. And sometimes, in the corner of my bedroom, when I’m alone and the night is still, I catch a glimpse of a dark shape, hunched and waiting. I know she followed me. And I know that one night, I’ll wake to find her standing over me, and I won’t be able to scream.

If you’re reading this, and you’ve seen the Bent One, don’t wait. Move, run, whatever you can. Because once she’s found you, she never lets go. And the hump on her back? It’s the weight of all the souls she’s taken. And she’s always looking for more.