The Ceramic Lullaby

In the humid small hours of a Tuesday night in Kuching, twelve-year-old Mei Ling lay on her bed, the soft whir of her desk fan doing little to cool the sticky air. Her parents had gone to bed hours ago, and the house, a single-storey terrace with peeling paint and a creaking gate, was silent except for the distant hum of a refrigerator. Mei Ling had been watching videos on her phone, the blue light painting her face in ghostly hues, until her eyes grew heavy. She finally plugged in the charger, set the phone on the nightstand, and turned to face the wall, tugging her grandmother’s old sarong over her body, as she always did, for comfort.

Sleep came easily, but it didn’t last. She woke with a start, her heart hammering, unsure of what had disturbed her. The room was dark, but a faint, sickly green glow emanated from under her bed, casting long shadows on the opposite wall. It was like nothing she had seen before—not a toy, not a nightlight.

Her body felt wrong. She tried to lift her head, but her muscles refused. Her arms lay pinned to her sides, and her breath came in short, shallow gasps, as if an invisible weight pressed on her chest. Panic surged, but she couldn’t scream. Her eyes, half-lidded, were fixed on the glowing source.

A small face peered from beneath the bed, its skin the color of old molding clay, mottled with patches of green and grey. It was impossibly small, the size of a newborn kitten, but its features were sharp and ancient—deep-set eyes like polished jet, a thin mouth stretched in a knowing smile. It crawled out, its movements jerky and uneven, like a marionette with tangled strings. It wore a tiny, tattered sarong, stained with dark splotches that looked like dried blood.

Mei Ling’s lungs burned. She tried to cry out, but only a faint rasp escaped her lips. The creature tilted its head, seeming to study her. It let out a low, gurgling hum, a melody that sounded like a distorted lullaby her mother used to sing. The tune crawled into her ears, echoing in her skull, demanding her full attention. It began to crawl up the bed, its tiny hands leaving wet, sticky imprints on the bedsheet. Each touch sent a jolt of cold through her skin.

As it reached her chest, it stopped, hovering just above her heart. Its mouth, which had been smiling, opened wide, revealing rows of needle-like teeth and a cavity of pure black. A high-pitched whine started in her ears, growing louder, and her vision blurred. She could see her ceiling, her fan, the edges of her posters, but everything warped and twisted, as if the room itself was breathing. The creature’s hum became a choir of whispers, speaking in a language she didn’t understand but somehow felt in her bones: they spoke of a stolen name, a lost child, a promise broken.

Mei Ling’s left hand twitched. The sarong slid off her shoulder. In that moment, she remembered her grandmother’s advice: whenever the unseen presses close, hold onto a name you know, and say it out loud. With a force of will, she managed to mouth the name ‘Mama’.

The creature froze. Its smile faded, replaced by a look of confusion, then rage. It lunged at her face, but just as its teeth grazed her cheek, a blinding light filled the room—the light of her mother’s phone on the nightstand, which had suddenly turned on, illuminating the scene. The creature hissed, recoiling, and dissolved into a mist that seeped back under the bed. The glow vanished, and Mei Ling could move again, gasping for air.

She sat up, drenched in cold sweat. The clock on her phone read 1:27 AM. The room was normal, silent, but the damp imprint of tiny hands remained on her bedspread. She threw back the sarong and ran to her parents’ room, bursting in and shaking her mother awake.

‘There was a thing under my bed,’ she cried.

Her mother, sleepy and confused, soothed her, saying it was just a nightmare. But then Mei Ling showed her the imprints, and her mother’s face went pale. Her mother told her, in a hushed voice, that her grandmother had once spoken of such creatures—hungry spirits of infants who had died unnamed, lurking in the spaces between sleep and waking. They latched onto the living, especially the young, to steal their voice and breath.

Mei Ling didn’t sleep again that night. The next day, she refused to enter her room alone. She kept the lights on and a photograph of her grandmother by her pillow. But even as the weeks passed, she would sometimes catch a faint green glow under her bed, and the distant sound of a lullaby humming, waiting for her to forget her name again.

She never forgot. And she never stopped watching the shadows beneath her bed, knowing that the ceramic lullaby was waiting for her to fall asleep—and maybe, one day, it would succeed.