The Hollow Hours

The night nurse’s footsteps were a soft, rhythmic sigh against the linoleum, a sound I’d come to hate. It meant she was checking on us, making sure we were still breathing, still curled in our institutional beds. The room was a study in beige: walls, sheets, the thin blanket that never quite warmed. A single window, barred and frosted, showed nothing but a gray smear of pre-dawn. I’d been here for what felt like years, though I knew it was only days. My son’s face, his small, trusting smile, was burned into the back of my eyelids. I’d see him in the cafeteria line, in the flicker of the fluorescent lights. I’d hear his laugh in the clatter of trays. The guilt was a physical weight, a stone in my chest that grew heavier with every hour I spent counting the cracks in the ceiling.

They’d taken my phone, my watch, even my shoelaces. The days blurred into each other, a series of group therapy sessions and medication trays. I’d been told my father and his wife were contesting my fitness as a mother. The word ‘temporary’ was a cruel joke. It meant my son could be taken from me, placed in their sterile, mocking home, while I rotted here. The injustice was a hot coal in my stomach. I’d fought with my boyfriend, threatened to end it all, and now I was the one being punished. I’d lain awake, replaying the argument, the way I’d twisted his concern into an attack, the tears I’d used as weapons. I was a monster, and they were right to take him away.

I must have cried myself into an uneasy sleep. The dream was a fog, filled with the sound of my son’s voice calling out, ‘Mommy, where are you?’ I tried to run to him, but my legs were useless, sinking into quicksand. Then the fog thickened, and I was in a hallway, the same beige hallway, but the doors were all wrong. They were huge, iron things, with tiny, barred windows. A low, rhythmic thumping echoed from behind them, like something heavy being dragged. I woke with a gasp, my heart hammering. The room was pitch black, not even the dim glow of the night light. I tried to sit up, to rub my eyes, but my arms wouldn’t move. They were pinned to my sides, as if by invisible straps. Panic sparked, icy and sharp. Sleep paralysis. I’d had it before, the terror of being conscious but unable to move. But this was different. I could feel the weight of something else in the room, a presence that made the air thick.

I strained to move, every muscle screaming, but my body was a statue. My eyes, the only thing I could control, darted around the darkness. The shadows in the corner seemed to deepen, to solidify. And then, a sound. A soft, wet, sucking sound, like a foot being pulled from mud. It came from just beside my bed. I could hear breathing, slow and deliberate, not my own. I tried to scream, but my voice was a trapped bird in my throat. A cold, clammy hand, impossibly thin, brushed against my cheek. It felt like wet paper. The breathing grew louder, closer. A voice, dry and raspy, whispered in my ear, ‘You shouldn’t have left him alone.’

I knew that voice. It was the voice I heard when I was at my worst, the voice that told me I was a terrible mother, that my son would be better off without me. But it was never this real. I felt fingers grip my jaw, forcing my head to turn. In the darkness, two pale, glowing dots hovered, like the eyes of a deep-sea creature. The thing leaned closer, and I could see the outline of a skull, a grinning, lipless mouth. ‘He’s waiting for you,’ it hissed. ‘But you’ll never be free.’ I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to will it away, to wake up. But I was already awake. This was real.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the pressure released. My limbs were my own again, heavy but movable. I gasped, sucking in air, and sat up. The room was empty, the darkness ordinary. The night nurse’s footsteps were retreating down the hall. My skin was clammy, my heart a frantic drum. I brought my hands to my face, feeling my tears, but they were cold, almost frozen. I looked at the window. Through the frost, I could see the faintest hint of dawn. But on the glass, written in condensation, as if by a finger, was a single word: ‘Soon.’ I didn’t know what it meant. But I felt it in my bones. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t done with me. And it wanted my son. I had to get out of here. I had to save him. The clock had just started ticking, and I was already losing. My mind raced, trying to remember the layout of the hospital, the exits. I was a prisoner, but the real prison was knowing I had done this to myself. And now, something else was in the walls, waiting for the hour when I could no longer fight.