The Lantern at the Foot of the Bed

Mina had lived in the same apartment her entire life, a narrow flat on the third floor of a building that had once been a laundry. The walls were thick, the pipes sang at night, and the windows faced a brick courtyard where pigeons roosted. Her bedroom was small: her bed hugged the left wall, its headboard against the far corner, so that when she lay on her back, her feet pointed toward the door on her right. The door was always ajar, a habit she kept from childhood.

It began on a Tuesday, after a thunderstorm had rolled through the city, leaving the air heavy with ozone. Mina woke with a start, her heart hammering for no reason she could name. She turned her head away from the wall—a habit she had, to check the door—and saw a figure standing just inside the threshold. It was too tall, too thin, and its head tilted at an angle that made her think of a broken bird. For a moment, she thought it was her father, who sometimes checked on her when he came home late. But this shape was wrong, and it moved with a fluid, wrongness that made her stomach clench.

The figure walked around the foot of her bed, its footsteps silent on the worn carpet. It stopped at the side, near her knees, and squatted. It did not touch her, but it stayed there, head lowered, as if examining her face. Mina tried to turn to see it clearly, but her body refused, as if she were pinned by a weight only she could feel. Then it laughed—not a sinister cackle, but a light, silly giggle, like a child sharing a private joke. It straighten up, walked out of her room, and the door, which had been ajar, swung shut with a soft click.

She did not sleep again that night, and in the morning, she told herself it was a dream, a trick of the storm. But it happened again three nights later, and then every few nights after that. Each time, she woke with the same start, saw the figure at the door, and it would approach her bed, squat, laugh that silly laugh, and leave. She tried to stay awake, but exhaustion always won, and the dreams—if they were dreams—came anyway. She tried leaving the lamp on, but the light only made the shadows deeper in the corners. She told her father, who laughed and said, ‘You’re seeing ghosts from the old laundry, maybe.’ She told her mother, who told her to stop watching scary shows.

Then, one night, the figure changed its routine. Mina woke to find it standing at the door, but this time it was not alone. It was pointing into the hallway beyond, at something she could not see. And it was shouting—not in words, but in a high-pitched, keening wail that made her ears ring. The figure’s arm was extended, its finger trembling at something in the darkness. And in that moment, Mina felt a coldness seep into her bones, and she knew the figure was not there to scare her, but to warn her. It was shouting at something outside her room, something that had been there all along, waiting for her to notice.

The next morning, she found a small, rusted lantern on the floor by her bed, a thing she had never seen before. It was old, heavy, with a cracked glass pane, and inside, a stub of a candle. When she picked it up, the glass rattled, and she saw that the candle was shaped like a miniature person, its arms outstretched. Her father said it was some old relic from the laundry days, but Mina knew better. That night, she placed the lantern on her nightstand, its wick unlit, and when she woke to the figure at her door, it was holding a match. It struck the match, lit the candle inside the lantern, and smiled—a thin, humorless smile—then turned and walked out, leaving the lantern burning.

In the light of that tiny flame, Mina saw the hallway for what it truly was: not a hallway, but a corridor stretching impossibly long, lined with doors. Each door was slightly ajar, and from each one, a pair of eyes peered out, watching her. The figure was walking down that corridor, away from her, and it did not look back. At the end of the corridor, a door opened, and a shape emerged—something vast, made of shadow, with too many limbs. It began to move toward her, and Mina screamed. She woke up gasping, the lantern gone, but the feeling of being watched lingered.

She never saw the figure again, but she knows it’s still there, somewhere in the dark, waiting. And sometimes, when she wakes at night, she sees the door slightly open, and beyond it, a strange light flickering—like a lantern burning at the end of a hallway. She does not sleep with the door open anymore. She locks it, but the locks don’t keep the light out. It seeps under the crack, and she hears, faintly, a silly, humorous laugh echoing from far away, as if the figure is still sharing a joke with someone in the dark.