The Open Seam

My name is Elias, and I’ve lived in the Swiss Alps my entire life, in a village so small that the postman only comes twice a week. I’m not particularly sensitive to the supernatural, but I’ve always been drawn to the strange and unexplained. This is the story of something that happened when I was ten, and it’s the reason I never look at closed curtains the same way again.

It was a summer night, and the air was thick with the scent of pine and damp earth. My room was in the attic of our chalet, with a sloped ceiling and a small window that looked out onto the valley. I had a mosquito net, a white, billowing canopy that hung over my bed like a ghost. I don’t remember why I had it; maybe it was a fad, or maybe my mother thought it would keep away the moths that battered against the window. I always slept with it closed, tucked under my mattress, and my parents would close it after they said goodnight.

That night, I woke with a start. The room was pitch black, but I could feel it—the heavy, oppressive sensation of being watched. My heart was pounding, and I lay perfectly still under my woolen blanket, my arms wrapped around my threadbare rabbit, Hans. The net was open, a gap of about ten or fifteen centimeters on the side facing the door. I remember thinking, ‘Did I leave it open? No, Mama closed it. She always does.’

I stared into that gap, trying to pierce the darkness. My eyes adjusted slowly, and I could make out the shapes of my furniture: the desk under the window, the wardrobe against the wall. But there was something else, a presence that felt solid and suffocating, as if the air itself was being pushed out of the room. The gap in the net began to widen, just a few centimeters, without any sound. It was as if an invisible hand was pulling the fabric aside, slowly, deliberately. My breath caught in my throat. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t.

Then I heard it—a soft, dry rustling, like leaves skittering across stone. It came from the floor near the door, moving closer. I squeezed Hans tighter, burying my face into his worn fur. The rustling stopped right beside the bed, and the net opened wider, until there was a space large enough for someone to step through. I could see nothing, but I felt a cold draft, as if a window had been thrown open in winter. The draft settled on my face, and there was an odor—not the usual smell of wood and linen, but something like old coins and turned earth.

I don’t know how long I lay there, frozen. The presence seemed to hover above me, and I had the unbearable feeling that it was studying me, waiting for me to move. Then, slowly, I felt a pressure on the mattress, as if someone had sat down beside me. The dip was slight, but it was there. I could feel the weight shifting, and I knew—I just knew—that something was under the net with me, within arm’s reach.

I did the only thing I could think of. I began to whisper, a quiet prayer that my grandmother had taught me, half-forgotten words in a dialect I barely understood. The pressure lifted, and the net rustled as if it were being closed. The rustling sound moved back toward the door, and then there was silence.

I didn’t sleep that night. When dawn came, the net was fully closed, tucked under the mattress as my mother had left it. I told my parents that I had had a nightmare, but they exchanged a look that I didn’t understand until years later. My mother said, ‘The mountain takes its share,’ and my father told her to hush.

After that, I never slept with the net closed again, because I knew that whatever it was, it had found a way through the seam. And sometimes, even now, when I’m in a room with a curtain or a net that’s just a little bit open, I feel that same heavy gaze upon me, waiting for me to make a move. I keep my eyes on the gap, and I start to whisper the old words, just in case it comes back.