The Rectangular Void

The night air in the farmhouse was thick with the scent of old wood and dried herbs. I lay in bed, the sheets pulled up to my chin, while my husband, Dale, slept beside me, his breathing a steady rhythm. I’ve always been drawn to the unexplained—UFOs, ghost stories, the lot—but my experiences had been limited to distant lights and faint hums. That night, however, I felt an inexplicable pressure behind my eyelids, a compulsion to open them.

As my eyes fluttered open, the room was not dark as it should have been. A faint, almost imperceptible glow emanated from the doorway, casting no light but somehow defining the silhouette of a figure. It was tall, at least seven feet, with limbs like thin branches, and its skin was the color of a moonless night. Its head was elongated, with dark, empty eyes that seemed to absorb the dimness. In its grasp, it held a rectangular object, about the length of my forearm, which pulsed with a sickly, internal luminescence that didn’t spill outward.

My heart slammed against my ribs, and I squeezed my eyes shut, pulling the covers over my head like a child hiding from a nightmare. I counted the seconds, my breath shallow. When I dared to peek again, the figure had not moved. It stood impassively, the rectangle seemingly radiating a hunger that had nothing to do with light. It began to advance, each step slow and deliberate, the floorboards creaking under a weight that seemed too heavy for its form.

I tried to shake Dale awake, but my arm refused to move. It was as if the air itself had thickened, pressing me into the mattress. The creature halted at the bedside, and I could feel its gaze on me, cold and analytical. The rectangle in its hands began to hum, a low frequency that vibrated in my teeth. With a twitch of its long fingers, it tilted the object, and a beam of absolute darkness emerged, not extinguishing light but absorbing it, creating a void in the air.

A whisper, not in words but in feelings, filled my mind: ‘You see, but you do not understand.’ The rectangle was not a tool but a fragment of a larger truth, a piece of a reality that lay beyond our own. The creature extended the object toward my face, and the darkness within it seemed to pulse like a living thing. I felt my consciousness being drawn, my thoughts unraveling, as the void reached for me.

Then, without warning, the bedroom door slammed shut, jolting Dale awake. The creature vanished, the rectangle dissolving into nothingness, leaving only a faint afterimage burned into my retinas. Dale was disoriented, mumbling about a draft, but I knew what I had seen. The room was quiet, but the memory of that void lingered, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was still out there, waiting for another night when the lights go out.