There's somebody standing in the corner of my room.

Well, "standing" may be the wrong word. There's someone IN the corner of my room. The lights are off; only moonshine streaming through the window above my bed gives shape to the darkness there. It's bulky; that much I know. It's BIG, bigger than me. The size of its shadow dwarfs my small frame, or would anyway, if I dared move from beneath the covers of my linen sheets.

Feet tucked safely in, the monsters under my bed can't get me, but if I move the alien - for surely that's what it must be - hiding in the darkness in the corner of my room will detect my presence. All I can do is shiver beneath my sheets and hope it can't detect my breathing, my shaking, my body heat. It must go away before morning, right? Report back to the Mothership. I don't want to be one of those poor unfortunate abductees I'd heard so much of on tv.

I briefly consider making a run for it, but the hallway is guarded by my mother's ancient porcelain doll. Her cold, dead eyes would spot me, and I fear her even more than the menace in my room. What can I do but wait for the sunrise?

As the morning's golden light peels away the shadows, I fall asleep in full view of the giant teddy bear my parents had left perched in the corner the night before.