**Hide-and-Seek**

I know that this creature is watching me.

Ever since childhood I’ve been playing hide-and-seek with it. When I lie down to sleep, it starts whispering something into my ear. And I’m afraid to open my eyes. It always says that if we look into each other’s eyes, I’ll become its dinner. And it does everything it can to make me look.

Today, for example, when I went to the bathroom around four in the morning, its cold hand grabbed my ankle, scratching it. I wanted to look down, to where the body of that creature was lying. I wanted to. But I understood what would happen to me afterward.

Sometimes at night this creature climbs onto the ceiling right above my bed. I keep my eyes closed, but I feel it staring intently; I hear the disgusting clacking of its teeth, hear it sniffing as if catching a scent, hear its quiet, calm stories about how tasty its previous victims were, about how they also didn’t want to look. When I hear the sound of water at night, the slap of wet footsteps, someone’s raspy breathing, I know the creature has come. None of this is accidental—I am its dinner; the only question is when it will happen.

Last night it came again. In its nasty whisper it said that I might live a little longer—it had found someone tastier than me. Then I heard the smacking sounds of its steps. Behind the wall, in the neighboring apartment, there was a scream—apparently the neighbor’s girl was screaming. I heard she had recently turned ten. A few seconds later everything went quiet, and I again heard the smacking sounds and then the creature’s whisper—satisfied, even joyful. It reeked nauseatingly of iron. It said that even if I don’t open my eyes, it will find someone to have for dinner.

But more and more it seems to me that there is a way out. After all, if I gouge out my eyes, the game will lose its meaning, won’t it?..