New Year's Tree

I've always been very impressionable. Since childhood, I've been afraid of the dark and the monsters lurking in it, but I've never found any confirmation of my fears. Now I'm 22 and married, but my fear of the dark hasn't gone away, although it has diminished.

This New Year's, due to the pre-holiday rush, my sleep schedule was thrown off. My husband slept soundly through the night, and I blinked for a long time in the silence of the night, waiting for sleep. At such moments, my attention was often drawn to the shadow cast by the New Year's tree in our room. In the glare of the headlights of passing cars, the shadow on the wall resembled a dancing girl, sometimes approaching, sometimes receding. I have poor eyesight and a rather good imagination, so sometimes I seemed to hear a slight rustling sound when the shadow appeared just a meter away on the wall. I cursed my unbridled imagination and, smiling at the stupidity of my nascent fear, closed my eyes and thought of good things.

It was the same that night. The day had been busy, I was very tired, and hoped to fall asleep quickly, but it was not to be. I stared at the familiar shadow of the tree, but this time its movements frightened me more and more. The shadow looked ominous, and I heard the rustling of the dancing girl's movements more and more clearly. I forced myself to close my eyes and calm down. After a while, I managed to fall asleep.

In the morning, I woke up and went to the kitchen for coffee. Returning to my room with the coffee, I saw something that filled me with horror.

On the table in the hallway lay the neatly folded Christmas tree decorations that I had taken down yesterday but forgot about. My husband had thrown out the tree last night.