Flashbacks [Phan]

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Dan was three.

He awoke in his small metal framed bed, the green sheets tangled around his legs and sweat pouring from his face. He looked wildly around his dark bedroom, his eyes pinpointing and focusing in on random shadows and shapes scattered throughout it, trying to decide whether they would pose as a danger or not. Once he finally came to the conclusion that the pile of clothes on the chair in the corner was not a dead body and in fact the tiny face peeking out of his slightly open closet was only a stuffed animal, he turned over onto his back to try and go back to sleep. He may have turned on the lamp on the table beside him, but that would have meant reaching out over the side of his bed, leaving a potential for things to grab his arm.

The only small amount of comfort now was the warm glow of a night light out in the hall, just barely visible through his cracked door, and the dull green glow of the space stickers above his bed. Aside from those two things, there was nothing stopping monsters from coming to get him. Even his stuffed dog, Bear, was out of reach, fallen down to the floor in a place too close to the gap under the bed to risk grabbing.

Dan could have just called for his parents, sure, but after his sixth nightmare in a row he was growing used to just lying awake all night, filled with terror. He had called for his mum the first four nights, and decided it was probably getting annoying at this point, being woken up every night to have to go in and comfort him for half an hour or so. Plus, if he talked, the things may hear him.

So for the rest of the night he stayed like that; staring at his ceiling, shaking in fear, just waiting for something to happen.