I remember thinking everything would be okay if I could only pretend I couldn’t see the soulless thing I called a Feeder. That me, a six-year-old girl with flaxen locks, a knack for seeing the unseeable, and an old stuffy called “Scooby-Dog,” could then perhaps find the will to scream.
I tried opening my mouth to make a sound, but the faint odor of decaying wood clung to the back of my throat. It didn’t trickle down my passage as the water leaking from the bathroom faucet slipped down the drain. Instead, it congealed on my esophagus like an evolving scab formed of rising stink and rotting carcass.
That’s what I could smell. Dampness mingling with death.
I might’ve stepped back. Even nosedived for the bathroom door only a few feet away from where I stood, griping between what was true and untrue. Seen and unseen, real and unreal. I remained still. I was never any sound on my feet when things like this happened.
My feet stuck like glue to the floor while my ears stung with the sounds I couldn’t make. Despite that, I wanted to bellow as I never had before. To scream bloody murder so loud that I would alert my Uncle Mark, whose shadowy, distorted figure I could make out at the other end of the hallway.
Boo, my baby cousin, crawled at Uncle Mark’s feet. I squinted hard, ignoring the Feeder whose black flailing robes now struck the walls as if he was marking new territory, to see my uncle scoop up baby Boo.
His laughter echoed along an endless stretch of space separating us. They felt as if they were in another world from me. As if snatched by the Feeder’s ominous energy, I watched them from the underside of a mirror. My throat started to throb, and my cheeks felt blowy. I wanted to go home to my mamma.
I looked at the Feeder one last time before I did what I always do when they came. They didn’t have faces or names. I wasn’t curious to know who they were or what they wanted. They had to come from some kind of hell, I was sure. Dull yellow eyes amid a slated backdrop and inky robes were all I was ever permitted to see.
I didn’t want to see it anymore.
With all my heart, I squeezed my eyes shut and wished that Scooby-Dog wasn’t lying on my cot in the bedroom. My stuffy was the only one who knew about the Feeders, the only one I ever told. He was the one who said to close my eyes and imagine a stream of light encapsulating me.
He helped them go away. I just wanted to unsee them for good.
“Scooby-Dog, please help me,” my voice sounded shaky as I envisioned a glowing light surrounding me, and my scalp tingled. But then, I am sure I found the strength to let out an almighty wail because it was footsteps thumping down the hallway that I heard next.
“Ness?” Uncle Mark kneeled next to me, gently cupping my shoulders. He pulled me in close. “Are you okay? What’s happened?”
I sniffled, nodding, and glanced at the wall where the Feeder had marked its presence with his devilish messages. Nothing remained. He was gone. But as Uncle Mark held me close, I swore I heard the whisper of fabric brushing against the dark, just beyond my sight.
The vision was over—at least for now—and I could finally breathe again.
I continued to sob into Uncle Mark’s chest like little baby Boo who tugged at my shirt’s hem on the floor next to me.
***
Author’s Note:
This story explores the blurred lines between childhood imagination and supernatural horror—what happens when a child sees something no one else can? Feeders began as a deep dive into fear, isolation, and how some children cope with things they can’t understand. I wanted to capture the feeling of being trapped between reality and nightmare, where safety is just out of reach and the unseen lurks beyond the edges of perception.
Do you think Ness truly sees the Feeders, or is this a manifestation of something deeper?
