The attic door groaned as it swung open. A faint shuffling sound echoed from the gloom. I peered inside, but the dim outlines of trunks and battered suitcases were all I could make out. The air carried a musty scent of age and dampness. I propped the door open wider. Light spilled into the shadows.
I carefully stepped onto the wooden beams. I knew that placing a foot on the fragile plaster meant a swift fall into the room below. A silky web brushed against my face, and a sudden, feather-light sensation of movement skittered across my cheek. My pulse quickened. The air felt dense, oppressive, laced with an ancient, sour odor.
As I ventured deeper, the cold crept in. The farther I moved, the more I blocked the thin stream of light from the attic entrance. Stacks of brittle newspapers, weathered cardboard cartons bound with string, and moth-ridden rugs exuding the pungent scent of naphthalene surrounded me. Dust lay thick upon everything, an undisturbed shroud of time. Every step brought the thought of slipping, of my foot breaking through the rotting floorboards.
Then, I halted.
Among the jumbled remnants of an old camping set—frayed ropes, split wooden pegs, rusting metal poles, a canvas torn by time, a forgotten mallet—something stirred. At first, it was just a flicker. A shift in the gloom. A trick of perception.
But then, I saw it.
A hulking, scaled mass, its emerald hide blending with the dust-covered planks. Its eyes, voids of endless shadow, devoured the feeble light. Its sinuous body coiled like a serpent, yet its jagged, taloned limbs rasped against the floorboards, carving deep, splintering grooves into the wood.
I knew this nightmare.
It had haunted me for years, lurking in the recesses of my thoughts, whispering in the silences. It was my failure. The crushing dread of defeat. The suffocating weight of expectations, shackling me with invisible chains.
It inched closer.
A breath, ice-cold and reeking of decay, ghosted over my skin. My chest constricted. My legs locked. To flee meant surrender, to freeze meant uncertainty. But confronting it? That, I had never dared before.
The beast shifted, and in its abyssal gaze, I glimpsed something chilling—my own reflection, distorted, twisted with every mistake, every doubt I had ever buried.
Its maw yawned open. Countless needle-like fangs gleamed in the dim light. From its depths came a sound—not a growl, not a snarl, but a whisper.
«You are nothing.»
A sickening wave of nausea washed over me. My hands curled into trembling fists.
«No,» I whispered.
It shuddered.
Louder now. «No.»
The attic quivered. The dust spun into a maelstrom. The creature recoiled, its form wavering, its edges unraveling like fog caught in a violent storm.
I advanced.
It screamed, a high-pitched wail of desperation, clawing at the air, trying to anchor itself in my fears. But I kept moving. Kept pushing it back, forcing it into the void where it belonged.
The moment my foot touched the attic threshold, golden light flooded the space. The beast thrashed, convulsed, and then—
It vanished.
I stood frozen, my breath ragged, my pulse hammering. Silence returned, leaving behind only dust and forgotten relics of the past.
I had confronted it.
And I had triumphed.
@Yolanda Muriel 
yolandamuriel.com 