Once upon a time, there was a girl named Zoey.

Every night as Zoey was trying to get some sleep, she would be kept awake by the sounds of claws scattering across the floor and when she looked up, she swore she saw the tail end of a shadow, literally.

She couldn’t help but feel like she was losing her mind. But whenever she calmed down and tried to fall asleep, she would hear something. At one point she swore she heard someone, or something, laughing followed by a loud “SHHHHhhh”. But the problem was that no one would have been awake at that time of night. She couldn’t get out from under her covers to look out of fear for whatever may be lurking in her bedroom.

After countless nights of no sleep, Zoey decided she had had enough. She couldn’t be kept awake anymore.

Her exhaustion overtook her life.

Zoey talked with her friend Maggie at lunch about her problem sleeping because she felt that Maggie would understand and give her advice on what to do.

Maggie listened and then asked Zoey if she had considered looking under her bed.

Zoey immediately got anxious but was also happy that her friend believed her and was trying to help, even if her suggestion was terrifying.

After school, Zoey looked for a plan. She found one and didn’t think it could fail. She decided to make a trap to catch whatever was making all the noise at night.

She ran past her mom in the kitchen and gathered the supplies.

That night, Zoey set up the trap just as the article had suggested. She even added a peanut butter and jam sandwich as bait.

She decided to make a log to keep track of all movement. And because she knew Maggie would have some questions the next day.


At some point in the night, Zoey had fallen asleep. When suddenly, she was woken up by a loud crashing noise.

But nothing was there.

The box had fallen over. But when she looked, the sandwich she had left was missing a bite.

So, she knew now she wasn’t crazy. Something was in her room that night.

Maybe she just needed a bigger box?

Because of the very small success of night one, Zoey decided to keep trying to catch whatever was in her room that night.

Still exhausted, Zoey went to school where Maggie had to help keep her awake. Even going as far as to scare her awake at one point.

After school, Zoey went home not sure how to get more proof. After some thinking, she decided that she would need to be even more strategic. She made another sandwich only this time there was no box. Zoey instead set up a camera to catch the intruder.

This time she fell asleep on purpose, hoping that the camera would catch them and maybe she would get a good night's sleep.

Her alarm went off like it does every morning. When she woke up she ran to the phone to see what had been making all of the noise. Except she quickly realized that the phone was dead so there would be no footage of anything.

Once again, Zoey found herself defeated, sitting on the floor.

She remembers back to when Maggie suggested looking under her bed,

She hesitantly lifted the covers only to be met with two huge glowing eyes.

All of a sudden something jumped out at her and she flew backward.

Only she never expected it to be a puppy. Her puppy.

She was somewhat relieved thinking it was only the dog that had kept her awake.

Until she heard a strange laugh and a loud "Shhhh" and she knew that her search was far from over.

And little did Zoey know that in her closet were the monsters from under her bed giggling.