My college roommate Dean and I shared a two-bedroom apartment near campus. Things were fine for the first month. Then food started going missing.
Not big things. Leftovers, mostly. We figured it was the other. Neither of us said anything about it for about a week. Then Dean brought it up and I realized it wasn't either of us.
The landlord said the building was old and there was probably an access point we hadn't found — a loose panel somewhere, a basement entry. He came by, checked, said he didn't see anything. The food kept disappearing.
Then I woke up one night at 2 AM with the feeling I was being watched.
There was something in the corner of my room by the closet. I lay completely still and tried to figure out what it was. At first I thought I was seeing things — that my eyes were playing tricks in the dark. Then it moved.
It was a figure. Crouched but tall when it unfolded. It was wearing a dark hoodie. Its face — I could only see the outline of its face from the light under the door — its face was wrong. The eyes were just hollow spaces. Black and deep, like the sockets had been scooped out. Its jaw hung slightly loose and there was something dark around its lips.
It noticed that I was awake. I know that because it went completely still.
I did not scream. I don't know why I didn't scream. I pulled my blanket up over my face and pressed my back against the wall and stayed there. I heard it move once — a single soft step — and then nothing.
When the sun came up I looked. Nothing in the room. The closet was empty. The window was closed and locked.
I checked myself over. Everything fine. I was ready to tell myself it was a dream.
Then Dean knocked on my door and said he'd been in the ER the night before. He'd woken up with pain in his left side. The doctors found that his left kidney had been surgically removed. No incision. No blood. Just gone.
The police came. I didn't know what to tell them about the figure in my room. I told them about the food.
I moved out. Dean moved out. The new tenants lasted two weeks.
I keep my room very bright at night now. I sleep with the lights on. I know it probably doesn't help. But the idea of seeing those empty sockets in the dark again — that nothing where eyes should be — keeps every light on in my apartment from midnight to six.
I haven't seen him again. I don't think that means he's gone.