I Think There’s Someone Under My Bed

Late one evening, 5-year-old Mia called emergency services in a trembling whisper:

“Please come… there’s someone under my bed. I’m really scared.”

Despite protests from her parents dismissing it as imagination, the call operator took every word earnestly. Within minutes, a patrol car was quietly dispatched to the suburban home, headlights dimmed, sirens off.

Officer Ramirez, a 12-year veteran of the force, knocked gently. Mia’s father answered, surprised and slightly annoyed. “We told her to stop making up stories,” he muttered, gesturing toward the small upstairs bedroom.

Ramirez knelt to Mia’s level. “Hi, I’m here to make sure everything’s okay. Can you tell me what you saw?”

Mia nodded, wide-eyed. “I heard breathing. Under the bed. It’s not my dog. It talks sometimes.”

Ramirez’s brow furrowed. He entered the room with a flashlight, crouched slowly, and peeked beneath the bed.

Silence.

Then, a faint shuffling sound. Not loud. Not panicked. Just… deliberate.

His hand instinctively moved to his sidearm. “This is the police,” he said clearly. “Come out slowly.”

What happened next would shake the town for years.

A man—dust-covered, barefoot, and gaunt—emerged from the shadows under Mia’s bed. He didn’t resist. Just stared past Ramirez, eyes unfocused, as if he hadn’t seen daylight in weeks.

Later investigations revealed the man had been living undetected in the crawlspace of the house for nearly two months. He’d watched the family. Moved only when the house was still. Ate food that went missing unnoticed.

Mia’s call, once dismissed as childish fear, had stopped something much darker from unfolding.