At night it’s there, waiting for me. I can see it’s sneaky grin with clenched teeth, and it’s long skeletal body slowly moving around, just waiting.

The moment I crawled into bed I had better cover everything except my head, because the head was ok to leave exposed. Sometimes I couldn’t even do that, and would bury my head under the covers. No part of me could be in view. The skeleton only wanted to grab hold of my limbs so that it could pull me out, and take me away to whatever horror its darkness had in store for me once captured.

I remember the covers were painstakingly tucked under my neck on each side. My right hand would cross over to tuck all the covers on the left side of my neck, and my left hand would cross over to tuck the covers on the right side of my neck. No gaps, it was tucked in snug. Once tucked in I had to lie as close to middle of the mattress as possible, with arms down my sides. I didn’t even want my covered limbs to come close to the edges of the bed so I had to lie as straight and stiff as possible.

This nighttime ritual was real for me and would keep me out of danger while I slept in the nighttime. All I needed to do once in my bed was fall asleep as quickly as possible and wait for daylight. Only then would I be safe.

To this day I sleep with the covers pulled all the way up to my neck. There is no skeleton waiting to take me away anymore and I do not tuck covers under my neck on both sides. More often than not I will still fall asleep with my arms to my side but I do so out of comfort. This position is very comfortable for me.

That scary scenario frightened and haunted me for years. Apparently there was some looming fear I needed to overcome, and that skeleton is no longer waiting to take me away.