There are few things better after waking up in the middle of the night then turning a pillow around to find it cold. It's an invitation to fall right back to sleep. It means you've been having a wonderful night and a slight opening of the eyes isn't going to stop you.

There are nights, though, when I wake up and turn the pillow around, only to find it's not cold. It's as warm and as sweaty as the rest. Those nights made me uneasy. In my mind it meant something was disturbing me. It meant I had already turned it once around, in another moment of short restlesness.

At first I didn't notice. I thought it was only a matter of luck wether I got a cold side or not. It seemed so unimportant, but every passing ocurrance grew in me a vigilance. Each time I opened my eyes to a warm pillow I jumped a little more. It's the kind of jump that happens when you notice something that had been there the whole time, like when someone's standing right behind you. That kind of jump. It was unnatural. There was always a faint smell of something sweet, a smell that wasn't there on other nights. I thought that if the air was different, then there must be other different things as well.

I have been staying up the last few nights it's happened. I've been sitting in my bed hoping that I may catch the perpetrator of my disturbance, and the smell was just the start. Soon I realized the smell came from inside my own house, something like a mix of honey and tree bark. Then I found the hair. Each night I find lone strands of hair around my room. They're not always in the same place, and they're not always the same number. Last night was when I found the most. At least ten long black strands of hair, all close to the foot of my bed.

Something's been coming into my house. It's been watching me, but no more. Tonight it ends.