The Night Runner
Nicolas Cheng
They’re walking now
I hear them on the stairs,
the wet sound of their footsteps climbing higher
The darkness isn’t empty.
Something stares
with eyes like coals raked from a funeral pyre.
Don’t breathe.
Don’t move.
It knows that you’re awake.
It’s pressed against your window, breathing fog,
its fingers scraping glass until they break—
the thing that crawled up from the choking bog.
The walls are thin. You hear it in between,
inside the space where nothing should exist.
Your door is locked but that has never been
enough to stop the hands of crawling mist.
It’s here.
The noctivagant are already inside.
They know your name.
They know just where you are.
And when you turn around…
Run.