strange terror grew so insupportable that conquering my reluctance to
move I sat up and lit the lamp at my bedside. Contrary to my
expectation this gave me no relief; the light seemed rather an added
danger, for I reflected that it would shine out under the door,
disclosing my presence to whatever evil thing might lurk outside.
You that are still in the flesh, subject to horrors of the
imagination, think what a monstrous fear that must be which seeks in
darkness security from malevolent existences of the night. That is
to spring to close quarters with an unseen enemy--the strategy of
despair!

Extinguishing the lamp I pulled the bed-clothing about my head and
lay trembling and silent, unable to shriek, forgetful to pray. In
this pitiable state I must have lain for what you call hours--with us
there are no hours, there is no time.

At last it came--a soft, irregular sound of footfalls on the stairs!
They were slow, hesitant, uncertain, as of something that did not see
its way; to my disordered reason all the more terrifying for that, as
the approach of some blind and mindless malevolence to which is no
appeal. I even thought that I must have left the hall lamp burning
and the groping of this creature proved it a monster of the night.
This was foolish and inconsistent with my previous dread of the
light, but what would you have? Fear has no brains; it is an idiot.
The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it
whispers are unrelated. We know this well, we who have passed into
the Realm of Terror, who skulk in eternal dusk among the scenes of
our former lives, invisible even to ourselves and one another, yet
hiding forlorn in lonely places; yearning for speech with our loved
ones, yet dumb, and as fearful of them as they of us. Sometimes the