Amanda woke the next morning with a heavy head. The sunlight that slipped through the curtains felt strange, almost fake, more like a stage light than the real warmth of morning. The air itself seemed too still, too staged, as if her apartment had turned into the set of a play acted to torment her existence.
Her body ached as though she had run miles, yet she hadn't left her chair the night before. Her fingers were stiff, sore at the joints, as if they had been moving far longer than she could remember.
The laptop still glowed faintly on the desk. Its screen hummed, waiting. The words from last night sat frozen in Bold letters:
The Maw is Amanda's child.
Amanda's throat closed. Her chest tightened as though invisible hands were pressing against her ribs. She didn't remember typing those words. She couldn't even recall sitting down to write them. She didn't know what happened, but everything seemed off.
Her fingers hovered above the keyboard, trembling. The tips felt numb, as if afraid to touch the keys, as if touching them again would open a door she wasn't ready to see its structure.
Then came the sound.
At first, faint, almost too faint to notice. A scratching. Light, steady, deliberate sound. Like nails dragging slowly across plaster. She froze, her breath trapped inside her chest.
Rats, she assured herself. Just rats playing in the walls. But no who was she deceiving, this sound was too measured, too patient.
Then the scratching stopped.
Silence followed.
But it wasn't peaceful. It was that same heavy silence she had felt the night before, thick, pressing, alive and hungry.
Her lips moved before she could stop herself.
"It's just in my head," she whispered.
But even as she said it, she wasn't sure anymore, it was as if her mind played games and her head an apartment for unwanted guests.
The rest of the day blurred into restless distraction. Amanda tried to clean the apartment, her hands scrubbing the same counter over and over until the surface stung her palm. She made strong coffee that went cold untouched. She turned on the TV, but the voices felt flat, too far away, like echoes from another life, another dimension, everything felt distant.
No matter what she did, the sound returned, stronger after deliberate pauses.
It began with soft scratches. Then, slowly, words slipped into them, soft whispers echoing from the corners of the room.
At first, Amanda couldn't make them out. They were like air moving through cracks in a window. But the more she strained to listen, the clearer they became.
"MOTHER"........
Her heart thudded, her head heavy.
Her skin damp. Cold sweat slid down her back. She pressed her hands over her ears, shaking her head. "No. It's not real. "It's just her imagination playing games".
But the whispers didn't stop. They grew louder, more pressing, as if her denial fed it.
"MOTHER.... I'M HERE...."
Her stomach twisted.
That night, the nightmares returned.
She found herself in a long hallway, one she knew too well, endless and narrow, its walls breathing with a faint pulse. The walls weren't walls this time. They were made of pages. Thousands of them. Words crawled across them like insects, rearranging themselves into phrases she couldn't control.
The floor bent beneath her steps as though it were alive. Still, her body moved forward without her command, pulled toward the far end of the hall.
At the very end stood a door. Its wood was dark and dusty, cold and rough, damp as though it had been weeping. She didn't want to open it. Every part of her screamed against it. Yet her hand kept reaching.
Then she heard it, breathing. On the other side. Heavy, wet, deliberate. Each inhale dragged like a heavy chain, each exhale echoed like dry leaves.
Her hand shook against the cold rusting metal handle.
The whispers rose again, curling around her like smoke.
"The Maw waits….. The Maw feeds…. The Maw is you…."
Amanda's throat tightened. "No....", she tried to scream, but no sound left her mouth.
The door began to open on its own. A crack. Just wide enough for darkness to slip through. Suddenly a hand gripped her.
She woke with a scream tearing her throat raw. Sweat clung to her skin, soaking her shirt. Her breaths came fast, shallow, and every muscle ached like she had truly walked miles.
The apartment was silent.
But not empty.
The silence pressed against her ears, so thick and unnatural. It felt crowded, felt unreal, as though someone else was in the room, sitting quietly in the shadows, waiting, counting seconds, minutes and hours, waiting, just waiting for a perfect timing.
Amanda curled onto the couch, hugging her knees to her chest like a child. She shivered even though the room wasn't cold.
Memories slipped in.
She thought of her childhood nightmares, those nights she hid under her blanket in the dark, certain that something lurked in her closet, watching her every move. The shadow that shifted when the lights went out. The whispers she swore she heard but was always told were her "wild imagination."
Her mother used to laugh and say, "It's just a dream, Amanda. Just your mind playing tricks."
"You'll grow pass it, don't worry". Sadly she never did, instead it grew stronger, feeding on her fears.
But what if it hadn't been just her imagination?
What if The Maw had been there all along? Following. Watching. Waiting for her to finally give it a name. Waiting for her to write it into existence.
Her throat trembled as she whispered into the darkness, "What are you?"
The silence answered.
A faint sound broke it, raspy, dry, too close to be imagined.
I AM YOU…. its whispers, followed by
A laugh.
Low. Mocking. Hungry.
Amanda buried her face into her knees, trembling so hard she thought her bones might crack.
She knew then, with cold certainty, that her story was no longer just words on a page.
It was alive.
Amanda didn't sleep the rest of the night. She sat on the couch with the TV glowing on mute, staring into the shadows as if they might shift at any moment. Every creak of the building felt purposeful. Every flicker of the lamp seemed like a signal.
Her mind raced with questions she couldn't silence.
Was she losing her mind? Was it just exhaustion, the toll of too many nights spent writing alone? Or had she really opened something that should have stayed locked?
When the first pale light of dawn crept into the apartment, it didn't feel like hope. It felt like captivity. A fragile pause before the whispers returned.
Her eyes stung with sleeplessness. She forced herself up, staggered to the desk, and stared at the laptop again.
The screen was black now, in sleep mode. But when she touched the key, it blinked awake, and the words glared back at her.
Not just the same line.
More.
Lines she didn't remember typing.
You gave me a voice.
You gave me a name.
You brought me to life.
Now I want more.
Amanda's stomach tightened. She stumbled back, knocking over her coffee mug. Brown liquid bled across the carpet, but she didn't care. Her eyes stayed fixed on the screen.
The cursor blinked at her like an unblinking eye.
And then, before she could even think of touching the keyboard, more words appeared.
"Hello, Mother."
Amanda fell to her knees.
The Maw wasn't just in her dreams and imagination.
It was here.
It was speaking.
And it knew her.