Bedtime (Watty Awards 2012)

Was it Real?

Hello intrepid reader,

Thank you again for reading 'Bedtime', I really do hope you enjoyed it. I receive many emails, private messages and Facebook posts every week from readers and I make sure that I read every single one. It has become apparent that many of these revolve around one question: 'Was it real?'

Did this story actually happen? 

Some may feel that in exploring this question it breaks the illusion, but I have been concerned by some of those messages. Some which seem to take the story at face value. While making readers feel the 'reality' of a story - its characters and events - is the true aim of every writer, I feel that sharing the truth behind 'Bedtime' may serve three purposes: 1) It will make answering queries a little easier by cutting down on replying to the same question. 2) It will hopefully act as a word of caution to those who think the story is literally real, and 3) It may be of some interest to you, as I find it interesting in myself.

So, where do I begin? 

The first two chapters are based on experiences I had as a child. That strange elongated room exists. The bed shook at night, I slept on the top bunk, and I could hear someone moving around underneath me. Each night the shaking would grow in intensity when I made it clear I was awake.  Almost all of the events were ones which I experienced, including my mother being away and that night waking up to a terrifying creature in my bed, sticking out of the wall.

I did indeed move into another room in the house, and continued to have a number of strange experiences, some of which I shared in this story and others I did not. 

Where fact ends and fiction begins, we did not move. In fact, my parents still live in that same house. I wanted something to end the story with, and the words 'they lasted ten days, we moved on the eleventh' just seemed to fall onto the page.

I still shudder when I think of it, but I am trained in the sciences and hold everything in doubt. Seeing is not believing. To me, I am perfectly willing to accept a more mundane explanation such as sleep paralysis or another form of sleep disorder. That being said, the events were so real, so lucid, so profound, that the memories still hold dread for me.

I then asked two questions of myself: 'What if it was real?' and 'What if it came back?'. That serviced the rest of the story which is entirely fictional. Although there is some element of truth in there. A feeling of foreboding which left me with many sleepless nights following on from finally breaking my silence about those events.

I hope this answers the question of 'is it real?'. 

Again, thank you everyone for reading and enjoying my stories. I hope to share my sleepless nights with you. An unfortunate by-product of when I write.

Take care, and keep reading,

Mike