Abby lay in her bed, her covers balled up in her arms. She was too old for stuffed animals, her parents told her, and though the eleven-year-old girl might have agreed with her parents under different circumstances, she now lay on her side wishing desperately that she’d been able to hide one under the edge of the bed that she could pull out after her parents had said goodnight.

Abby stared at the wall in front of her. Her family’s home had been broken into a year ago, and the incident left her shaken up enough that her parents allowed her to keep a nightlight plugged in to help ease her to sleep. The nightlight had come from the dollar store, and it looked like a mini lava lamp filled with glitter instead of oil. The liquid inside was a light purple, and it spread soft blue light on her wall and ceiling thanks to its small LED.

She lay on her side, her eyes starting to dry out. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since she had last blinked. Abby was alone in her room, but she shifted her legs under the covers as she watched the nightlight cautiously. The glitter had moved again—she was sure of it. And not only that, it had made shapes. Just after her parents had left that night, Abby had glanced at the nightlight to see what looked like five glittery fingers shaped into a fist and slamming against the inside of the nightlight’s plastic. Her tongue quivered in her mouth, the only part of her body that wasn’t frozen in fear. This was not the first time the nightlight had seemed to move on its own. At first, Abby thought that the glitter moving on its own in chunks was normal, and that the bulb must be warming the liquid enough to make it move like a full-sized lava lamp. But the bulb was LED, and no matter how long she left it plugged in, it never seemed to get any warmer.

The shapes at first had been calming. They were formless, as it were, moving slowly in the colored water like a tired school of fish searching lazily for a bite to eat. As time went on, the shapes began to grow. Each night Abby watched as the shapes morphed from small blobs to what looked like body parts. Sometimes, she would see a hand moving through the water. Once, she had even seen a face. Interest melted into eeriness as Abby had watched the glittered eyes blink in the water.

Nearly two hours later, Abby wasn’t sure what had happened. Had she fallen asleep? The clock on her bedside table read 2:09 AM. She wasn’t sure what time she had seen the hand, but she’d stayed up until 11:45PM with her parents watching Dracula. The hand was gone now. When had it dissipated? Her eyelids grew heavy and she drifted once again to sleep.

“No, no, no. That wasn’t Anthony Hopkins,” her mother argued the following morning. “I promise you Anthony Hopkins wasn’t in the Saw movies.”

Abby’s father rolled his eyes. “I’m telling you, Deb. That was him. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

Abby sat in the backseat of the car with her backpack between her knees in the floor. She listened to her parents argue about the Saw movies, none of which she’d been allowed to see, and she was okay with that; blood and guts just wasn’t her thing. Trees rolled past the car as they made their way down the street, the breeze from the car knocking loose leaves from their branches. Abby’s fingers tightened around her backpack strap when she caught her mother’s gaze in the rear view mirror.

“You okay honey?” Her mother said, turning around in her seat.

Abby nodded.

Abby knew that her parents wouldn’t believe her if she told them what had happened with the nightlight. Though they loved horror movies, they were very rational people with their feet firmly on the ground. She knew that, and she knew that there was nothing she could do to change that.

“Okay kiddo,” her mom said. “Have fun.” They pulled into the driveway at 504 E. Bishop where Abby’s best friend Nick lived. Nick was a year younger than Abby, but they got along better than any friend or classmate Abby had ever had.

Abby hopped out of the car.

“Abby wait,” her mother said, rolling down the window. “You sure you’re okay?” Her lips were crooked into a half-smile. One hand hung out the window, and Abby stared at it as she replied.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Nick’s little brother cried. Running through the house, he had stepped on Abby’s backpack, interrupting Abby and Nick’s game of Mario Kart with a loud crunch. “I didn’t mean to, I swear!” He stepped cautiously backwards, lifting his wet little toes from the backpack’s cloth.

“Oh way to go,” Nick said, thumping down his controller and stomping towards his brother. He picked up the backpack and examined the wet spot. “What did you have in here, Abby?”

“Uh, nothing important.”

Abby stared at the backpack. Other than her pajamas, the only thing in that backpack was her nightlight, and the realization that it was broken started to trickle into her mind. Her eyes widened and her lips peeled into a smile. Nick had his arm in the backpack, and pulled out pieces of clear plastic followed by a chunk of white plastic with two metal prongs on the back. He shook droplets of water onto the floor.

Abby turned back to the television, her cheeks pink with relief. She had planned to throw it into the woods behind Nick’s house, but this was much more convenient.

“Hey, whoa!”

Abby had taken the game off pause and was passing Nick for first place. He sprinted back beside her, grabbing his controller. “That is SO not fair.”

Abby lay on the floor next to Nick’s bed. He was fast asleep. Abby, on the other hand, stared into the darkness. There was no soft blue light on the wall, and as her eyes searched for something, anything to land on, she found nothing in the soothing darkness. Her jaw muscles relaxed, and she melted into her pillow. With no light in the room, Abby knew she wouldn’t be seeing the hand any time soon. She knew, with her backpack in the wash and the broken plastic in the trashcan, that there was no chance she’d ever have to see it again, in fact. Abby had just drifted off to sleep when she felt something along the bottom of her foot.

“Quit it, Nick,” she said, kicking against the blanket. In the darkness, Abby heard Nick stir in his bed. He was nowhere near her foot, which in her sleep had kicked off the blankets and was now laying on the cold hardwood floor under the bed. The cold from the floor seemed to shoot up her leg and into her throat, pushing all the heat in her body out through her skin. The hairs on her arms stood on end. “Nick?” She whimpered into the darkness, much quieter than before. Nick did not stir this time, but she could hear his light snoring from the bed above her.

As slowly as she could, Abby pulled her foot back onto the blankets she had arranged into a sleeping mat. She swallowed, the walls of her dry throat scratching together. Just as she pulled the last of her foot onto the blanket, a stinging pain shot up through her leg. She screamed, shocked. One hand gripped the sides of her thigh while the other clasped over her mouth as though she could somehow hold in her screams. She jerked her leg against the pain, but whatever sharp objects that held onto her only dug in deeper, piercing her skin and digging into the soft flesh of her ankle. She fell back against her pillow as it tugged at her leg. Tightened her lungs to push out a louder scream, she realized that no sound was escaping her lips. She inhaled sharply. As her body attempted to draw in air, she felt water fill her mouth and stream down her throat. Coughing and sputtering as she attempted to scream, what felt like cool water began filling her chest cavity. Her lungs felt thick, heavy, as though she was breathing at the bottom of a swimming pool.

As she struggled, she felt it moving at her feet. It moved up her leg, grabbing onto her thigh and digging its piercing claws just above the knee. This grip dug in deeper, piercing not only her skin but the muscles underneath. She could not pull away. Both hands gripped her throat, trying desperately to suck in air, but finding her lungs only filling with more fluid. In the darkness of the room, she saw stars twinkling in the corners of her vision. “I’m going to pass out,” she thought, frantic. She closed her eyes and, in a last effort, took her hands from her throat to swing them at whatever had attached itself to her leg. She hit something once and felt moisture splatter from the creature’s cold skin. Her fists swung wildly at the creature, hitting it two, three, four times, striking it with all the ferocity that she could bring her thin arms to muster. But the creature moved up her body, digging its claws into her hip, her side, and finally her shoulder. Her flailing stopped as the stars in her vision grew larger, brighter, filling the top third of her vision with white light. Her eyelids squeezed together. “I can’t pass out,” she thought, tightening her jaw and pushing against the white light in her vision. The creature held her shoulder and lifted itself on top of her. Droplets of liquid splashed against her face as she felt its cold breath against her cheeks.

“I’ve…finally…got you…” it sputtered, as though its mouth was full of water.

Her eyes squeezed tighter and she felt a tear streak down the side of her face as she slipped from consciousness.

Abby opened her eyes, blinking to clear away the cloudiness in her vision. “Why can’t I see very well,” she thought, blinking again and again to clear the haze. As her eyes finally focused, she saw what looked like a child’s bedroom. It was much larger than she was, and seemed…skewed somehow. She moved forward and her face knocked against something solid. “Is this…glass?” As she raised her palms to feel the clear plastic barrier before her, a sparkle caught her eye and she looked down. Her hands, she noticed, looked nothing like they had before. They sparkled as though they were made entirely of glitter. Her arms were the same, as were her feet, her legs, her torso. A tingle of fear shot up the sides of her neck and rang in her ears. Drawing in a breath, she sputtered, finding only water entering her lungs. She spun around, looking up, down, and above her.

“Oh god,” she thought as tears welled in her eyes and panic settled in her stomach. “I’m inside the nightlight.”