Danny could hear sounds coming all around the place. One time it was as if paws were scratching the stone floor, another time he could hear click-clacking sounds, as if a huge spider was dashing through his walls. From flapping of wings to the slithering on the floor, Danny knew that the thing could assume many forms.

The thing looked like it was made of pure shadows congealed and it was the reason for the eclectic nature of scars filling Danny’s body.

As Danny turned around towards a corner, he was greeted by a very toothy grin. The creature stood still at the very limit of the light, as if it knew exactly how far Danny could see. Danny stared at it, not knowing if the still face he turned towards was attached to a body or not, since he could not discern anything else in the darkness behind it, not even a neck.

The face had a big smile plastered on it in a very unhuman way. For starters, it was completely still, no manner of movement could be perceived, not even a twitch, as if there were no muscles or flesh beneath that unsettling grin, and no breath to disturb the eerie stillness. The mouth stretched from one side of the visible outline to the other, as if it could split its head completely in the middle. That smile showed a row of teeth like those of a predator: sharp and triangular. There were neither ears nor nose, and its eyes were simply two balls of gray, no pupils, as if the purpose they fulfilled was unrelated to vision.

They stared at each other for only a few moments, but it felt like hours for Danny. Sweat was dripping from his brows and his eyes were fully opened, as he did not dare to close them and end up missing any movement. He could feel the sting of pain as the sweat on his forehead slowly invaded his eyes, but still, he kept staring at that strange and unmoving face while pointing his wooden cross at its direction.

“Oh Danny, Danny, Danny, we are so close to each other already, come on, put the cross down. There is something we need to talk about”. A hoarse voice filled the air as the thing finally showed a response.

Despite the toothy mouth perfectly timing its movements with the words, the sound strangely did not appear to come from it, but from somewhere else in that general direction.

Danny immediately felt surprised to hear the voice. Make no mistake, he was not surprised to hear it talk, since it had already spoken many times through the years, although it was uncommon. What truly shocked Danny was that it was the first time that the creature wanted to hold a real conversation with him.

All the other times Danny heard the thing speak, it was always to taunt or torment him. In the beginning, Danny tried to curse, appeal and even reason with the creature, but he never received a response. Sometimes he even wondered if the voice was only in his head, or if the thing was incapable to understand him, but now it appeared it simply held no intention to talk to him previously for whatever reason.

“What do you want to talk about?” replied an apprehensive Danny without putting the cross down, obviously.

The face suddenly crumbled inwards towards the darker part of the room, and Danny immediately heard numerous clacking sounds circle around him, before the upper body of a huge, two-meter-tall pitch-black centipede appeared in another direction.

“Regardless of how much I enjoy our little game of cat and mouse, and your lovely pathetic attempts of resistance, something has come up and we must make some changes to our relationship”. Said the menacing centipede.

“What change and what relationship? I don’t even know what you want with me, we have no relationship”. Danny cautiously replied while thinking what kind of scheme the creature was plotting and following its movements with the arm holding his cross.

“Oh, Danny boy, now you hurt my feelings”. Said the centipede with a turn of the head. “Is it not obvious what I want from you?” Added the creature before disappearing into the shadows of the room, much like the face, and reappearing as a dog on the other side of the bed.

“No, I don’t think it is”. Danny answered while he gulped and waited for the answer to the question that plagued him for all his cursed life. Why him?

“Just a little taste”. Answered the black dog with grey eyes while smiling and presenting a very monstrous smile.

“A… taste?” Danny questioned in a very dubious and incredulous way.

“Oh yes. For a long long time, I wandered the world and tasted the flesh and blood of all kinds of people, mostly naughty children, really. You see, I believe naughty children have such a special and delicious taste because their malice is still pure. They do not know much about your society rules and just do what their hearts command them to do, that’s why I think they have such a unique taste”. The dog immediately turned into a raven and flew around the light circle.

“But you, oh Danny, you are special! When we met each other, you were just another kid, disobeying your parents and going out at night to play. I thought I would sink my teeth in your flesh, drink your warm blood and satisfy my craving for the time being and that would be it, just a little indulgence like many other times”. The raven landed on the floor before continuing. “Your family would cry a few times about your disappearance, you would be dead, and I would move on. However, the moment I felt your blood in my tongue, I was so surprised by the amazing taste that I almost could not restrain myself and drained you entirely right there. Oh, what a tragedy would that be!”. The crow said as it opened its wings for dramatic effect.

“So, the reason you have been haunting me is because… you like my taste?” Asked an incredulous Danny, while feeling both disgust and shock. He did not know how to handle the information that he just got. He was actually being hounded by a children-eating being.

All this time Danny believed that something was trying to possess him, take his soul, or lead him to do something terrible. Never had he thought that the reason he could never go out at night or have a normal life was as simple as being prey to something, a meal of sorts.

At that moment, Danny had mixed feelings. In one hand, he hated his fate; he cursed the fact that he had to endure this torment periodically, and because of that, he was deprived of a chance at a normal life, of falling in love, and of having true, real connections with other people. On the other hand, if he was to believe what the being said, the only reason he was allowed to live for so long was the flavor of his flesh. It was hard to say if he was lucky or unlucky.

“Oh, dear Danny, no, nothing as simple and mundane as simply ‘like’. No, what you have is special; it is one of a kind. It is not wrong to say it is now an addiction of mine. I have never, from the thousands upon thousands of flavors I tasted in my stay in this world, found something so utterly delicious… so incredibly satisfying…. As you Danny”. The snake-like thing it had transformed itself into said while slowly approaching Danny with true desire clear as day exposed in its face. However, before it reached the square of scribblings in the floor, it recomposed itself and slithered back out of view.

Danny truly felt like a piece of meat on the chopping block as the behemoth with a height of two and a half meters slowly approached his bed. However, it suddenly backed away, as if it could feel his thumb slowly putting pressure in the play button of his Discman, ready to start playing the songs contained within at a moment’s notice. The movements of the creature appeared random at surface, but if you looked closely, they seemed to be carefully measured, never crossing the border of what Danny could take, as if to reassure him that there was nothing to worry and instill on his mind a false sense of security meant to lower his guard.

He swept the sweat off his forehead with his forearm while he turned towards the dark bat that appeared in the ceiling.

“So, all this time you have not killed me so that you could come back after me for more?”

“Precisely. For some reason that eludes me, even after all this time, after growing up and becoming an adult, you still maintain such an exquisite taste, different from everything that I have ever seen. So…” The bat unfurled its wings and disappeared, before returning as a monkey and continuing “I let you live and go your merry way so that I can come back and harvest some more of that delicious treat”. The earless and noseless monkey concluded with that same enormous and unsettling smile.

“So… what has changed? Have you decided that you have had enough and came to kill me?” Asked Danny, fully tense and ready to put his utmost efforts in order to keep living.

“Come on Danny, do you truly believe that if I wanted you dead, we would be having this conversation? Or that you could do anything to stop me from actually ending you if I so desired? You and I know that your little tricks are annoyances at best, not really threats”. The black cat answered as it slowly walked around the bed in a provocative and amused way.

“Couldn’t hurt to try right?”. Replied Danny defiantly.

At that moment no crack could be seen on Danny’s fierce countenance, he eyed the black cat with a straight face while still pointing the wooden cross at its direction in an unshaken manner.

The thing suddenly stopped and sat still, staring at him, as if considering the merits of just stop talking altogether and jump him to take a bite. Nevertheless, not long after, it backed away and disappeared into the darkness, coming back as a meter tall black mantis.

“Oh Danny, such fierceness! Such unwillingness! Yes! That’s how it is supposed to be! I just love that spirit you have of throwing yourself against impossible odds for a slight chance of living!” The bizarre mantis laughed for a while before completing ominously “And that is precisely why I am here, and what I intend to offer you… a slight chance of living and going against the odds…”.