Long before the satellites watched the night,
Before the hum of cities drowned the dark,
Something older leaned against our world—
Listening through the cracks.

They did not fall from burning stars.
They did not cross the endless void.
They were already here—
Pressed thin between the seconds of our lives.

In the first fires of forgotten tribes
They wore the antlers of forest gods.
In cathedrals they breathed like demons
Behind stained glass and whispered prayers.

In lonely hills they laughed as fairies.
In fog they walked beside the lost.
And when machines began to watch the sky,
They borrowed the face of aliens.

Smooth heads.
Black eyes.
Silent mouths that never blink.

But the mask was never the creature.

They come when the night is thick enough
To swallow reason.
When the body cannot move
But the mind is painfully awake.

A shape beside the bed.
A shadow that knows your name.
Cold hands pressing the air
Where your heart begins to panic.

Fear rises—
Sharp, electric, alive.

And somewhere beyond the walls of sight,
Something drinks.

Across the oceans where compasses spin madly,
Ships vanish without a scream.
In forests where the wind forgets to move,
Children walk with strangers no one else can see.

The earth remembers their footsteps.
Sulfur lingers where they pass.
A smell like rot beneath the world,
Like something ancient breathing underground.

They slip through places geometry forgot—
Triangles of sea, circles of stone,
Deserts where the air hums softly
With doors that should not exist.

Once, long ago, someone tried to open one.

Words spoken.
Symbols drawn.
A ritual scratching at the skin of reality.

And the universe shuddered slightly.

Not enough for the stars to notice—
But enough for them.

The door never closed after that.

Now they move a little easier
Between the folds of our world.
Watching.
Learning the taste of our terror.

And sometimes, late at night,
When the house is silent
And the darkness feels strangely crowded—

You might notice something.

Not outside the window.
Not under the bed.

But standing quietly
Inside the room with you.

Very still.

Very patient.

Waiting for you
to realize
you were never alone.

ᚠᚢᚦᚨᚱᚲ ✦ ᛞᛖᛖᛈ ✦ ᛗᚤᛊᛏᛖᚱᛁᛖᛊ ✦ ᛟᚠ ✦ ᛏᚺᛖ ✦ ᚢᚾᛋᛖᛖᚾ