Fear isn’t in the Thing.
It waits for the moment you notice.
Let me show you what I mean.
The spider had been in the room the whole time.
While I slept, there was no fear.
But the moment I saw it, my chest tightened.
Awareness switched on, and so did the story in my head.
What if it crawls closer?
What if it doesn’t go away?
I tried to get it out.
But it slipped under the bed,
and I couldn’t find it again.
That night, every shadow felt louder.
Every corner carried a question mark.
By the second night, nothing had changed.
The spider was still missing.
But somehow, the silence didn’t press as hard.
Maybe I’d already passed the hardest part —
the same way pain’s first moments always hit the hardest.
I learned this when a child uttered “we passed it,”
and those words never left me.
It’s strange how fear enters —
not with the thing itself,
but with the noticing.
When fear arrives for you,
what story makes it stay?