My brother snored—loudly—so whenever he fell asleep first, I couldn’t. For an over-imaginative eight-year-old in the dark, with only the weak glow of the hallway light to fend off EVIL, I knew that ghosts and demons were just waiting for their chance to get me! I huddled under my blankets, prepared to wait for the safety of sunrise or else suffocate trying. Fortunately, I always fell asleep and somehow never suffocated, thanks to my guardian angel (whom I now suspect was my mom).

One night, a horrible sound that wasn’t snoring awakened me. It sounded sad. Moaning. Suffering! Naturally, I panicked. I dove under my blankets and played dead. After what felt like a hundred years (but was probably 30 seconds), I exhaled. Was it finally gone? And then I heard it again! And again! I was petrified.

“Hey!” whispered my brother.

“Yeah?” I whispered from a gap in my fortress.

“You hear that?”

“Yeah!”

“What is that?”

“I don’t know!”

And it wailed again, torturing us.

I knew my brother, being two years older and stronger, would take charge and save us.

“What do we do?” he asked.

“I don’t know!”

After a 10 second pause that seemed like a million years, he finally said, “Turn on the light.”

A suicide mission! “You do it!”

“You’re closer.”

Darn! He was right. My bed was right next to the light switch.

I couldn’t stay cowering under the covers forever. Plus, I needed to pee. So I crept out of my bed, slid along the wall, and stretched my arm to the light switch and… Flick!

“It’s a dog!” I yelped. A cute, gray puppy whimpered in the corner, clearly shaking.

“Where did it come from?” The door to our room was closed.

“Maybe it climbed through the window?”

“Aw, poor little guy. He’s scared too.”

“Should we tell Mom and Dad? Do you think they’ll let us keep him?”

Of course they did. My dad was the one who bought him and snuck him into our bedroom in the middle of the night as a “surprise.” Boy, we sure were surprised! Especially when we discovered that our new puppy wasn’t housebroken yet.

Since then, I’ve gotten better at facing the unknown. I now know that my own imagination often makes things worse than they really are. And sometimes, the unknown is just a future best friend.