Such suffocating fabric pressing against my lips…as I drag the sock off your foot, it instantly loses weight, almost floating as I return to the depths.

The child sleeps innocently as I hover above their body, slowly creeping up and I open my mouth, gasping their breaths into my grip, the bed getting lighter by the second, the imprint on the mattress showing no depth as I take their soul.

Their skin becoming ghostly pale, lips lifeless and chapped, their eyes, well….

It’s in the dead of the night, were their eyes closed?

My nails scrape down the colorful quilt monochrome by the shadows, my feet dragging on the wooden floor, my elbows bending as I drag my long chest, my torso churning, my legs scuttling as I return under the bed, shadow takes hold.

And as a door creaks open, the ghostly white lifted from weight, is it a sock or a soul?