Once upon a time there lived a happy boy named Saad. Everyone liked him, but there was only one problem with him — fear always took over him if he was alone. That was why he couldn’t sleep alone or with the lights switched off.

One night, his parents told him that they needed to attend a wedding in a nearby town and would stay there overnight. As Saad had school the next day, so they would not take him with them. They asked his grandmother to come over and stay that night with Saad.

After having a nice chat with his old granny, he excused himself saying that he needed to study a chapter from his course book which was going to be discussed the next day in the class. Granny was tired, so she left Saad in his room and went to sleep in the guestroom.

Saad was busy reading the chapter when he suddenly realised that he was all alone in his room and there was no one else in the house, just his grandmother who was already sound asleep. Shivers ran down his spine. He closed the book and looked around, fear was in his heart and mind.

He got up and hid under the blanket and felt as if someone was standing beside him. Slowly he peeped out to see who was standing beside him, but there was no one. There was silence in the house except for the fluttering of dry leaves and the whistling of wind outside the house.

Every sound and every shadow made Saad shiver out of fear. He then decided to go to the guestroom and sleep with grandma. So he slowly got out of the bed and opened his door room. The corridor was quiet and dimly lit. He walked slowly towards the guestroom. He had only taken a few steps when he felt someone behind him.

‘May be it’s a demon!’ Saad thought.

The creepy feeling began to overwhelm him and he started running. He opened the door where grandma was sleeping and jumped in beside her, hugged her and started crying.

Granny was stunned to see Saad, in fact shocked to see him crying. Saad told everything about his fear.

His granny smiled and said, “It is all normal to fear the darkness and being alone, but it doesn’t mean that such feelings should take over you. Things like demons, witches or ghosts do not exist. They are nothing but our own imagination and creatures from the stories we read.”

Somehow, granny’s explanation managed to make him over come his fear. He realised how foolish he was all this time and resolved to try and over this fear.

Published in Dawn, Young World, April 7th, 2018