When I was little, I was afraid of monsters. But I wasn’t afraid of their teeth or their claws. I was afraid of what the knowledge of their existence would do to me.
Because if monsters exist, then any sense of safety I’d ever felt would be an illusion. And that illusion would be shattered. Permanently.
If there are things in the shadows and the rules don’t apply to them, well, scratches heal eventually but there’d be no coming back from knowledge like that.
I’m telling you all this as a preface. So that when I ask you to check under the bed, you know what it’ll cost me if you find something.