Connor thought about the things he hid—the sound of his parents fighting through a closed door, the way his stomach dropped when his best friend didn’t call back, the quiet certainty that someday he’d be left behind. He kept all of it in a closet of his own, somewhere behind his ribs.
“Who’s there?”
He looked at the closet door. It was open. Not a crack—wide open, the hallway light spilling in, showing every dust bunny and forgotten sneaker. Felix took a step toward the threshold, then stopped. Closet Monster
Connor nodded. “Will you be okay?”
Then he was gone, a small gray blur slipping into the brighter dark of the hallway. Connor thought about the things he hid—the sound
A pause. Then, from behind the boxes of old photo albums and tangled Christmas lights, something shifted. Two eyes, amber and slit-pupiled, blinked at him from the shadows. It was open