In the glow of daylight, I fought back. I invented stories on Mama Jean’s typewriter—stories where the monsters were defeated, where the lonely girl found her place. I typed until my fingers ached, until the room felt less dark, until the monsters went silent. For a while.

Years later, I realized the monsters were never gone; they simply changed form. As a child, they took shape in the shadows of a new bedroom. As an adult, they hid in the recesses of my memory, emerging during moments of doubt or fear. But back then, the typewriter gave me a tool to face them. Every clack of its keys was an act of defiance, a small victory against the unseen forces trying to pull me down.