Jimin closed his eyes, and let the peace wash over him. It was the end of what had been a particularly long day, and the young man was ready to just crash and allow sleep to overtake him.

The bedroom was dark, but not unpleasantly so, and a light summer breeze was brought in by the open window - along with several rays of moonlight. Jimin breathed in the nose-tickling scent of late-blooming flowers as he felt the mattress soften beneath him. He was just about to fully drift off to sleep when the light .

The overhead lamp flickered to life, pulling Jimin out of his gentle slumber. He rubbed his eyes blearily, confused and annoyed that his sleep had been interrupted. Crossing the room, he examined the lightswitch. It was a dimmer switch - more of a knob than a traditional “On/Off” toggle - and Jimin noted that it was still fully secured in its clicked “off” position. He turned the dial clockwise, and the light stayed the same. That was to be expected; after all, that would be how one would usually turn on the light. He turned the knob back the other way, and the light dimmed, finally shutting off when Jimin heard the plastic snap back into place.

Finding the room adequately dark once again, Jimin took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the change before climbing back into bed and sinking under his blankets.

❧

It was a fair bit harder to get to sleep this time, as the light turning on unexpectedly had really woken Jimin up. He turned over restlessly, and was just about to be able to drift off when it happened again. The light - this time at about half of its previously demonstrated full intensity - and Jimin was once again pulled out of his semi-conscious state to stare at the uncooperative bulbs.

He crossed the room, repeated the procedure, and threw himself back into bed, more than a little frustrated at the misbehaving lamp. Jimin tried angrily to get to sleep again, focusing on the sounds of crickets chirping that were still floating in through the cracked-open window.

He almost wasn’t even surprised when the light started acting up again. This time it flickered repeatedly, turning on and back off very rapidly on its own. Jimin tried to ignore it; even going so far as to hold a pillow over his head so he didn’t have to deal with the rapid shifts in light. In response, the lamp to its full, blinding brightness, and the light that flooded the room found its way past Jimin’s makeshift barrier and assaulted his eyelids.

“Fine,” Jimin said to the lamp as he threw off the pillow. “Stay on; see if I care.”

He dug around in his bedside table until he found a sleeping mask, which he put over his eyes with a deep sigh. The mask did a much better job of blocking out the troublesome light, and Jimin was finally able to relax a bit.

❧

He’d been soundly asleep for about fifteen minutes when Jimin was awoken by a strange noise. It was almost electric in nature; a slight buzz that started off faint, but gradually grew until it was almost deafening in the small space. Jimin was pulled out of the fog yet again, and grumbled loudly as he sat up, removing his eyemask.

The light was really going crazy now; doing a combination of everything it had pulled up to this point. It brightened and dimmed before switching off completely; then turning on at full-blast, flickering sporadically, and dying out again. The new, crackling sound accompanied all of this, and it altered itself with every wave of energy that washed over the ceiling lamp.

Jimin threw off the covers. He wasn’t tall enough to reach the fixture and remove the lightbulbs, but he was seriously considering dragging a chair in from the kitchen to be able to do that. If the light refused to behave itself, then he guessed he would have to force it to comply - and a lamp without bulbs surely wouldn’t be able to cause any trouble.

The young man marched down the hall and into the small kitchen. He paused for a minute, and decided that he wanted a glass of water first. Standing over the sink, Jimin could still hear the buzzing noise as the light continued to spasm, albeit more distantly now that he wasn’t in the room with it. He guzzled the cool liquid down, and by the time he had slammed the empty glass down on the counter, he couldn’t hear the electric hum anymore.

Jimin wandered back to his bedroom, and was surprised to see that the light was shut off completely. He closed the door softly behind him, happy to accept this turn of events without further questions, and slipped gratefully back into bed. He lay on his back, looking up at the finally-darkened plaster ceiling, and closed his eyes.

❧

A soft glow interrupted his descent into sleep.

Of course.

Jimin took a deep breath, but didn’t open his eyes. He could see the light behind his lids, and he was growing too tired to deal with it right now.

Please. Please, stop.

The light remained, tenaciously, and Jimin let out his breath in a low moan. He was too pleasantly warm beneath his blankets, and the open window provided a nice, contrastingly cool evening breeze. Reluctantly, Jimin opened his eyes and prepared himself to spend a night on the couch.

He froze.

Floating above him, seemingly unaffected by either gravity or the draft coming in from the window, was a small orb of light. It was greenish in color, and it sat poised just a few centimeters above Jimin’s nose. The young man made no noise, too shocked to react to the mysterious sphere that was hovering over his bed.

He swallowed.

“H-hello?”

It had seemed absurd to talk to the thing, and yet the orb appeared to respond to Jimin’s voice. It swayed back and forth a bit, causing the young man’s eyes to follow it like a pendulum, before coming to rest once again above his face. Jimin could feel a slight tingle when the orb drew close - almost as if it were transferring a bit of static electricity to his skin.

The ceiling light had stayed off, but now Jimin found his eyes drifting to the switch on the wall, which was to his left. He was trapped on his back, though, as the ball of light was floating too close for him to sit up.

“What do you want?” he asked the pulsating sphere.

The hovering object buzzed in response, making the same noise that the light fixture had been emitting just several minutes ago.

“Um…”

The ball drifted closer, closing some of the distance between itself and Jimin’s face. The man himself panicked, able to feel a slight heat radiating off of the scorching green sphere, and rolled off the bed, hitting the floor hard.

❧

“Ow!”

Jimin smashed his nose on the unforgiving ground, the impact only partially broken due to the tangle of bedsheets he was wrapped up in. Or, more like trapped. He rolled over onto his back to see the orb still hovering silently over him, the buzzing having ceased, and tried to tear himself out of the restraints created by his blanket.

“Stay away from me!” he warned.

The ball didn’t listen, and instead moved a bit closer, casting a green shadow across Jimin’s panicked face.

He finally succeeded in freeing himself from the blanket, and jumped toward the lightswitch, which he as high as it would go. The room was filled with fluorescence, and this change seemed to anger the orb, which picked up its shocking, buzzing noises again as it rushed toward Jimin. The young man screamed, and turned the lamp off in a flustered flurry of movement. As soon as he did, the ball of light stopped, and began to hover motionless once more.

Jimin sighed in relief. The sphere looked larger now somehow, but at least it was several dozen centimeters away from him. The young man felt oddly safe for a moment, until the ball started pulsating.

Transitioning colors from its eerie green to a bright turquoise and finally a deep, penetrating purple, the orb grew and shrunk until its glow filled the room - making it necessary for Jimin to shield his eyes from the radiance. After returning to its original color, the orb advanced slowly toward Jimin, who tried his best to flatten himself against the solid wall, wishing that he could just dissipate into it. He felt a shock on the tip of his nose as the orb pressed against it, and the sensation spread throughout his whole body with a jolt that left him dazed and confused.

The last thing Jimin saw before passing out was the orb, colors swirling in front of his eyes as the mysterious entity invaded his space.

❧

The next morning, Jimin woke up on the floor, his back still held up against the wall of his bedroom. The light was off, and the orb was nowhere to be seen, although Jimin couldn’t help but feel scared. Had it all been a dream? A hallucination? If so, then why was he on the ground?

He shakily got up to his feet, and made his way over to the door. Not knowing what else to do, Jimin made some breakfast and tried to calm himself down. He wanted to avoid using any electrical appliances, so he ate dry cereal - not daring to open the refrigerator for milk in case the orb was in there, waiting to be set off by the light in the fridge.

The day was uneventful, and Jimin spent most of it being on edge. Before he knew it, it was time for bed again, so he put down the paperback he was reading - a task he struggled at due to his refusal to turn on any lights - and brushed his teeth in the dark bathroom.

Trying to put last night’s events out of his frazzled mind, Jimin told himself that he was simply being stupid as he crawled into bed and pulled the covers over his head. It was hot, but Jimin couldn’t have cared less, and he tried to concentrate on the soft breeze that provided him with some relief as he felt himself drifting off to sleep.

Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy, though, and before more than five minutes could elapse, Jimin was greeted by a familiar greenish glow in front of his closed eyelids.

Just ignore it.

The ceiling light started flickering again, and Jimin took the chance of opening his eyes and peeking out from under the covers. Just as before, the competing glow from the lamp seemed to anger the orb, and Jimin watched with a mixture of fascination and horror as the thing shifted and changed, morphing into an entity that was vaguely humanoid as it stood beside his bed.

❧

Jimin screamed. The figure turned its head - or what might have been its head - to face him, and seemed to regard him curiously for a moment. It started moving toward him, swinging its two lower limbs in some sort of approximation of a walk.

The ceiling light was on at full force now. Jimin had stopped screaming, but he now clawed frantically at the lightswitch, which wouldn’t dim or turn off no matter which way he twisted it. The being was getting increasingly closer, and Jimin could feel an electric tingle traveling up and down his arms already.

The entity of light, glowing impossibly white at this point, stopped in front of him and let out something that sounded like a screech - although it had no mouth to move - and then a series of voltaic pops and crackles sounded from somewhere above Jimin as he gazed up in sheer terror at the thing directly in front of him. In a blinding white spark, the creature had vanished, and Jimin was left alone next to the lightswitch, his chest heaving as he fought to remember how to breathe.

The room was dark and oddly serene as Jimin threw together a bag with his phone, keys, and a change of clothes. The lights in his bedroom having burned out completely, he didn’t bother to fiddle with the switch before closing the door behind him as he hurried out of his small, empty house. It was the very last home in a long row of rentals, and the street was shrouded in shadows as he hopped in his car.

Jimin didn’t know where he was going, but those kinds of intricacies really didn’t matter. He would sleep in the damn car if he had to. The only thing he was certain of was that he wasn’t about to stay there and wait for the thing to come back.

Poor Jimin; tormented by his own ceiling lamp.

I have always been afraid of the dark, but as I look up at my own lamp in the wee hours of the morning, trying to put down the book or needlepoint or whatever and go to bed, I often worry about what would happen if there was no solace to be taken in the light. What if the only place safe was in the dark?

Then I argue with myself about what’s really worse, and whether to keep the light on or off while I try to fall asleep before freaking myself out to the point where I just stay up for another hour or two. Haha, whoops.

Also, it just occurred to me that this is an oddly fitting story to post today, because my town is shooting off fireworks tonight in celebration of Independence Day. So I guess I’m going to spend my night being tormented by exploding flashes of light, much like Jiminnie. Wish me luck ; )