"Grack!"

It was an odd noise to hear when lying in bed deep in the night, but I heard it all the same. I closed my eyes tighter to ignore the sound. I wanted to sleep and nothing more. Any goblins that might be in the darkness could just go away.

"Grack!"

My eyes snapped open. Nothing in the house made that kind of noise. I looked around with bleary eyes and stopped when I spotted two yellow gleaming lights in the dark. Two orbs, almost perfectly positioned together that they might be eyes, stared out at me in the dark.

I froze. My blanket was tight around me, and only my head was exposed. Was it a cat that had wandered into the house? Was it a mouse that lived in the floorboards? Neither felt right because the eyes were almost the same height as mine, and they stood out in the middle of the room, staring at my bed.

"Grack!"

Chomp. Chomp.

The shadowy creature with yellow eyes held something in its hands. It chewed on the object for a few seconds before gulping it down. I watched for a moment before glancing at my bedside table. To my horror, the cookie was gone!

I looked back at the eyes. My heart raced in my chest, and my head pounded. Could it be? Could it be a goblin? After all these years of my grandmother's story, could it be a goblin standing in my room, eating a cookie I had left out on the table?

I paused. A goblin eating a cookie was no small thing. Never give a goblin a cookie. That was one of the first rules Grandma ever told me. I had to think. What would happen if you gave a goblin a cookie? My mind was frozen over with fear. The yellow eyes didn't blink as the goblin took another bite.

Chomp. Chomp.

If you give a goblin a cookie, it will double in size. Even as I thought the words, the eyes shot up to double the height they had been before. With a thud and a thump, the goblin's shadowy arms fell down to the ground at the elbows.

Chomp. Chomp.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It was a goblin. My breath caught in my throat, and I tried to stay absolutely still. I needed to remember more about the goblins. I needed to know how to stop it. If it kept growing in my room, it would be big enough that no one could stop it from taking me.

"If you want to get rid of a goblin, tell it a secret no one knows," the words came out of my mouth in a whisper, and I slapped my hand over my mouth too late.

"Grack!" the goblin said, lowering its cookie as it leaned closer to get a better look at me.

I tried to hide. I tried to throw myself deeper into the linens so that the goblin couldn't see me. However, it wasn't enough. The goblin peered at me, and I knew I was laid bare in its eyes. It knew exactly where I was. The only reason it hadn't taken me yet was because the cookie had distracted it.

A long, gnarled-nailed hand reached out from the darkness, and I sunk deeper into the linens to escape it. I kept my eyes on it, but I forced myself as deep into the mattress as I could get. My mind raced for a solution. I had to figure out a secret no one else knew. Only then could I banish the goblin.

"I still wet the bed!" I yelled the first thing I could think of.

Poof. Thump.

The goblin disappeared in a puff of smoke, and the cookie fell to the ground where it had been standing. I collapsed into the linens, slick with sweat. I had done it. I had banished the goblin just like Grandma had taught me to. I took a deep breath. I won!

I sat up in bed, letting the covers fall off me and my pajamas. I needed to check and make sure the goblin was gone. I needed to know that it wouldn't come back. The only way to do that was to find the cookie. The cookie was proof to me that the goblin was gone.

I reached out to the floor with the tip of my toe, settling on it with the cautious touch of a cat. The floorboards beneath the carpet bent under my foot, and I already felt the creak of the wood coming. The moment I set foot on those old house floorboards, I would make the noise. I clenched my teeth tightly and gave up on subtlety. I put my full foot on the floor and stood on it.

Creak.

The sound echoed through the room and down the hall through the door. I gulped down my panic. Was the door a little more open than it had been? I supposed it would need to be if the goblin had come in through the door. I shook my head and set about in my search for the cookie. When I found it, I would know that I had truly won. I scavenged about on the floor, squinting to see better in the darkness but utterly failing.

No matter what I tried, I couldn't find the cookie. I searched all along the floor and even peered under the bed. It was like it had completely disappeared after the goblin dropped it. I had no idea where it could have possibly gone. Eventually, I gave up on finding that cookie, settling for going back to bed and sleeping the rest of the night away. As I stood up and walked over to the bed, I heard the noise in the hall.

Thump.

Grandma's words came back to me.

"If you hear a noise in the hall, another goblin has come to visit us all."

I gulped down my fear and listened.