Wraith

"I don't understand what you want." Pleaded the man as he stepped back towards the dresser, shrinking from the apparition above his bed.

"I want nothing except for you to know of my existance." It's voice was otherworldly, issuing forth from what seemed to be inside his own head.

His eyes could not lock upon the shifting thing. It appeared as if it were a being composed of gray cloth, rippling in ways it should not be able to, such that his eye could not focus on any one part of it before it rippled and moved and he lost it amongst it's folds. Wraith sprung to his mind, from some half remembered story he'd read long ago. It had no head, no limbs - it was merely a shifting, formless mass, hovering there above the bedsheets. He said nothing, lips trembling.

"I will return every night until I am satisfied." It's voice dropped to a low hiss, enunciatiating it's words seemingly at random. "You will do everything I ask of you, or I shall trouble you until the end of time."

He could do nothing for a moment except nod in a panic, hands gripping the edge of the dresser, sweat making them slip. When the spirit said nothing further, he found the courage to ask; "What... are you?"

"You will understand that in time. I will be watching you." Before his eyes, the rippling cloth seemed to catch on fire from the inside, and the apparition dissolved into whirling specks of etheral ash that fluttered around the room before fading away.

The man slid down against the smooth face of the dresser, and put his head into his hands, curling up into a ball. It didn't have to tell him. He knew why it had come.