What scares you?

Darkness. Mirrors. Silence. Windows.

Those things which conceal. And reveal.

When you stare out into the darkness, are you really afraid of what the darkness might hide? Or that at some moment, something, somewhere will look back at you? That for a fleeting instance, you will see those baleful orange eyes, pinpricks staring from the inky blackness at...into...you.

The mirror shows us ourselves, but how many times do you glance at a looking-glass from the corner of your eye and see....something that shouldn't be there? Something that can't be there. Something that your rational mind knows isn't there.

Silence confounds and reveals. In deep silence you can hear every twig, every rustle, every creeking board in the hall, every fingernail scraping against the window. Do we want to hear it all? And what about the footfalls behind you? The softsteps of a silent walker creeping up on you even as you read this?

Windows, they let in the light. They let out the light. They are a way of escape, a means of experience, and the way into which every manner of killer crawls. Is there anything more frightening than an open window that you know was shut? And while the window lets in the light, does it also let in the darkness?

Eyes...are the windows to the soul, they say. So into our eyes creeps the darkness. And from our eyes. Every looked into someone eyes and seen a dead stare? Or into the night and seen those eerie green cat eyes looking back? Do you ever wonder if when you look into the mirror, those eyes you see are also looking back at you?

So why do we feel these things? Why do eyes in the dark scare us? Why does the dark itself promise not just fear, or terror, but unmitigable horror? Have we stumbled such a short distance from the savannah that we still huddle around our stick of flame, hoping the great predators will pass us by in the night?