Daddy I’m Scared
By Emily Nuñez
March 30, 2026
Graphic by Riley Carroll
Oh, to be alone!
A sharp crescent moon adorns the sky, my parents are out, and my evening turns into an idle teen movie.
To have this house all to myself! To sing alongside Bonnie Tyler in the shower as loud and as long as I please, daydream across from the mirror, then dance back into my room. To slip on a dainty pajama set — the silky, lace-trimmed one — that I’ll replace with a t-shirt once I hear my parents opening the garage. To delightfully skip downstairs and fix myself a glass of strawberry milk and a side of mini muffins! My lovely night, alone.
Alone.
I hesitate — at the foot of the stairs on my way down, the way I always do when the living room is dark. My eyes are peeled open, gazing into the shadowy space before me as I feel for the switch on the wall.
Childish girl, are you still afraid of the dark?
I observe the space cautiously for a moment more, but of course, only silence and stillness await me. Oh, never mind. I accelerate to a slight speed-walk across the living room. I’m not scared, only craving those mini muffins.
Wait.
My peripheral vision halts me dead in my pursuit. I squint at the wall across me, and my heart convulses to warn me as I begin to perceive a disfigured silhouette against the dark.
What is that?
The air is sucked from my lungs as I leap back toward the switch. Moments before my knees give out in panic, the light reveals it was only the curtain.
Shaken, I exhale a chuckle, and my heart takes its time to cease racing. I’m embarrassed even though I’m alone
It’s all those movies.
You can’t love horror if it gets to you, scared girl.
My mind keeps wandering as I snack. I think of the frightening dream I had last night. Chased by a killer, again. Those nightmares persist, all my life, like a chronic disease that becomes part of my body — parasitic.
Do you remember running to Daddy when you frantically awoke,
little girl?
Graphic by Riley Carroll
I’d recount every detail of the nightmare to my dad, then anxiously wait for him to fix it. He’d think it over for some moments before retelling it with a happy ending. It worked like a charm. He turned my ghastly nightmares into whimsical stories, allowing me to fall back into slumber with a faint smile on my lips.
Wait.
I pause the music, cease chewing, and listen closely. I swear, I heard something. Upstairs?
tap tap tap
I do not realize I am holding my breath when my heartbeat picks up for the second time.
Footsteps?
How will you run if you’re
paralyzed
stupid girl?
There! In the corner of my eye!
I gasp and jolt in my seat, and milliseconds later, I realize it's my own shadow. I pant from holding my breath so long and begin squeezing my hands within one another.
Stop it, stop trembling.
It was nothing.
Even in the safety of my own room and the head-to-toe embrace of my covers, I am startled at nothing. I shake for nothing. My limbs go weak, and my eyes go wide. My voice disappears in my throat.
What will you do when it’s really something,
useless girl?
I keep hearing something…
Somebody?
Please, no.
This is supposed to be my lovely night, alone.
Are you sure
you’re still
alone?
I force myself to investigate, switching on every light I pass, throwing closet doors open, pulling the curtains aside, my chest pounding all the while. I keep the music off; I need to listen. I must stare down the empty road past the stripped windows and catch every shiver of the branches and leaves. I rapidly glance about me, over my shoulder, again and again. My body spasms when a strand of my own hair tickles my neck. Every distant creak, every shadow, sends me shuddering.
Why do I flinch so easily? Why am I so afraid?
I wonder what I am to do against the forces of evil.
From the start, it was running to Daddy that soothed my fears. I did not imagine, then, that being afraid would become a fact of life and that my heart was doomed to sink every time a strange man approached, looked, lingered about me, forevermore. What good am I when I am alone? Is a man’s presence the only safe haven? What if man is the very species that stirs my fear?
I thought I would outgrow my nightmares, but maybe my paranoia was never simply youth. Maybe it was my womanhood, all along. Maybe it always will be.
This womanhood is blurring what used to make sense. What seemed natural.
Am I weaker for it now?
Some sly part of me enjoys being a little cowardly to make him feel brave. A little klutzy, a little frail. Why change?
Perhaps for your own sake,
for starters.
Another part of me covets the protector, savior, alert and concerned for me. It is a role I needn’t burden myself with, even romantic in my head. It may well stem from a sad realization of vulnerability. I sit nervously in my room, restlessly waiting for someone to arrive, wondering what horrors nighttime solitude invites.
Go,
run to him
Daddy’s girl.
Behold, another lonely night of self-sabotage. Maybe it really is all those chilling movies I inexplicably love. Maybe it’s all the stories, the news, the perpetual fear of bad men. Maybe I just miss how easy it used to be to turn my nightmares into bedtime stories.
Maybe I hate being alone.
Maybe it’s womanhood. Maybe it always will be.■
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