Creepypasta contest entry
Sleesh
Have you ever detected movement out of the corner of your eye, and looked around, but didn’t see anything? It may have been a Sleesh. This particular apparition can only move by periphery. When viewed directly, it defensively becomes invisible and intangible. As such, direct observation is impossible, so few details exist regarding their physical characteristics. When they can move, they are typically quite fast and are usually only seen as a formless, blurry, and translucent distortion, if they’re noticed at all. Although sometimes they move incredibly slowly, slower than the human eye can detect. Their population size is unknown, but consistent reports are common worldwide, even in extreme climates. It is unknown if they can die or be killed. Their origins are unknown.
Sleeshes are classified as parasites that may be indirectly harmful to humans. The most common objective of a Sleesh is to actively absorb the energy from idle batteries. The electrical output is small enough such that the Sleesh is unharmed, but large enough for them to survive for a reasonable amount of time. In rare cases, this can be very dangerous. For example, during a power outage, a backup battery may have been fully drained by a Sleesh. This absorptive trait has been responsible for multiple deaths, typically among those requiring life support devices. Similarly, emergency supplies have also occasionally been drained, such as radios or other communicative devices, hindering emergency assistance. Some Sleeshes have lingered in parking lots in order to siphon energy from car batteries, which can be potentially hazardous in colder climates.
If a Sleesh is running out of energy it may become more active in order to find a new location. They have been known to cause enough disturbances to incite inhabitants to leave. If the Sleesh is truly desperate, it may absorb power from larger batteries or even live outlets in extreme cases. This is very rare, as it causes a great deal of pain for the Sleesh.
Prior to commonplace electrical storage, Sleeshes were forced to subsist entirely on static electricity. Since the late modern period, some intrepid Sleeshes would slowly seek out lightning rods in order to absorb the large quantities of energy so they could move much more rapidly, in exchange for great personal injury.
In recent times, a Sleesh typically operates by gaining access to a building, often by quickly following alongside an unsuspecting entrant. From there, their physical actions are typically harmless tricks: knocking small things over; moving papers around; hiding keys. This is often to redirect someone's vision to the object or to other areas of the building so that they can continue to move around in the person's periphery.
Some individuals have found unconfirmed ways to deter Sleeshes, such as the use of strong magnetic fields. Others have devised a method for capturing ornery Sleeshes by putting monitored batteries in a Faraday cage and closing it when the charge drops. This could theoretically force the Sleesh into a hibernation state, as they would be deprived of any electricity, which could eventually render them permanently intangible, effectively “killing” them.
