Mark, a famous young millionaire, has a brilliant 10-year-old son who suffers from a strange condition. His son can't sleep in his bed every night. Mark constantly changes expensive beds because his son keeps waking up in the middle of the night. One day, the babysitter accidentally removes the mattress, revealing something under the bed that prompts them to call the police immediately…
🛌 UNDER THE VELVET MATTRESS: THE SECRETS OF MARKWOOD NUTRITION
Chapter 1: The Strange Illness of a Child Genius
In the affluent Bel Air neighborhood, Mark Sterling's name is a symbol of extraordinary success. At 35, he owns a leading biotechnology corporation. But behind the glamour of multi-million dollar deals, Mark is a helpless father.
His son, Leo (10 years old), is a math prodigy with an exceptionally high IQ. However, Leo suffers from a condition that even top California psychiatrists are baffled by: Sleep deprivation syndrome.
Every night, Leo cannot sleep more than two hours in his bed. He often wakes up in a panic, drenched in sweat, and insists on sleeping on the sofa or even the warehouse floor.
“It smells, Dad. It smells of decay,” Leo would often whisper, his eyes dark and sunken.
Mark had done everything a millionaire father could do. He'd changed at least 15 beds in a year. From $20,000 Italian latex mattresses to custom-designed, AI-controlled beds. But the result was the same. Leo always woke up at exactly 2 a.m., gasping for breath.
Chapter 2: The New Babysitter and Curiosity
After a series of nannies quit because they couldn't tolerate their little master's quirks, Mark hired Sarah, a criminal psychology student in need of tuition.
Sarah was different from the others. She didn't force Leo to sleep. She observed. She noticed Leo was very sensitive to sounds and smells. In particular, Leo had a strange habit: he always placed a small carpenter's ruler under his pillow whenever he lay down.
“Leo, why do you need this ruler?” Sarah asked one afternoon.
“To measure change,” Leo replied curtly while solving a differential equation. “The bed never stays in place at night. It sinks… but not because of my weight.”
The ten-year-old's words sent a shiver down Sarah's spine. That night, she decided not to sleep. She sat in the hallway, peering through the crack in Leo's bedroom door with a handheld thermal camera.
Chapter 3: 2 AM and Strange Noises
At exactly 2:05 AM, on the thermal camera screen, Sarah saw Leo spring up. He didn't cry, he didn't scream. He just quietly got out of bed, grabbed his blanket, and went straight out onto the balcony.
Sarah entered the room. Leo was gone. She approached the luxurious king-size bed that Mark had bought the week before. The room smelled of lavender essential oil, but when Sarah leaned her nose close to the silk mattress, she detected a strange odor. It wasn't the putrid smell Leo had described, but rather the smell of machine grease and damp earth.
She tried to push the bed. It was unusually heavy. Normally, even the most luxurious mattress couldn't be so rigid, as if it were glued to the floor.
The next morning, as Mark was preparing to go to work, Sarah stopped him. “Mr. Sterling, I need your permission to dismantle Leo's bed structure. I think the problem isn't the mattress, but what's underneath the floor.”
Mark chuckled, adjusting his tie. “Sarah, that's solid oak flooring installed by the finest craftsmen. Leo is just obsessed.”
“Sir, your son is a mathematical genius. He's not obsessed; he's observing reality,” Sarah insisted.
Chapter 4: The Secret Under the Mattress
Finally, Mark agreed. He stood with his arms crossed, looking impatient, as Sarah and two maintenance workers began removing the expensive mattress. Next came the ebony bed frame.
When the frame was removed, the wooden floor underneath was revealed. On the surface, it was flawless. But Sarah took out a small bottle of water and poured it into the gaps between the wood planks. Instead of pooling, the water instantly vanished into an almost invisible crevice.
“Get me a crowbar,” Sarah ordered.
When the oak planks were lifted, something appeared that made everyone present recoil.
Beneath the floor was not ordinary load-bearing concrete. It was a sophisticated system of pulleys and hydraulic pistons, greased in a glossy black finish. This system was connected to a small electronic control box flashing green lights.
But that wasn't the most terrifying thing.
Beneath the machinery, in a dark recess about a meter deep, was a small, cramped space lined with pitch-black soundproof fabric. Sarah switched on her powerful flashlight.
The light swept across and stopped at a corner. There was an old pillow, a few empty energy drink cans, an old iPad plugged in… and a collection of photos.
Hundreds of photos were plastered onto the underground walls of the cellar. They were all pictures of Leo and Mark. Photos of Leo sleeping, photos of Leo showering, photos of Mark working in his office.
Mark Sterling stumbled, almost falling. “What the hell is this? Is someone living under my son's bed?”
Chapter 5: The Police Call and the Identity of the Hiding Place
Sarah immediately pulled out her phone. “911, I want to report a serious home invasion and child threat in Bel Air.”
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) arrived within 10 minutes. Field technicians caught
They began dismantling the entire underground system. They discovered a narrow tunnel, over 50 meters long, running through the villa's foundation and leading straight to a dense thicket on the hillside – the spot where Mark's security camera was blind.
Police found a small diary in the underground alcove. The words inside sent shivers down Mark's spine:
“Day 340: Leo changed his bed again. This time the mattress is so thick, I had to increase the piston pressure by 10% to hear his heartbeat clearly. I like it when he's scared; he radiates a wonderful kind of energy. It's almost time. It's almost time to bring him back to his mother.”
Mark's face turned pale. “His mother? My wife… she died in a plane crash five years ago, didn't she?”
The inspector looked at Mark sternly. “Mr. Sterling, we just tested the DNA from the strands of hair found under there. It matches someone you know very well.”
“Who?”
“Evelyn Thorne. Your wife's twin sister. The one you had committed to a mental institution after the accident because she insisted you were the murderer.”
Chapter 6: The Nighttime Capture
Evelyn wasn't in a mental institution at all. She had escaped two years earlier and somehow managed to disguise herself as a construction worker during Mark's renovation of the mansion. She had personally designed and dug this tunnel right under Leo's bedroom – the nephew she believed she had a duty to “rescue” from Mark's control.
The police found Evelyn hiding in an abandoned house not far away, with an arsenal of weapons and a detailed plan to kidnap Leo on his 11th birthday – the very next day.
That night, after everything had calmed down, Mark sat beside Leo on the sofa in the living room.
“Dad, does the bed still smell?” Leo asked, his small eyes less tense now.
Mark hugged his son tightly, tears streaming down his face. “It's over, son. There won't be another bed. We're moving. Tonight.”
The End: The Millionaire's Awakening
Mark Sterling sold the mansion immediately. He realized that, no matter how much money he had, no matter how advanced the AI security systems he built, he had overlooked the most important thing: listening. If he had trusted Leo from the beginning, the child wouldn't have had to live in hell for those million seconds.
Leo then slept soundly in a simple log cabin in the Montana mountains. No hydraulic systems, no complex electronics. Just the sound of the wind and the real presence of his father.
The story of the Bel Air bed became a costly lesson for the American elite about true safety. Sometimes, the enemy doesn't come from outside the iron gate; they crawl up from within our own carelessness, right beneath the velvet mattress we think is the most comfortable.
💡 Lesson from the story
Wealth can buy comfort, but it cannot buy peace of mind. Children have a special instinct for dangers that adults often downplay logically. Listen to your children, no matter how crazy what they say may seem. Sometimes, the “monster under the bed” isn't a parable, but a cruel reality waiting for an opportunity to destroy everything you love.