The small chirps of a child whispering my name shook me awake.
It was my daughter, stuffed animal in one hand and clutching my arm with the other. Her thin
eyes looked up at me as she whispered, “There’s a monster under my bed!”
I dragged myself out of the comforting embrace of my duvet and stumbled into my daughter’s
bedroom. Her bed was jammed in the opposite corner, and a polka-dotted blanket fell halfway to
the floor. A small set of drawers held her shirts and pants, and a child-size desk was cluttered
with coloring pages and Crayola markers. Everything seemed normal.
Still, my daughter wrapped her arms around my thigh. She pointed to the bottom of her bed,
fearful of something I could not see. “A monster,” she echoed, “is under my bed.”
“Mommy will protect you,” I told her as I made my way to the other side of the room. The
room felt colder as I walked, and I felt a chill run down my arms as I crouched down by the bed.
Hesitating only for a breath, I carefully lifted the blanket covering the space between the floor
and the bed slats.
And there it was—the monster she had warned of. It glared back at me with a familiar face,
billowing smoke up my nose as the heat from its body stung my cheeks. Pus oozed from its
mouth, dripping onto the hardwood floor and staining it black. It looked me in my eyes, and
suddenly I knew its name. I knew it from the movies, from the snarls of men on the streets. Its
breath, sharp and sour, reeked of hatred. The smell made me sick.
“You’re not supposed to get her yet,” I begged the monster, my voice trembling. “She’s only
four.”
The monster scoffed, releasing a thick, ebony smoke. It had no words for me, no
empathy—only the taunting smile of an immortal beast. And there would be no silencing it. The
monster would take my beautiful girl, and I was powerless against it.
As it grinned, basking in the glory of the pain it would inflict, I heard the muffled tears of my
daughter. Eager to calm her fears, I sat up and made sure the blanket covered the wisps of
smoke still trickling out.
Relieved, my daughter climbed back into bed. Tears had dried on her face, leaving trails of dry
skin. I wiped away the remnants of those tears and kissed her forehead as she snuggled under
the covers. She smiled sleepily, thanking me for protecting her. “Of course I will protect you,” I
told her as she began to doze off. “I’ll always protect you.”
When she fell asleep, I made my way back towards the doorway. I stood there for a minute,
watching her. Curled up in a fetal position under the covers, her little snoozes ricocheted off the
walls and filled the room with the utmost warmth. She was pure. She felt safe.
With a broken heart and weary eyes, I closed the door to my daughter’s haven and made my
way back to my bed. I was only a few feet away from her, only a scream and a kick and a cry
away from rushing to her side. But I knew that when the monster took her, it would pull her away
in silence. It would drag her by her toes, slipping through the shadows. And I would watch,
helpless against the inevitable.
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