) My punctuation and spelling can always use help. The italics are supposed to be comments from a time in the future when she's telling the story. Don't be afraid to rip this to shreds. It's why I am posting it here. I can't get better if I don't know what I'm doing wrong.A child’s fear
I am the monster under this child’s bed. I’m his terror made into a reality. His fear creates me, even when it’s is hidden. Without him I don’t exist. I am the imaginary friend he wishes he didn’t have. Or I was . . . I’m not so sure now. How am I still around when he no longer shrinks in terror at the sight of me? He is now too old for me. He is halfway grown, so why am I still here?
“Timmy, go to bed.” His mom was annoyed now. It wouldn’t be long before he would have to turn off the lights. It wouldn’t be long before he entered my world.
“Just a minute mommy.”
Form his words, you couldn’t really tell that he was a quiet child who never spoke much; A quiet one with many secrets; secrets that even I didn’t know at the time. You would think from this tidbit that this was just another monster story where the little child would soon be scared out ten years growth.
I could taste the fear in the air, and hear it in his voice. For now I lurked in the shadows under his bed, but soon darkness would encase the room. Soon I wouldn’t be confined to the shadowy alcove.
He knew that I could only thrive in the dark, but he didn’t know why. I dreaded the day he grew up; the day he didn’t let his imagination go wild, fearing what could slither in every shadowy crack and cranny. When he started imagining burglars and thieves instead of monsters, dwarfs, and dragons, it would be the end of me. I would fade from his life and reshape myself in another little boy or girl’s mind. When that happens, I won’t be myself anymore. I will be remodeled to fit the new child’s worst fears.
His mother was at the door with her lips pulled into a grim line.
“You’re seven. You shouldn’t be afraid of the dark. Get to bed.”
She didn’t understand of course. Even I knew those things, and I’m just a little girl who’s a figment of a child’s imagination. She should have known more than something that ‘doesn’t exist’. Then again, I had more experience with that sort of thing. It was perfectly normal for a child to be afraid of what lurks in the dark. Timmy would continue being terrified of me until he ceased to believe that I existed. At about that time, he would discard the Easter bunny and Santa as well. Along with them, in the trash would go ghosts, goblins, and the whole rest of the world of fantasy. For then, I was still the terror of his dreams and waking moments.
“Good night”, she tucked him in.
It wouldn’t be a good night if I could help it.
“Good night”, he replied.
I almost wonder if he was thinking the same thing as me. In the back of his mind I’m sure he didn’t think it was going to be a good night, but he was at the same time wishing that she would have wonderful dreams.
This was a strange child for sure. He should have been worried about his own sleep not hers. At that moment, I should have known that I wasn’t going to be a normal run of the mill childhood terror for that boy. You couldn’t really blame me though. I had only been there a few months. I didn’t know anything about him. I didn’t know what an incredible boy he was or what he had been through.
I knew his deepest darkest fears, yes. I understood that more than anything he was terrified of losing his mother or anyone else he loved. I didn’t understand what had created that fear in him.
At the time I was hounded with hints. I should have been able to deduce something from the fact that he didn’t have any imagination records. He didn’t have any documentation of imaginary friends, make believe worlds, or former monsters hiding under his bed. He was thinking like a grownup before. Why did he suddenly pop into my world? Why was this rather old boy a newcomer to fantasy?
I wish so much that I had been given instructions on how to deal with that child. Maybe I could help him better now. I don’t like children, or I’m not supposed to. I am a girl, but I’m also a monster, I’m not supposed to have a feminine side. Why does he change everything about me? Why does he confuse me so much? Though all of those questions are huge, there’s on I had that was even bigger. How does the monster under the bed help the child that’s spent the last few years of his life living with a real life monster?
The light turned off. His whole room was now free reign. How should I terrify him now?
