Of mothers and monsters

*This story is underneath my folder titled “The Laurence family’s deepest woes”. Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs<33”. Enjoy!*

Chapter One-Caring Creatures

It was late into the night, the moon was hanging high up in the sky. Seven year old David Patel wasn’t supposed to be awake, but he couldn’t help it. The monsters all wanted to talk to him.

He was sitting on his bed, surrounded by all five of the monsters he met after…afterhis Mom disappeared.

One monster was a gray woman with a mouth of sharp, carnivorous teeth who was dressed entirely in purple. A purple dress, a purple hat with red roses, and white boots with purple bows. She even had a purple streak in her black hair! Her name was Lolanthe, but David called her Lola because her name was too long and hard to say. Lola had boring rules, but she was nice, just like how Mom was!

Another monster was a gray man with a stitched up mouth and wearing a dusty suit with a big white scarf. He always carried a shovel with him and said that his name was Nicholas and that he used to “dig graves”. The idea of being surrounded by the dead scared David a little, but Nicholas said that most of them were nice, like the monsters in David’s room.

There was a small monster named Janina who was a puppet girl with moldy green wooden skin that had many dents and scratches. She had sharp, white teeth that David thought looked too human for his comfort and she wore a pink dress with a white apron. She had a pink bow in her curly black hair and sometimes, she carried a knife with her. One time, David asked if he could call her “Jane” and she pointed her knife at him and said in a voice that sounded like a snake’s: “NEVER give me a stupid nickname!” Janina was a little scary, but she never hurt him and Lola said not to worry about her, so David didn’t worry.

One other monster was a teenage boy named Kevin who had long, black hair that had red tips at the ends of them. He wore a gray long sleeved shirt and ripped up jeans with bulky white boots. Kevin liked listening to cool rock songs and would tell David all about the different bands that he used to listen to! He said he still remembered every single song that he ever heard from every single band and that he used to have piercings all over his ears and face! He was super cool and David wanted to be just like him someday!

But there was one monster who was his absolute favorite. She was as tall as the other monsters and had hulking gray claws. She had on an iron blindfold over her eyes and wore a short gray dress, long white socks, and big gray boots that were a lighter shade than her skin. Her hair was long, flowy and white and she had two pairs of wings on her back. One black, bony pair of wings and thick, red and gray leathery wings. She had a winding black tail that moved just like David’s kite when it was summertime. Her name was Lux and she was the same age as David. She talked kind of quiet, but she played with him the most and she gave him paper origamis almost every single day.

But she wasn’t giving him any paper origamis that night. In the pale light of the moon that shone from David’s window, all of the monsters looked upset. Though Lux’s eyes were covered, he could see from how she frowned that she was not happy at all.

“What’s wrong? What did you guys want to talk to me about?” David asked as he crossed his legs. An itch of anxiety crept up on his spine as he thought of being yelled at to go back to sleep, to stop talking to himself, to-

“Your stepmom is evil.” Janina piped up.

Evil? Evil? His stepmom liked to yell and didn’t want to play with him, but…evil? Mom and Dad always told him that most people weren’t evil, that they just had their own trials and tribulations that made them the way they were. They told him to see the best in people and not judge too harshly.

But then, what made the monsters think that she was evil?

“We’ve seen her doing evil things in the shadows and we think that she may have had something to do with the disappearance of your Mom.” Lola said, her red eyes holding hints of sadness.

“Like what kind of evil things? What about my Mom?” David asked, worrying of what, exactly, the monsters meant by their words.

The monsters exchanged looks with each other, as though they were debating what to say to him. David wished that they wouldn’t do that, he wasn’t going to be scared of their words. He needed to know what happened to his Mom, where she could have disappeared to.

“We’ve seen her do many horrible things that we can’t talk about right now. You just have to trust us and come with us. Take my claw. We’ll keep you safe and make her go away.” Lola said, extending her clawed hand towards David.

All of the other monsters turned towards Lola and David, as though they were waiting for something big to happen. Being safe with the monsters would be nice, but…

What has my stepmom been doing? Where will they take me? What’s going on? David thought.

Lola cradled him up in her arms before he could do anything and then, a loud, pained ringing noise screeched in his ears, just like…like a scream.

Chapter Two-To a happy place

David held Mom’s hand tightly as they walked throughout the attic of his Grandparents’ house. She said that she was “looking for her friend”, but so far, David didn’t see anything in the attic but old books and smiling puppets.

“Who is your friend? What do they look like?” David asked, squeezing Mom’s hand a tad more, for the eyes of the puppets were a bit too alive for his liking.

Mom said earlier in the morning that she wanted David to come and meet her “friend”, so he had to eat breakfast and then get himself ready for a drive to his Grandparents’ house, because that was where her “friend” live.

But why her friend live in his Grandparents’ house? Wasn’t that a weird place for friends to live in? Didn’t the friend live in their own house?

“My friend is a very nice girl. Well, actually, I think she’s a woman now. She’s the same age as me. She’s not human, David, but don’t be scared. She won’t harm you. I just have to study the walls very closely so that I’ll be able to find her. You stick with me, okay?” Mom asked.

David nodded, but he wasn’t sure how she’d be able to find her friend in the wall. The walls were so cluttered with all sorts of weird stuff that only small empty spaces showed up in the room and the sun was still just beginning to rise into the sky. David rubbed his sleep worn eyes, wondering why Mom made him get up to meet somebody who lived in walls.

Maybe the friend really was nice and Mom wanted David to meet her for a good reason. Mom always had a good reason for anything. After all, it would be interesting to meet someone who wasn’t human.

David couldn’t help but remember the time Mom took him to his Grandparents house to meet her friend when he saw the dusted, cluttered room that Lola and the others took him to. He could see the room over Lola’s shoulder and smell a mixture of rose-scented perfume and dirty socks.

“This is a safe place that me and the others go to. It should be able to keep you away from your stepmom. Just don’t go outside.” Lola said as she set David down on the ground.

“How long am I going to be here?” David asked, for the more time he took studying the room, the more he noticed all of the puppets staring at him, just like Janina, exactly like the attic at his Grandparents’ house.

“Not very long. Me and Nicholas are going to get rid of your stepmom. You stay right here with Janina, Kevin, and Lux. We’ll be back.” Lola smiled.

She hugged David close and then, she was gone. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Nicholas had disappeared, too.

It was just him and the other monsters.

Chapter Three-Floorboards and frights

Kevin took out a small, black, rectangular device that kind of looked like a remote controller, but not as many buttons. He put on earbuds that were connected to the device in his ears and then went off to a corner in the room. Janina was in another corner of the room, flipping her knife up and down. Lux was in the middle of the room, trailing one clawed finger on the hardwood floor.

David sat next to Lux, for if they both trailed their fingers on the floor, then they could make all sorts of designs together!

As David followed the cracks of the floor with his finger, he imagined that he was making kitties, fairies, and angels. Just with the tip of his finger, he made all sorts of wonderful designs, all sorts of things from storybooks that Mom would read to him.

Soon enough, Lux started making designs too, except she made slightly scarier things, like girls with no eyes and puppies with no heads. Her designs were made more visible because when she scratched anything, it came out in bright white light. Together, David and Lux made their own designs on the floor, they played their favorite game.

“What bad things did my stepmom do?” David asked, breaking the silence of the room. The question had been circling in his head, but he didn’t feel comfortable to ask it until a few minutes after he started making designs with Lux, a few minutes after they had begun playing their game.

Lux stopped. The white markings from her claw faded into the floor and that uncomfortable itch appeared again inside of David, just like the itch he felt the day Mom disappeared.

She then scooted closer to David until they were ear to ear and she whispered:

“One time, Lola said she saw your stepmom in your room when you were asleep and touching your head, except she was in the walls and there was blood coming out of your body, but it was coming out in a string. Another time, Nicholas said he saw your stepmom do the same thing to your Dad. Everybody else saw their own things, but I…I saw your stepmom eating something in the backyard. It looked like a person she was eating but I didn’t get very close. I ran away because I was scared.”

Lux never lied, but…his stepmom was touching heads and taking blood? How did David and Dad not wake up if she was doing that? Wouldn’t it hurt? What about Lux saying that his stepmom ate a person? What was his stepmom? What-

“Can I go out-“

“No! Not yet!” Lux whisper-yelled as she put a claw on his mouth.

But he couldn’t just sit there and do nothing! He had to see for himself what was going on!

Chapter Four-A galaxy of memories

After Lux let go of his face, David ran up to the one single window in the room, looking to see if it was daylight outside.

The sun was starting to rise, lighting up the sky in a blue-pink glow, but when David looked down, he saw what looked like a galaxy, except everything was glowing in a hot pink light, the twinkling stars glittering like white string lights.

Just like the door to Mom’s kitty room. Mom had a room that was full of kitty stuffed animals. She said that she always wanted to have a kitten as a pet but her parents never let her, so she collected toys that looked like kitties. On the door, she painted it as a pink galaxy. “This is so people know that this is a special room. You have to always find a way to make a special room feel special.”

Tears brimmed in the corners of David’s eyes. Mom was with him, holding his hand only two years ago in the attic and in a matter of seconds, she had disappeared. Poof! Where did she go? Would the monsters help bring her back? Yes, the monsters would bring her back. They were good friends, even Janina, and they would find a way to make things right.

David watched as his stepmom tore off the pink galaxy wallpaper on the door. That was what he was supposed to call her. His “stepmom”. She wouldn’t tell him what her name was, she just wanted to be called “stepmom”. But she shouldn’t have been touching the wallpaper, because what if Mom came back and got mad that the door didn’t look like a pink galaxy anymore?

“You shouldn’t do that. Mom will be angry.” David said, finally mustering the strength to say something.

His stepmom turned around to face him. She rolled her eyes, as though she didn’t want to hear him talk anymore and said:

“It’s been two years. She’s dead.”

Dead?! Dead?! How could she say that? David SAW her disappear! Right before his very eyes! She wasn’t dead, she was just taking a long time to come back. How could Dad just marry another woman? How could the other woman just destroy the door like that? Taking down the wallpaper was destroying it, because it was Mom’s door, Mom’s wallpaper that she was taking down. The special wallpaper.

“She’s not dead! Don’t ever say that! Don’t…don’t…”

David ran away, tears in his eyes, for the room started to feel too tight and it didn’t feel right for his stepmom to see him cry.

David ran away from the window, a million questions swirling in his head, but only two questions were the loudest:

Where was he and where was Mom?

Chapter Five-Behind the chair

David was holding tight onto Mom’s hand, not wanting to let go in a room full of weird, creepy things. Grandma and Grandpa didn’t wake up yet, so he supposed that it was okay to be in the house. But what if they got mad that they were there? What if they got in trouble? What if-

“I think you should really meet this friend of mine, David. I know you’re only five, but I was your age when I became friends with her. She’s older now but I think she’d like to meet you.” Mom said.

They had been in the attic for a LONG time and still, there was nothing. Was there really anybody there? How come Dad wasn’t with them? Why would a friend be hiding in the walls?

Mom’s eyes suddenly went wide with surprise and then she cried out:

“She’s here! Stay right there, I’ll go get her!”

She let go of David’s hand, then she ran over to one part of the room, a part of the room that had just as many odd items as every other part of the room.

Taking a good look at the room he was in, David remembered how he started to look for Mom behind the furniture, the cardboard boxes, and the puppets after a few minutes had passed and she still hadn’t come out. He kept searching for her until he bumped into an armchair, then Grandma came upstairs, shocked that he was in the attic and frantically asking him why and how he got there.

He told her the truth through teary eyes. He didn’t know where Mom was or how she could have just disappeared, but then Grandma started driving him home and said that maybe Mom just jumped out a window and ran home herself without him noticing. Even at the age of five and with all of the crazy things Mom did, David didn’t believe for one second that such a thing Grandma described was possible.

David pushed back a black chair with pink plush cloth and…

A shadow of a woman faced him, her fingers were long and twisted, just like the claws of the monsters. Looking back at a chair that looked just like the one he pushed back two years ago, he thought of the woman’s shadow, the shadow he had forgotten all about…

What if that was Mom’s friend?

Chapter Six-Not the time

David ran towards the door, about to get out of the room, but then-

“No! Stay here.” Janina seethed, grabbing David’s arm. Her knife was just inches away from David’s face, but she didn’t slice him, didn’t put the blade to his skin.

Still, he didn’t like her knife.

“Why? I want to go see what’s happening! I want to go home! I-“

“It’s not safe. Not yet.” Janina said, her rasping voice slightly softer than it normally was.

Lux told him a little bit about what was happening, outside looked weird, he was starting to remember a little bit of what happened the day Mom took him to the attic, but he still didn’t have any complete answers.

Tears welled up in David’s eyes, sobs spilled out of his mouth, Janina lowered her knife, but she still held on. Wouldn’t he ever figure out the truth?

“Let him go, Janina. I’ll talk to him.” Kevin said from his corner in the room.

Janina loosened her grip, but she still didn’t let him go. David didn’t hear a word from Lux, but then-

He felt himself being picked up off the ground and everything began to simmer into pink, white-dot tinted light.

Chapter Seven-In the stars

For a few seconds, he was in a pink galaxy sky, but then, right in the middle of the pink galaxy sky, he saw something that looked like a spotlight. The spotlight got brighter and brighter until he could see a black space lit up from the light and then, Mom stood in the middle of the light.

“One thing that we can all do is go through many dimensions. When your Mom took you out that day two years ago, me and Lux happened to enter this dimension and see…this.” Kevin said, swallowing hard at the last word.

In the dark space, his Mom stood, looking left and right. It was just her in the dark space, but that only lasted a few seconds, for suddenly-

Something pushed Mom to the ground, tearing at her flesh, pulling out her skin, never stopping, only quickening its pace, Mom’s screams ringing high in the air. In the midst of her screams, David could hear Mom cry out:

“Aren’t we friends?! Stop!”

But her words sounded like they were choked in blood…blood…no…the thing was killing her…destroying her…eating her…its teeth were sharp, yellow, and many. It looked as though it could bite down anyone, stop a life to anyone…

It was his stepmom, her brown eyes with snake slits for pupils, her teeth sharp, yellow, and tainted with blood.

Mom really…died?

Chapter Eight-No more waiting

David watched as the scene began to fade away and then, there was nothing but the pink galaxy.

From his understanding, Kevin and Lux, two monsters, found themselves in a dimension where they saw Mom get killed by his stepmom and they…they didn’t do anything?! Didn’t they have magical powers? Weren’t they monsters? Didn’t they care about him?

David turned around to face Kevin. Kevin had sorrowful black eyes, but what did he have to be sad about? It wasn’t his Mom who got murdered!

“You and Lux were right there, watching my stepmom and…and you didn’t do anything? You didn’t stop her? You didn’t-“

“We tried to, but there’s a barrier here that stops anyone who comes into this dimension from going at a certain point. We couldn’t get very far and-“

“You didn’t try hard enough!” David yelled through sobs.

Though Kevin gripped David closely to him with his gnarly, hulking black claws, David managed to shrug himself away from him, thoughts of waiting and waiting and waiting and doing nothing fueling him to reach out towards the stars and get out.

Chapter Nine-Push on through

David ran (no, he didn’t really run. He floated) right along with the swirl of stars, against Kevin’s shouts of “No!” and “Come back here!”. Maybe, if he ran far enough, then there would be a way out of the stars. He didn’t know why he thought that, it just came into his head.

He ran and was pushed back when he felt something blocking his way, like an invisible wall. It appeared that Kevin was right about the barrier, but something told David that if he pushed the barrier with all of his might, then he would get out.

He kept pushing…pushing…nothing happened and then-

He was falling deep, deep, deep into the stream of stars, seeing blazes of pink, white, and finally, pitch black.

Chapter Ten-It’s bedtime

Would he fall forever? Would he ever find a way out? Would-

David winced as he landed on something hard. He blinked his eyes for a bit and found that he was sitting on the floor of his bedroom. The moon was still gleaming high up in the sky, but he could see from the slight blue tints in the sky that daylight was approaching.

Upstairs, he could hear distant, faint thuds. They weren’t so loud to the point where they hurt his ears, but they were still loud enough for him to hear.

David scrambled from the ground and ran towards his door, opening it and heading upstairs, to where his parents used to sleep together.

Maybe he could help Lola and Nicholas on getting rid of the stepmom, if that was what they were really doing.

………………………………………………………………….

After running up the stairs and making it to the top, he pulled open the door to his parents’ room and couldn’t keep down his scream of shock.

For Lola was pulling apart bones and flesh from his stepmom’s body, her claws stained with blood, her eyes holding sparks of viciousness that David had never seen in her before. Nicholas was using his shovel to scoop out his stepmom’s organs, but his stepmom…

His stepmom had snake pupil eyes, her yellow, sharp teeth were dripping with saliva that built upon itself heavily like the spit of a dog, and her light brown skin was peeling apart, just like the leather on the spot David sat on in the car, the leather he wasn’t allowed to peel off but did anyway, because it felt so much easier to peel apart the leather than sit and wait for the car to stop.

Looking at her snake pupil eyes that swam with violence, it registered upon David that she had heard his scream, that she had seen him, and-why didn’t Dad wake up? Why was Dad still sleeping? Shouldn’t he have woken up to fight her? Why couldn’t he help David?

David turned around on his heels and ran. He couldn’t wait for Dad to wake up, he just had to find a place to hide and then wait for Lola and Nicholas to finish off fighting her. He had to run, run-

“Not a chance, David. I’ll need that soul of yours.” His stepmom’s voice hissed in grating, glass-shattering tone.

He could feel a claw curling around his waist, pressing into his stomach, squeezing him. He tried so hard to wiggle out of the claw, but he could feel it pressing and pressing into him, he could see the hallway become blurry…wasn’t anybody going to help? He wasn’t about to die, was he? No, he couldn’t die! He wouldn’t die! He was going to get out and be free, he just had to keep on trying, to never give up just like Mom said, but…

Everything was so blurry, just like how it looked whenever he cried. He couldn’t feel the claw around him anymore, but then, he couldn’t feel anything anymore. He felt as though he were drifting far…far away…did he die?

“She’s gone now, David. But so are you. Don’t worry! I’ll take you to my friend, Asher! He’ll help you out!” Lux’s voice said happily.

He then felt himself being carried off of the ground.

Lux was back, she was going to help him, but where would she take him? Who was Asher? Would he get to rest once she took him to Asher?

David didn’t bother to think on it anymore. He needed to rest. He needed time to relax.

Hopefully everything would be okay.