Evangeline"Monsters aren't real!" I was kicked in the head again, my arms covering as much of me as they could.
"You're just a big cry baby! Loser!" I was kicked again. And again. And again.
I didn't understand why kids were so cruel, why they decided to tease me and bully me. I didn't understand until the day my teacher had asked why I was so tired all the time. I told her I couldn't sleep- there was a monster under my bed. And I was too old to believe in monsters.
I went home that day with bruises on my arms and ribs, a black eye, and a busted lip. My mother sat on the couch with me, craddling me like she did when I was a baby.
"Kids can be cruel sometimes," her sweet voice soothing me as always, "but you can be stronger. You can get through this".
That night I went to bed and I hid under the covers like I always do. It was hot and hard to breathe but it was better than having to face the absolute horror I knew waited for me on the other side of my makeshift veil.
I tried to sleep. I tried to dream. I tried to dream of better things that could be outside these sheets in hopes that I could will it to life and finally rest peacefully for the first time in years.
But sleep did not come... Someone else did.
I felt the room become increasingly cold and heard the floorboards beneath me creak with a low groan. I felt a light touch of something hard with jagged ends run over where my shoulder was and I held my breath as long as I could.
A car drove by on the street as the headlights lit up the corners of my room and created a silhouette that I recognized all too well.
It only lasted a second but it was enough for my body to react and I screamed.
The sheets were ripped off me in a gust of wind-like manner, a bulking creature of terrifying heights and stature leaning over me. He had long thick nails that sprouted from his gnarled fingers like weeds, long crooked teeth dripping with saliva and revealing a stench like an open grave, sharp spikes bristled into knives, and eyes in various places that stared me down with a fire.
I covered my body with my arms the same way I did to the bullies at school... But something happened.
The monster had settled down and began tracing my bruises with his claws.
Wip