Soft fur,
sharp teeth.
A round, slow-blinking eye.
Curling horns and a
swooshing tail–
it skreet, skreet, skreets across the floor.
The Monster is hungry.
The great, cavernous pit
inside of it yawns,
greedy,
demanding.
The footfalls are quiet,
it pads almost silently across the shiny floor,
slinking around the corner,
past the first door,
past the third.
It stops at the fourth door,
pausing for a moment
before pressing its jagged claws
into the wood
and pushing the door open.
Creak–
the door groans.
The Monster’s pricked ears swivel at the sound.
The room looks the way it remembers:
filled with too-small furniture,
a round quilted rug, a purple wooden train,
a stack of yellow dominos.
The Monster’s eye grinds in its socket,
turning towards the body in the bed,
bundled in a blue blanket.
The body hasn’t stirred.
Aside from the gentle rise
and fall of his breathing,
he is still.
A shadow seeps from the space between the bed
and Below.
Gingerly, The Monster reaches out a paw and
pats the boy.
Creak–
The Monster’s pit groans,
expectantly.
It knows that it needs to be filled.
AAHHH–
The boy screams,
Frightened eyes peering out from beneath curly dark hair
and rounded mouth partially obscured by his blanket.
He tumbles from the bed
and darts across the floor.
The frantic footfalls of the boy
rushing down the hall echo
in the dark.
Please
The Monster thinks,
too slow to catch the startled boy.
Please wait,
I mean no harm.
But The Monster can already hear sleepy voices
through the wall,
can already see the faint glow of
lights being flicked on.
The great, cavernous pit
inside of it yawns,
greedy,
demanding.
The Monster is alone,
left with The Empty.
Alone, Alone, Alone.
Unloved.
The pit grows bigger and bigger until
it has consumed the Monster.
Please–
The Monster starts to think,
but then he is gone,
just part of the shadow
between the bed
and Below.
