Losing Control

"Girl"

I gaze out the window as the landscape passes by. Snow is falling from the sky in little puffs. This is the first time Madam Adeline had ever let me out of the house where I grew up. I peer out the window and squint to see if I could see any of the monsters, Madam Adeline always tells me how the world outside was run by monsters.

"Girl?!" Madam's calls, pulling me out of my day dream. Madam never calls me by a name. It's just "girl". If I even had a name then the monsters could use it against me.

"Yes?" I reply, "Where are the monsters, you said we'd see some."

"Oh there out their my dear," Madam mutters, "There out there."

Madam goes on to mutter other things that I can't make out. She was a survivor of a monster attack and she often had flashbacks. I turn back to the window and watch the snow fall faster.

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Detective Webb

Detective Cornelius Webb flipped angrily the file of Missing person Helen Grace. They had just gotten DNA back from the testing unit and found a match in their data base, they had even interviewed and tested the suspect. But, of course, Mrs. Simmons could never file things properly and who the person was was sitting in shreds in the station shredder.

"I'm really very sorry!" Mrs. Simmons apologized for the eighty-millionth time.

"Tell that to the family who had their one year old daughter taken from their home, and the only chance they had at finding her is shredded in that shredder!" Webb spat as he pointed to the shredder across the room. But he silently congratulated himself, he had said all that without messing up once. He always seemed to find the happy in everything. It might be the third cup if coffee he had this morning, or the "How To Be Your Happiest Self!" book his wife had gotten him as present.

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"Girl"

I wake up in Madam's arms as she carries me out of the care and into the new house. I look up into the sky and find that it has stopped snowing.

"Madam," I ask "Why are we here?"

"We had to relocate" Madam says as if that makes sense. "The Monsters would find us, it is never safe to stay in one place for long!"

Suddenly a loud noise fills my ears. It starts very softly and gets louder and louder. I know the sound. Madam has played it for me, it's the call of the monster.

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Detective Webb

Cornelius Webb is not the type of man to stay mad. But in this situation he is very mad.

"YOU SHREDDED ALL THE SUSPECT FILES?!" He yells at the Janitor Martin, who has a very smug look on his face. What is it with people and shredding suspect files? He wonders, it's just a new shredder!

"Yea." Martin replies with his "skater dude" voice and Webb starts to wonder if there was a reason behind this act....

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Mrs. Barbra Simmons

Barbra really did feel bad for accidentally shredding the file. It had been right on top of the "to shred" pile. Only it wasn't really the shred pile. The shred pile was on the other side of her desk. She had been scrolling and reading through her Home Living blog when it had recommended that organizing a space the same time every time could really be effecting the way she works, so she had decided that she should mix up her desk a little.

"What a stupid decision" Barbra commented to herself as she rearranged the folders on her desk. Suddenly her elbow hits a folder and knocks it to the floor. And as Barbra goes to pick it up, the case file reads:

HELEN GRACE COPIES

She runs to Detective Webb

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"Girl"

The monster calls are gone but I'm still very afraid as I pad in my socks to the fridge. I am surprised at how much I remember this place even though I've never been here. Madam had gone grocery shopping and gotten some chips at my request. I got a bowl of them and headed into the study. There Madam Adeline waits for me.

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Detective Webb

"We've solved it!" Detective Webb says in disbelief. His partner Detective Brians stared at the file in disbelief. The DNA found in a splatter of blood belonged to a woman named Adeline Chapele, a French exchange student who was a neighbor to the Grace's.

She was not all there, Detective Webb recalled, when they interviewed her all she did was babble about how they were all monsters. They had waved her off as mentally unstable and continued on with their investigation.

But the one thing was, Webb didn't know where to look. But the Grace family had moved closer to the police station over a year ago and left their house abandoned. Maybe he would go check there....

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"Girl"

I try hard at my studies. I really do, but Madam tell me every day how I am too young to go out and hunt monsters, but I don't ask today. My idea is that maybe Madam will see I have gotten over my obsession of going outside and she will see that I am fit to go out. But even better, fresh snow has started falling

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Adeline

They come.

The monsters have come.

I will not let them take her.

I run.

She is in my arms

Asking me "what's happening"

I tell her its a dream

as I run onto the ice

slipping and sliding

she is mine

mine

mine

mine

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"Girl"

I am not sure what is happening. Weird people came into our house and Madam swooped me up into her arms and carried me out onto the ice. If the situation was not so dire I might've enjoyed the frosted over pond. But the weird people Madam to let me go.

Madam refuses.

They tell her to put me down.

She compiles.

And I set down my foot on the frozen pond.