Monster

There is a creature. 

     It is a monster. 

     It creeps into the beds of the living, into the homes of families loved and alive, and it steals them away. 

     And Celia, Celia is going to kill it. 

     She hefts the antique rapier in her hand. There are things in this world that are heavier than others, she thinks. Hopes, fears, dreams, responsibilities. But the death she grips is an easy weight. 

     Her father has always kept it on the mantle. A family heirloom, he claims. He was too consumed with grief to notice Celia leaving tonight. 

     Celia understands his grief, misplaced as it might be. She knows it’s how she, herself, would feel if their situations were reversed. If she didn’t know what had actually happened to her mother.

     It has been a week. One week since a dark presence woke Celia and summoned her from her bed into the hallway, just in time to see her mother step off the window ledge and into the depths of the great, shadowy monster. Celia had barely been able to hold back her screams, but it didn’t matter. The beast saw her, turned. It looked right at her, eye to eye - if the glowing things where a face should be could be called “eyes.” It had stretched out a hand, as if considering taking her as well, but Celia had shrunken back, and the monster had turned away and moved on. 

     It has been a week of no sleep, staying up all night to track this creature of darkness. But it has paid off. She finally has a lead. 

     It had not taken long for her to come across people with similar stories, stories of sticky summer nights and loved ones jumping off roofs. It had not taken long to plot a path between the disappearances and find its next victim. 

     The midnight is thick and sweaty, the cloying smells of flowers burning Celia’s nose as she passes their bushes. Virginia summers are a special type of torture, and deep in the heart of her town’s residential neighborhoods, hell becomes not other people or a fiery underground, but the Turner mansion. Where a swirling mass of shadows gathers. 

     Her lead has paid off. Now, all there is to do is wait. 

     Celia watches the eldest Turner child be stolen, plucked like one of Mrs Turner’s stinking roses and devoured by the beast. Satisfied for the night, the monster begins to move again, in the direction of the forest. Celia follows. 

     She picks past the warning signs that she, as a vicious Girl Scout, layed years ago as she crosses the boundary between the town and the forest. Many times has her mother complained about these trees, saying they give her no room to breathe. If Celia is honest, she’s not sure if her mother is breathing now. Celia always disagreed with her mother, of course. She’s always thought of the woods lining the highway (pressing in, in, in) as old friends. Of course, there were always times where they became claustrophobic, times she felt a sense of urgent terror when looking at them, ancient giants, some gut instinct telling her that the forest is alive and breathing, a creature itself that will claw and grab and snatch. So she’s always disagreed with her mother. But times like these, she understands. Because now, she too looks at the forest - and feels it looking back. 

     Anxiety thrums in every bone as the darkness seems to swallow her whole. But her eyes adjust to the dark, and the shadow monster stops before long, slithering down into a burrow of some sort. Celia steels herself, taking a deep breath before plunging through dirt and nests and god-knows-what else, things she doesn’t even want to think about crawling over her skin. 

     But it works. She emerges into a small, dimly lit cavern. The beast is cornered. Strangely enough, it does not immediately attack when it sees a weapon in the hands of an enemy. It simply tilts its “head,” or what might be called its head, and slowly begins to move forward. Can a sword cut through shadows, Celia wonders, can an ordinary girl with a vengeful will become a hero. Will she become a knight or be swallowed by the monster herself? She charges. 

     To Celia’s credit, she makes it quick. The monster doesn’t even have time to open its gaping maw before she guts it with her sword. 

     And when the darkness clears, her mother falls into her arms. 

     All around Celia, people are waking up, dazed and confused. The cavern is cramped, but it doesn’t matter. Celia will show them how to get out. She’ll be a hero, and her mother will be proud of her. 

     Her mother slowly opens her eyes, wincing at the light, dull as it is. “Celia?” She croaks, her voice hoarse from misuse. “Where am I?” 

     Celia’s eyes shine with happy tears. “You’re with me, Mother! I’ve slain the monster, it’s dead! It can’t hurt you anymore!” 

     A look of sudden comprehension comes over her mother’s face. She closes her eyes for a moment, and then opens them with renewed strength. They’re different now, Celia notes. Darker. More shadowed. More heavy. More burdened. 

     “Celia, darling… I have not had a happy life,” she begins, and Celia doesn’t understand. “Your father is not a kind man. I love you more than anything, but… there have been times where I’ve thought about ending it all. That night, I was offered a different option. Not life, not death, but something in between. Rest. I’m so sorry. I had to take it.”

     Celia shakes her head in disbelief. This can’t be true. Her mother would never abandon her. 

     “I’m so sorry I had to leave you. I’m so sorry I’m not the person you thought I was. I was selfish, I needed to be selfish.” Her mother is crying, but they aren’t happy tears. They aren’t tears of joy at being reunited. 

     “Don’t you see?” Her mother gestures around the cave, to where so many people are waking up, rubbing their eyes, dazed, confused, crying. Not happy. Not free. “That creature offered us a solution. It offered us hope. It gave us peace. It gave us a home.” 

     And now, Celia’s tears are flowing, horror dawning as she realizes what really happened to her mother. Realizes the horrible, horrible mistake she has made. 

There is a creature. And it is a monster. But it is not the beast Celia has slain. The true monster, Celia left at home earlier that night. The true monster sleeps in her bed where a father should be.

Celia hugs her mother, clutches her as she tries to wrap her mind around the world she now lives in, a world where mothers are selfish and men can be beasts. A world where she is not a hero, not a knight in shining armor, but a little, lonely, lost girl.

    There was a creature. 

    It crept into the beds of the living but unalive, the houses of homeless survivors, and it gave them a way out. 

    There was a creature. 

     It was no monster.