Monster in the closet
This story originated from a random idea. As a child, I used to be afraid of the dark closet, especially when I had to sleep alone. If there is indeed a monster hiding there, what would be their thought?
I am a monster. Currently I am hiding in the closet of a young girl’s bedroom.
Before you ask, yes, monsters do exist.
Just like gods, people believe in us, so we exist. A very long time ago, we appeared in public with various shapes and forms, such as dragons or trolls. We never intended to scare you, just to impress, sometimes showing off.
That didn’t work quite as…what we expected.
You see, you adults are terrible at imagining things, or believing things from imagination. When monsters appeared, you were first terrified and ran away, then you regrouped and started hunting us.
To make things worse, when we stopped showing up in one form, you convinced yourselves that you had “conquered” the monster. Then you forgot about us all together, acting as if we never existed.
That suck!
Until we found another untapped gold mine. Your children.
But of course, we did not just show up in front of a child as a giant spider or whatever that child was afraid of. No, that would just result in angry parents kicking us out of the house, or worse.
The key is subtlety, and personalization.
Enter the closet. It is dark, and usually has things that can make noise. Hiding in the closet, I don’t even need to worry about donning a scary appearance. A child’s wild imagination does most of the work for me.
A creaky sound or a scratching noise is usually what it takes to send a child hiding under their blanket. The hardest thing I have ever needed to do is a few low growls plus showing a hairy hand with long nails.
Once they convince themselves that there is a monster in their closet, the belief stays with them for a lifetime. More believers for me.
Why am I telling you all this? Because I am bored waiting for the girl to go to bed so I can scare her. She has been fidgeting for the past hour. Where are her parents?
Oh, I forget to mention. Scaring children has become an immensely successful survival technique for monsters. The gods have been competing for believers for millennium. And if you don’t go big, you will go home. Believers of a god are not as stable, or “devoted”, as they seem either. One revelation can be what it takes to make them stop believing in a god.
That’s why there are only a handful of gods today. But monsters? There are millions of us.
Knock, knock, knock. Then, a girl’s voice, “Are you…are you…in there?”
Now this is a first. I have never heard of this question before, not from a child.
“Please…I need your help…”, the voice trails off. Then I think I hear a sob.
A human child, needs a monster’s help? I open the closet door, curious to find out if I misheard something.
A blonde girl stands in front of me, wearing blue pajama with pink flower patterns. She looks like a normal kid, except…
She has one deep bruise on her right cheek, and another one near her left eye. There is also a scar on her right forearm.
Eh-oh, she must be one of those children whose parents are abusive. Normally, we monsters avoid them. They are already fearful and traumatic. Trying to scare them more will not turn them into monster believers faster, it will just break them.
I better go now. Find another happy kid and be done with tonight.
Instead, I take a step closer to her, and extends my furry arm to touch her scar.
Yes, furry arm. I turned into a four feet tall teddy bear. No, I don’t know why I decided to stay. How should I know? You human adults are supposed to raise happy and clueless younglings so we monsters can have an easy time scaring them! Now look at this mess!
Anyway, I gently touch her scar. It still feels raw. She must have gotten it just recently.
“Who did this to you?” I ask. Although I already guess the answer.
“It was…my…father.”, she says in a low voice, “he…couldn’t find his…”
Her voice trails off again and she starts to sob in silence. My body moves by itself before I can say anything. I hug the little girl, gently.
Her name is Emilia. I spend the next hour trying to calm her down. I also learn everything she have suffered. The girl is so fearful I have to use a calming spell to force her to sleep.
How can some of you adults be so cruel to your own children? Even monsters don’t do that!
I am about to leave the girl when I hear heavy footsteps approaching. A few seconds later, several poundings on the door shake the room. The girl flinches in her sleep and clutches more tightly on her stuffed unicorn.
“Emilia…open…open the door! Damn it!”, a man says in a drunk voice, “I am…I am not done with you!”
With a growl, I transform again before opening the door. Now I am a bear from man’s worst nightmare.
I see a pale and revolting face. The unfocused eyes on that face meet my glare and slowly widen. The man’s mouth opens wide but fails to produce any scream. He then slumps down and starts shaking.
No, I didn’t kill him, although I want to. I just made him swear to take better care of Emilia, and never do anything more abusive than a raised eyebrow.
I went back to Emilia’s closet a week later and she was a much happier girl. She asked me to turn into something scary, then laughed at my giant spider transformation. It was a fun night this time. I promised to visit her every week until she can live independently.
Well, I guess I found another way to convert children into my believers. This time, it doesn’t involve scaring them.
That works for me.
