Dream A Monster That Loves

There is a shadow that comes to her bed at night, an invisible thing that sits on her chest and tells her that if she's good and quiet, it will make her feel good. She would nod and be good. She has never not been good before. She doesn't know what saying no would do, but saying yes means it would touch her all over, and make her feel so much more than good.

The dreams started after her eighteenth birthday and she thinks it's just her imagination, just very weird dreams. But then the marks on her body start bleeding into reality and the family doctor has her immediately institutionalized.

A part of her is worried that it's all just in her head and they would find something wrong with her. A bigger part of her is worried that they will find out that it’s real and just how much she loves it.

~~~~~ Excerpt ~~~~~

“You can just click the emergency button here to let us know if something's wrong, okay?” she continues. “And tonight, I'll be the one sitting on the other side of the glass to observe your sleeping patterns, so there's nothing you need to be afraid of.”

Winter smiles at her gratefully, “That's very reassuring. Thank you.” She doesn't look too reassured though. If anything, she looks a bit worried.

Were the others right? She seems too sweet to be making up medical conditions. She seems to be eating well but somehow is still losing weight. The blood work will be done tomorrow, but for tonight, she will be put under observation.

She wasn't being entirely truthful about being on the other side of the glass to watch, though. That would take up too much time and she has other patients that she needs to keep an eye out on.

She checks in on Scott first, who suffers from insomnia and is here under some sort of medical study. He is taking placebos tonight, so she doesn't expect him to fall asleep. She thinks it's cruel to put an insomniac on placebos, but apparently they need to make sure that the trial medication they have prescribed him with are actually effective. She's just a nurse. She doesn't make the rules around here.

She moves onto a young boy who suffers from night terrors, an elderly man who has been complaining of chest pains in the middle of the night, and several more patients with different symptoms before finally stopping into Winter's room.

Her blood runs cold.

The young woman is asleep, eyes closed, chest rising and falling lightly, blond hair around her head like a halo, but she is not alone.

There is a man standing by her bed, watching her sleep. At first glance, she thought she was looking at one of the younger doctors, but he is not in the standard scrubs. He is overdressed in his three-piece suit.

That's the Grim Reaper, her thoughts tell her. You’re seeing things, the practical part of her mind immediately amends.

Except the more she looks, the more she realizes there's something wrong with the picture. He has a shadow that is too dark and too big. It spreads out from behind him, growing bigger the longer she stares at him, swallowing the light and dropping the room into a shadow, a black emptiness.

She rubs her eyes and realizes that it's not an optical illusion. The shadow is growing bigger, reaching out and curling around the room, like branches of a tree reaching out towards the moon in the darkness, except the moon is the light that is illuminating the room and that light is quickly disappearing.

He is going to swallow the poor girl up, she thinks to herself in panic and lunges forward, forgetting protocol completely as she bangs on the glass mirror. “Stop that!” she says, as though that's enough to stop the man— the creature, from doing what he's doing.

He hasn't done anything yet.

“Stop!” she screams again, louder this time, and then has the mental capacity to press the speaker by the side of the window. “Sir, you have to leave the room right now! You're not allowed in there,” she says, her voice shaking. The tip of her finger is pressing the button so harshly that the tip of her nail loses blood flow, going pale and cold. She is aware that she's shaking lightly, though she's not sure what she's more afraid of, that the man would hurt the girl, or that he would come out here and hurt her.