Midnight Monsters

For this story we had to write a childhood narrative.

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The clock struck nine P.M. and I felt a wave of excitement run through me. Tonight would be the first night I slept by myself in my own room. I could tell tonight was going to be a brave new journey into the previously unexplored life of sleeping alone. Before my sister and I had our beds in the same room, which forced us to put up with each other.

I practically jumped for joy for her annoying tendencies in the morning would finally cease to annoy me. For some reason even to that day I still was annoyed by her waking me up playing with her Barbies. Especially when she tried to pretend one was a boy since she had no boy Barbies. Plus on those mornings when I refused to get up I wouldn’t feel her strong brute punch in the stomach as an alarm clock.

I perked up my head when I heard the familiar call from my parent’s room telling us to go to bed. I ran to my room not even waiting for the second more threatening call. Each step allowed thoughts of freedom to be unburied from the recess of my subconscious and those thoughts rang through my mind. How grow up I was finally being able to sleep by myself.

“Sparky, Scooby, Fest, Pug, and Steve.” I said addressing my stuffed animals as if I was a military commander. “Tonight we are on our own.” I lined them up on my headboard and looked all around my new room. It looked like my sister’s room. Plain white walls and a single old bed with a creaky mattress that had several springs that stood higher than the others which really hurt your back if you slept the wrong way. The glorious difference in this room was my sister wasn’t in it.

The first several minutes of me trying to sleep were peaceful bliss until I noticed how the darkness around me could be concealing monsters or some other kind of horrible beast. My mind ran rampant with those thoughts. It spun sounds of their shallow breathing and wove images of them by my bed. Even the dark seemed to take life of its own accord for it become suffocating.

Fear gripped me in the usual tight dictated way. I started to take slower breaths and I wish I had super strength like superman or one of those power ranger morph coins that turned them into their powerful alter ego. Heck I would even settle for batman’s utility belt. I would do anything to ease the cursed fear that paralyzed my body.

My mind ran to my emergency plan for monsters due to the realization that super powers or any useful coins or belts wouldn’t find their way to me at that moment in time. “Ok run to mom and dad while they eat my sister.” I whispered. Then it came to me like a ball hitting you on the head. There is no sister snoring in this room for them to attack first. I was vulnerable and could imagine the monsters looking at my pale skin and seeing it as a glow in the dark snack a mist the darkness.

I heard a movement from my doorway and begged my body to move. It listened and I quickly grabbed one of my stuffed animals and held it close to me. I looked down at it and realized it was my neon orange dog Sparky. In my own mind he could shock anyone and it made him the perfect choice to clutch to. My mind filled with fear and thoughts which all contained the phrase I am too young to die in it. I decided that Sparky’s ability to shock would also make him not only an ideal protector but an ideal weapon as well. So I launched Sparky at the intruder by the doorway. “Sorry good old friend,” I said already feeling guilty for betraying a close ally and loved one.

I heard Sparky’s body hit something and froze again. “Ouch! What are you doing you dummy?” I rejoiced for it was my sister’s bossy voice. I also gulped knowing I would probably regret throwing Sparky at her. Still the monsters from my imagination faded like a nightmare’s hold on you, with her presence in the room. That alone made any future regret I would feel from her future punch bearable.

I felt tears flood my eyes filled with relief and joy that tonight for the time being I would be safe. My eyes shut quickly as the light from the lamp my sisters turned on flooded my eyes. I squinted them and noticed she was crying too. I wonder why my brave older sister would be crying. It couldn’t be because she had monster troubles too.

“They can’t do this to us,” she said in between sobs. I agreed despite the fact that an hour ago I hated sharing a room with my sister. She turned off the lamp and laid down next to me. Together we fell asleep.

To this day I still don’t know why my sister was crying since my move back into her room the next day seemed to annoy her more than anything. I choose to not ask her and let that one question from my childhood still plague my thoughts every now and then. Some nights as I lay in my bed at night I chuckle at my past self. I admire his imagination that became reality and the relief that his dictator of a sister brought him.