Always a Victim

         What began once a week with a shriek and a concerned mother had slowly evolved into a nightly ritual. Separation anxiety, the doctor told her. She's manifesting fears she has due to the divorce. Just make her comfortable, let her know she's safe. So mother would open the closet. Show her daughter there was nothing therein. She boarded up the space beneath the bed, added night lights.

         Sleep came easier, faster. Nevertheless, mother would always find herself responding to terrified calls. Allow her to come to terms with her fears. She'd reply she knew the difference between imagination and something real. There was something wrong.

         It came upon her one night to switch rooms with her daughter. To her surprise this didn't require monster-proofing her own bedroom. Once she had gotten her daughter sleeping quietly she slid from her bed and crept softly to the other room.

         She decided she had better get some sleep before her daughter inevitably woke up screaming as with every night. Drawing the pink covers over her, she was gone before her head hit the pillow.

         A water droplet. Loose faucet. More. Rain? A chill like winter wind underneath her sheets, and she awoke.

         There it was.

         It came out of the shadows. Elongated limbs of sickly leather skin. Dripping tongue tasted the fear she reeked. Fingers of wet metal pressed her to the bed. It drank deeply, the sustenance of terror. Her horror ripened as a pulp to sip. She begged for rescue. For someone to save her as she had been saving her daughter.

         As asphyxiating cries choked her into oblivion, her last thoughts were confused... hadn't she done everything right?

         So why...
                   was this...
                             happening...