There's a monster in my closet.
I can hear it breathing.
I can feel it moving.
Slowly cleaning the bones of the last child too scared to cry out.
With matted fur soiled and sticky with blood and tears.
It's waiting for me.
Smelling my clothes.
My shoes.
Things in boxes I haven't thrown away.
Knowing me.
No... remembering me.
Claws scrape across the floor.
It hears me typing.
It hears my cat eating in the kitchen.
It remembers long ago when I was a child.
When it hid just outside of my bedroom door.
It went away when I learned that there were far more things to be terrified of than monsters.
Because monsters were not real.
It speaks.
A soft growl.
(Because monsters were not real.)
It shifts.
I hear the deep violent breaths.
It walks.
I see the clawed foot.
The matted fur.
The blood.
The blood.
The blood.
Outside, a car passes slowly.
And I turn off the light.
