E. 3 | WOLVES IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING

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ENTRY 3:
[ WOLVES IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING ]



DEAR YOU,

     I was running in my dreams again. 

     I was being chased by the monster

     I was a kid: so tiny, so sickly, so small. Weak. I was in my childhood room; the deep blue walls were filled with my baseball posters and toys, and I heard him rattling the walls. He shook them so hard the picture frames—the pretty paintings, I had pinned to the wall—shattered to the ground. I was in the den of the monster now. 

     This was no longer my room, but a war zone.

      He stomped and rattled, hissing out his battle call.

     I'd always close my eyes then. 

     It was always easy if you couldn't see what was about to happen.

     It was less real then.

     The monster stomped into my room. He wanted to kill me, I thought. But he didn't. He never did. He was all bark, with no bite. His nails dug into my skin, sinking into my flesh. His tongue slithered out of his rotten, crack lips, running along my neck. He smelt foul; smelt like old booze and grease from cars. I couldn't run fast enough, because he always caught me. Trapped me between his large monstrous hands, caging me between them.

     There was no escape.

     I wished I was dead.

     I wished I was dead.

     I wished I was dead.

     I wished I was dead instead of here in the hands of the monster as he breathed on my neck. His nails in my skin, his blood-shot eyes peering down at me, his mouth twisted. My body twisted, molding, twisted again. 

     The monster wasn't human—the monster was bigger than me, taller than me, wider than me—the monster was darkness and pain. The dream didn't end quickly, no. The dream didn't end until the monster stilled, till his claw-like fingers tighten till I bleed then he cried out. 

     I wished I was dead.

     The monster didn't stay, he slithered away like a snake. He was so inhuman-like, I kept still so he wouldn't see me. If I was still like a mouse, he would leave. He would stomp away, with his monster-like feet, into the cave. He wouldn't show himself again until the next night.

     Sometimes, the monster would wrap his hands around my throat. Claw at me, ripping my skin apart with his nails. If I was not silent like a mouse, he'd throw me away, throw me in the closet, till I was silent. My head wound crack against the wooden door. If I made a sound, if I breathed too loud, the monster said he would kill me

     Rotten little shit, the monster would growl, you're lucky I don't swallow you whole.

     I wish he would, I wish he would swallow me whole.

     I wish that he would trap me his stomach, till I starved. He could crush me in his palm, wad me up like a paper ball, and gulp me down like bubblegum.

     Maybe then my dreams wouldn't lasted so dreadfully long. 

     The closet was small, filled with so little air. It was dark, no light inside at all. I couldn't see. I'd place my hands in front of my eyes, trying to get a glimpse of my fingers, but I never saw them. My lungs were no longer lungs, they were straws strapped to deflating balloons. The monster didn't let me leave till the woman in the background slurred and yelled, saying it was time—said it was important I didn't die. Said that it would be bad if I died, an inconvenience.

     The woman never spoke to me; she slept, slurred, and stayed silent in the monster's cave. The monster told her not to touch me, not to comfort me, because I was a leach. I attached myself and bleed things dry. I didn't see her much, she was always drinking from a glass bottles and holding hands with the monster. 

     Once I tried to touch her hand across the dinner table, to see if she were real, to see if she had skin like me. I touched it, it was soft and rough, and she pulled it away. Winced like I had burned her. I used to think I was too sharp—I thought my skin was shards of broken glass, that could kill if I wasn't careful enough. 

    The woman was just as bad.

     The woman was worse.

     The dreams lasted so dreadfully long.

     I didn't wake up, not until you wrapped your arms around my chest, shaking me. I rocked back and forth. I was dreaming so deep, it felt like I had to swim up to my consciousness. You pressed your lips against my forehead, kissing my sweaty temple. 

     I jumped, shaky and panicked.

      You said I was okay, said I was safe.

     I wrapped myself around you like sheets, baring my head against your bare chest. We didn't move or speak until I stopped shaking. Only then did you ask what the monster was, but I never answered.

     I said it didn't matter.

     The monster was gone, the monster was dead.

     The girl lived her life without the monster, didn't drink from bottles anymore, and cried all night long. The woman lived alone, with no one to love or say sorry to. The monster lived in the ground, covered in dirt and shit, where he belonged

     That's all that mattered. 

     The monster was dead.

     You were the only one that chased away the nightmares. I don't sleep anymore.


FROM ME.

DEAR YOU, | ✓Where stories live. Discover now