Page 14 of Monstrous

I can’t protect myself even when my life literally depends on it. I proved it beyond a doubt today when I froze instead of fighting for freedom. What would have happened if the bad guy actually had a knife to my throat? Or a gun?

Or if he suddenly somehow morphed into a weird shapeless blob of tar and pure night before sucking out my insides?

I have no answers. The voices are also oddly silent.

“What? No answer for me?”

My phone vibrates at my side, and a glance down shows me it’s the bank calling. Probably the girls checking up on me and trying to see if I had a random episode or if I’ve finally lost my marbles. Maybe they’re trying to see if I made it home or if I crashed somewhere along the way. I appreciate the concern but I’m not in a place to answer right now.

“Come on, guys. Show yourselves,” I say out loud to the eyes still burning holes through me. “I know you’re here.”

Those damn shadow voyeurs.

Their silence doesn’t fill me with any sense of relief. If anything, it pisses me off. Like they’re keeping their lips zipped on purpose.

“I’m through playing games! This is ridiculous. You’ve been here this entire time and it wasn’t until today that you actually stepped in to help me out!” I end on a shout and have to wrangle myself back to earth, growling a little with my hands balled into fists. “Now, do a girl a solid and show me who…what…you really are.”

The phone continues to ring, only this time when I glance at the screen, it’s my mother.Wow. The woman has her sixth sense trained on me and I know if I don’t answer her, she’ll continue to call. Or heaven forbid she’ll dial the fire department on me again and I’ll have to deal with that mess.

Well, this time Ican’tanswer because I’ve turned into a human ice statue. The shadows have begun to swirl in a completely unnatural way.They’re here. The shade that a potted plant casts on the floor detaches from the wood, shifting and growing into a six-foot-something tall man.

No, not a man, I quickly correct, focusing on the thought rather than my fear. He’s something else. Something I can’t put a name to because it isn’t supposed to exist.

A glance to the left shows me the same thing happening to the gloom beneath the television stand. And again, on the threshold to the kitchen. Three shadows, three monsters. They emerge, taking shape with the phone ringing off the hook and I’m frozen. Paralyzed.

I need my pills.

This is unreasonable, I think to myself, desperate to disappear on the spot as the men continue to solidify. Impossible and crazy and—

They’re staring at me again. Those burning coal-red eyes bore into me and I’m not sure where to look.

The phone screams for my attention and it’s completely taken by the three…well, now they look like men for real. More solid, more like actual human male models, but something is still off.

They’ve come to life straight off the pages of my sketchbook. Not just today’s drawing, either. My mind races back through pages and books of drawings dating back to the first night when I lost Walker.

The knowledge clicks into place like a bomb going off inside of me. These guys have been with me all along. For years.

“There you are,” I whisper. “Finally.”

The nearest one inclines his shadow head.

We’ve always been here, Marianna, he says.

Only, the words are a buzz in my head. They aren’t actually spoken out loud, but I hear them clearly nonetheless.

These are the beasts who fought off the Darkness for me today. Okay, well maybe nottheDarkness, but someone who made me feel exactly the same way he had.

These are the monsters from my sketchbooks. The protectors, conjured from my drawings.

“Why now?” I ask. “Why are you only showing yourselves to me now? What changed?”

As much as the fear keeps me rooted in place, an innate, underlying sensation slowly pushes to the surface. Something that shouldn’t have scared me as much as these monsters and yet it does—connection.

I have a connection to the three of them, probably because I’ve known them for a long time.

And yet, I realize that they aren’t real. They’re a figment of my imagination. Maybe that’s why I’m connected to them. Because they’reme.

We only needed you to cry out for our help, the one on the left tells me.You had to say the words, Mari. It opened the door for us. To step fully into this world and assist you when you need us.

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