By Anna Schoettmer

Gentle music swims above me as I hold my hands firm, fingernails digging into mud and dirt and sand. It seems peaceful enough. Too peaceful.

Stars twinkle, shining so bright that the dark sky is as illuminated as when the sun is out. Crickets are always chirping eerily, but I never spot one at my feet. Lightning bugs dance visibly between shreds of grass but I am never able to catch one. There’s a calming wind that tingles the goosebumps riding on my skin and causes the little swingset to lightly creek, swings swaying from side to side. 

The grassy field goes on flat into the horizon, never stopping or leading to something else. I am ultimately stuck… the worst part being that I don’t even know how I got here. All alone. Running, hiding, constantly looking behind my back for a monster. 

I can’t quite describe how I know there is a monster nearby. The feeling most closely resembles the race of your heart when someone is watching you. Or when you know something bad is going to happen. Or when something is sitting wrong in your stomach, paralyzing you with fear or making you run for hours. Now imagine all of these at once, but much, much worse. 

Bubbles begin to rise in my gut, vomit filling my mouth. I swallow it back down. I cannot make a sound. I don’t know how I know this either; I just do. A rustling sound comes from the nearby grasses. Still though, no monster makes itself evident. Sleep tinges at my eyes, begging, crying for them to close. I don’t know how long I’ve been awake. Two days? Three? All I know is that the monster never sleeps and so neither shall I.

Another rustle sound. It’s closer, but yet again I see no monster. Not yet. My breath becomes heavier. Yet each time I try to calm it, quiet it, it merely becomes louder. 

Then, for a moment, everything stills, my breath, my mind, the crickets, even the music. A scream rings out in the air. I sit up out of nowhere, my skin feeling like it just shed off a veil.

“Venessa! My darling baby you’re awake! Tom go get the doctor-” At once my eyes fly open. 

“Mom? Where am I?” It’s clearly a doctor’s office as my eyes adjust to the light. A blue dress covers my body awkwardly, its pale shade somehow the most colorful thing in the room outside of my mother’s cherry red lipstick. She answers me in excited screeches that barely register in my mind. She tells me to lay back down, the doctor was coming in soon. That was all that I could understand in her jumble.

As I do what I am told—adjusting into a more comfortable lying position—the door swings open. “I’m so glad about this news. We just need to run some tests before she falls back to sleep and hopefully she won’t have to stay much longer.” He walks into view and my whole body freezes.

I don’t know how I know this. But I know it’s true. I’m looking at the monster right now, the white lab coat only a guise.

–

Anna Schoettmer is a sixteen-year-old young writer located in Mapleton, Illinois. She runs her high school’s literary magazine and spends most of her free time listening to music with her friends. Her late grandmother, Mary Schoettmer, is her inspiration for being bold in her emotions and writing.