Fantasy and Myth

Who's the Monster?

The small, softly glowing nightlight plugged into the wall socket by the door offered almost no help against the darkness filling the bedroom. Kenny had the covers pulled up to his neck, not to keep warm, but to hide the plastic baseball bat he still held. He only pretended to be asleep. Kenny was waiting for the monster to show up. His parents never believed his story about a monster under the bed, but he'd be able to prove it once he captured the thing.

The nighttime hours drifted by. The clock on the wall ticking softly as minute by minute slipped away. Kenny heard no other sound and sensed no movement. His eyelids began to droop, but all thoughts of sleep vanished when he heard the sound of claws against the wood floor of his bedroom.

His knuckles turned white as he gripped his bat tighter, waiting for the right moment to throw back the blanket and attack. A pale red light from under his bed cast a massive shadow on the wall. A shaggy coat of fur covered the beast, and curving horns protruded from its head. Claw tipped fingers nearly dragged the floor on long arms. The shadow seemed to grow, spreading out across the wall to reach the ceiling and tower over him.

Suddenly, the shadow vanished, but the glow remained. Slowly, with shaking hands, Kenny pulled back the covers and leaned over the side of his bed, plastic bat held ready to smash anything scary that showed itself. Instead of the rear wall of his bedroom, Kenny found a rippling pool of red light as bright as a fire engine. He poked at it with the end of his bat, causing the ripples to change their pattern, but he couldn't feel anything. It was as if he were pushing on empty air.

Curious as to what it was, Kenny climbed out of bed and crawled underneath. He touched the pool of light on his wall with a hand and felt nothing. It wasn't warm or cold, and it didn't tingle or shock. Kenny began to think he was imagining it and nothing was really there at all. Deciding to test his idea, he pushed on the rippling light in an attempt to reach the wall behind it. Nothing stopped his shove, and he went clear through, tipping off balance and falling through the light and into the open air on the other side.

Kenny landed flat on his face in a soft, powdery material. Purple-gray in color, the dusty stuff covered everything in sight as far as he could see in any direction. Kenny stood up, brushing the strange powder off his striped pajamas. The rippling pool of light was behind him, but nothing else was within his view. He didn't find any trees, rivers, mountains, buildings or animals, only the endless fields of purple-gray dust. The sky was a lifeless tan of old paper, and the sun hanging in the sky looked old and tired, glowing a dull orange barely brighter than the moon he'd seen in his own backyard.

For a moment, he thought about crawling right back through the rippling pool standing upright at his feet, but he changed his mind when he saw hoof prints in the dust. Having seen the monster's shadow on the wall, Kenny had been expecting a beast bigger and taller than him, big enough to eat him in a single bite, but the prints he found were very small, barely the size of his closed fist. Kenny decided if the monster turned out to be little, he'd have a much easier time catching it and taking it home to show his parents. Taking a test swing with his plastic bat, Kenny set off following the prints to see where the monster had gone.

Kenny lost track of how long he'd been following the trail of hoof prints, and he was about to give up and go home when he climbed to the top of a small dune and found a road sign. A worn, rectangular piece of wood, attached to the top of a pole wedged into the ground, pointed the way ahead. Kenny couldn't read the sign as the symbols carved on it were crescent moon shapes, some crossing, others by themselves, and each one of them was turned in a different way.

Looking in the direction the sign was pointing, Kenny thought he saw something in the distance where the trail of hoof prints was leading. Walking faster, Kenny was able to see more as he got closer to it. It looked like a small town or village with a series of short huts gathered in a wide circle.

Kenny paused a moment and thought about how many monsters might be there if more than one hut was lived in. He waited and stared hard at the small buildings. He didn't hear anything, not even the wind, and no horde of screaming monsters came running out to swarm him like ants. All the doors were shut, and no lights showed through the windows. As far as he could see, no one was home. Raising his plastic bat, he approached slowly.

He felt like a giant walking between the huts, as none of them were taller than his waist. He nudged a door with the tip of his bat, but it remained closed. A skittering sound came from inside, followed by hushed whispers, but it was too quiet for Kenny to understand any of what was said. It did let him know something was inside.

Before he could try and find out who or what was in the hut, a rattling noise made him turn around. A small creature, barely as tall as his knee, came shuffling forward. Covered in soft brown fur, the round creature had two horns poking up from its forehead like tiny fingers. It had long arms and tiny claws on each of its three fingers. The face didn't have a nose or ears Kenny could see. Its mouth was wide enough to reach both sides of its head. The eyes were unlike anything he'd seen before. The eyes reminded Kenny of a pair of green marbles held up to the light as they were completely clear and glowed brightly. The rattle Kenny had heard earlier came from the short branch the creature used as a staff. Hanging down from a number of twigs at the top were keychains, necklaces, a locket, a tiny pocket watch, and a car air freshener in the shape of a tree.

Stopping only a short distance away, and out of reach of Kenny's bat, the creature stared at him with its glowing eyes and said nothing.

"Are you some kind of wizard monster?" Kenny asked.

"I am no monster!" the creature yelled, its wide mouth opening so large, Kenny thought it in danger of having the top part of its head fall off. "You are the monster that has come into our world, bringing fearsome weapons to crush us and destroy our homes!"

The little creature pointed with its staff toward the plastic baseball bat Kenny held.

"I didn't bring this to destroy anyone's home," Kenny objected. "I brought it so you wouldn't attack me."

"You aren't here to destroy us?" the creature asked softly.

"No," Kenny promised.

"Then, why did you come into the lands of Belota?" it questioned.

"I thought there was a monster under the bed," Kenny told him, kneeling down to be closer to eye level. "I found what looked like pool of light under my bed, and when I went through it, I ended up here. Who are you?"

"I am Upar, leader of the village of Dur'nae," the creature told him.

"I'm Kenny," he informed Upar. "Why were your people under my bed?"

"Belota has nothing to build with," Upar said. "We need food for our people, and nothing grows here, so we must go through the pools into the dark lands of giant monsters to find what we need."

"We're not monsters either," Kenny argued. "I'm just a kid."

"A child of your kind is a giant to us," Upar explained. "How much more of a giant would an adult be to us?"

"I never thought of it that way," Kenny admitted.

"If you mean no harm, you may go in peace," Upar offered, gesturing back the way Kenny had come from.

"Maybe I can help," Kenny suggested.

"What do you have in mind?" Upar questioned.

Kenny returned to his world, but he left things under the bed for Upar and his people to find, cookies and milk in the summer, cans of soup and chili in the winter. Socks went missing from time to time in the human world, and only Kenny knew the creatures of Belota used them like sleeping bags. Leaving entire packages of socks for them, he'd find empty wrappers in the morning. So began his long friendship with the creatures under the bed.