Random Writing

Monster in the Window

You had that dream again. The one where the beast with drooping hands and wished fangs stares you down from your window. Except the window is open this time... and you're awake!
*****

The light of the full moon casts long shadows dancing across the ceiling and I can hear the nighttime chirping of crickets outside the window. I turn my head to the side to look at the clock. 2:47 it reads. I bring my hand up to my face and run it over my eyes. I had the dream again. The one with the beast. Dripping fangs and glowing eyes, always watching, always waiting just outside my window.
It is then that I notice the slight breeze in my room coming from the direction of the one window in my room. My heart seizes, its beats nearly stopping, and my chest freezes, no longer able to take in air. I am frozen with fear, its icy tentacles snaking its way through my body, claiming me as it's own.
But what am I afraid of?
The monster isn't real. It's only a dream. The monster isn't real. It's only a dream.
At least, that's what I tell myself, chanting it over and over in my head as I slowly tilt my head toward the opposite end of the room. I can feel my heart beating frantically in my chest, my body trembles like a leaf in the wind, my lungs refuse to take in air. This is it, my brain tells me. This is the end.
The monster isn't real. It's only a dream. The monster isn't real.
It can't be. There is nothing on this Earth that cruel, that monstrous, that... inhuman. Monsters are merely a figment of my overactive imagination. I've been told that so many times. Monsters don't exist outside of stories- books and movies made for the daring viewer. Monsters aren't real.
A cold dread works it's way into my bones. My toes are numb. My feet. My ankles. And the icy feeling is spreading throughout my body.
The monster isn't real. It's only a dream.
The dancing shadows play in my vision again, waltzing across the ceiling in a perfectly horrifying dance. For a moment, one shadow turns it's dark head, its deep eyes meeting mine, paralyzing me. It grins. Sharp teeth like the monster in my dream. Long claws, blood red eyes.
I snap my eyes shut. I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't..
The monster isn't real.
The words repeat in my head but it is not my voice that says them. It is something other, something sinister and I don't like it. Not one bit. It's the monster. The one waiting outside my window.  Dripping fangs and glowing eyes, always watching, always waiting just outside. I squeeze my eyes closed, harder than before, urging the lids to join together so that I never have to see the horrible beast again.
Then I hear it. A soft squeaking sound coming from my window. I hold my eyes closed and pull the soft blanket up higher- my only line of defense against a terror that isn't here. Scraping on the windows, creaking of the glass, the slide of the frame on the wooden sill. Footsteps on the carpet, squeaking of the bed springs, a large presence sitting at the foot of my bed.
No. It's just a dream. I steel myself for what I know is coming. It's not real. The monster draws closer, sliding its grotesque body up the sheets. It's just a dream.
It's just a