The Monster Under My Bed

"Mommy?"

Emma's mother pivot on her heal facing her daughter. "What it it hon."

"You forgot to check under the bed," says Emma smiling innocently.

Her mother smiles, and still standing in the doorway, bends down to look under the child's bed. "Well I don't see any monsters..."  says her mother trailing off.

Emma smiles triumphantly, "thanks mommy."

Her mother smiles, turns out the light, and closes the door leaving Emma in the isolated darkness. Emma brings the covers over her head instinctively. She then hears the same shuffling under her bed that she hears every night. "But mommy checked," she sniffles under the covers. "She said nothing was there," she whimpers again, "why would she lie?" By now Emma was crying like never before.

"What's wrong Emma?" Says a woman's voice. Not her mother voice, but a strangers.

Emma peeks her amber eyes over the covers to see the stranger in her pink walled bedroom. The woman had beautiful blonde hair with red, stained tips. She wore black jeans and a graphic tank top with a leather, studded belt. Her porcelain skin also had red splotches, matching her hair.

"Who are you?" Asks Emma timidly still muffling her voice under the covers.

"Don't worry Emma," said the stranger hold her hands up in surrender. "I'm here to help."

But Emma's curiosity got the best of her, and she lowered her covers under her chin. "What's your name?"

"No time-" she started when Emma noticed a glint behind the stranger and shouted, "what's that?"

"Oh," said the stranger pausing for a moment the curing her lips with a knowing smirk. "Would you like to see?" Emma nodded eagerly. The woman turned around to show white, feather wings dripping with the crimson blood that matches her clothes and hair.

Emma gasps. "Your my Guardian angle aren't you?" The woman nods. "What happened to you?" Asked Emma as if just noticing the blood.

"They're coming for you," says the guardian suddenly turning serious. That's why I'm here. I tried to hold them off but...," she pauses as if mentally debating before she says. "We have to go." She reaches down and pulls Emma up out of her bed. Emma clutches the stuffed cat her mother had given her when she was born as she wraps her arms around the angels neck.

The angel sets Emma down in front of the doorway and turns on the light. She turns to Emma as they stand in front of the closed door. "I'll be right back, okay. I just have to make sure the coast is clear," says the angel.

"Wait," whimpers Emma. "Don't go. What if your not here to protects me when they come."

The angel grabs her shoulders saying, "Emma, I'll always be here to protect you even if you can't see me."

Emma nods as her angel throws open the door dashing through the house. Emma stands in the open doorway clutching the stuffed cat. She waits for one minuet... two minuets... then three. She lets out a relieved sigh when her angel shows up in the doorway after four minuets and smiles at her. "All cle-"

But she couldn't finish her sentence because there was a swish of a knife that landed directly in her back, and she crumpled to the floor. Standing behind the crumpled heap of Emma's protector was the monster she had finally come face to face with.

But the face she looked at was none other than her mother. "Well," said her so called 'mother'. "I guess there is no use hiding anymore," she says bluntly. Then she steps over the crumpled body of Emma's Guardian Angel. "In the meantime..." trails the monster stepping towards little Emma.

Emma's guardian silently slips the knife from her back without letting a shutter escape past her lips. The angel then drives the knife swiftly through the monsters back, instantly killing it.

"I told you I'd always be there to protects you, Emma," sighs the young girls guardian happily. "

Those were the last words Emma ever head from her angel as she drifted off into a deep sleep from which she would never awake as Emma stared at the two lifeless heaps before her.

The one had been there to ensure her safety, the other her death. Both were now dead, but neither were really gone.