I Believe In Monsters

chapter 1. MEETING THE BOEGEYMAN.

I BELIEVE IN MONSTERS. CHAPTER ONE.

It has been nineteen years, six months and thirteen days since I was born. It has been thirteen years and three months since I met my first monster. It has been three years, six months and 13 days since I was Mercy Williams.

Three years since I had been the bubbly sarcastic sixteen years old. Three years since I had black hair and grey eyes. Three years since I stopped being myself. I had exceeded all life’s expectations. I have been haunted, hunted and stalked.  I have been thrown into an insane asylum even though sanity has yet to leave me. I have met a real life Casper, even if he wasn't as friendly as he was in the movies. I have proven that Devils Traps don’t work on demons, but oddly, they do work on vampires. Honestly, my life is so spontaneous; Mae the crazy fortune teller on 65th street couldn't even begin predicting what would come next. Maybe it’s time I fashion hats out of tinfoil and wait for the alien abduction.

So Mercy Williams had died three years ago. And in her death, a string of new identities had bloomed. I had cycled through so many names that they no longer held any value. In all honesty, it is only by the branded initials on my Forearm that prevents me from forgetting my original one. I have had brown hair and blue eyes, blonde hair and green eyes and currently, orange-pink hair and black eyes. It is hard to get natural coloring when you've already exhausted all the options.

I honestly don't know where to begin, no idea about how to go about this without having you as readers, phone up the closest insane asylum and report an escaped Looney sighting. You won’t believe what I say either way. You'll take comfort in this being fiction and that all that comes out of my mouth is lies meant to reel in more buyers. However, fame is preposterous to a person who has much bigger problems than fashion and paparazzi .The name on the cover is not my real name, and neither is mercy, After all, what a waste of all those years of hiding only to practically stick a spotlight over my head. Mercy is a close to the truth as you will get to finding out my real name. So no, this book is no fiction meant to have me swimming in greens nor a string of imaginative lies meant to put me on the list of bestsellers. It’s....a documentary. A biography. A guide. To all that had sharp teeth and treads the night as if it was a stroll in the park. What was my point again? Ah, beginnings. For that, we travel thirteen years back to the innocent black haired six years old and the first monster I had ever met.

I had been ecstatic that day, to finally get a proper room. No longer had I to room with my drooling younger brother. No longer have to sleep in a cot in the same room as my parents. To a child such as me, this was a big step of independence. Sadly, if I had known that it would lead to a countless number of tortuous nights, where I could only hope and pray for day to finally dawn and save me from these retched beings, I would have gladly stomach the drool and have said "Fuck Independence."

That night thirteen years ago, it began with a low scuffle, a low groan that wouldn’t have been heard had the night been rid of its normal hurly-burly. But it seemed that an earmuff had been placed over the world as an eerie silence set in. A chill hung heavy in air, like a thick blanket, whose only profession was in the art in smothering. Shadows danced and elongated, pushing back the protective rays of my night light. It flickered. Flickered. And darkness.

And then I felt it. The Impending. Alarm bells ringing up ear splitting warnings and adrenaline pumping your veins, the hair would stand up at attention. A tightness in your throat as you struggle to breathe. I suddenly felt cold. Actually, that is not even close to the truth, I was freezing. All the tell tale signs to show that you were very much at the mercy of your fear. After you feel the Impending, it’s just a waiting game after that. One where you’re imagining your death a thousand times over and guessing what bought on the sudden staleness of the air.