My Side Stories

The Unexpected Guest

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     Monsters existed. Leann knew that, at least in her house, monsters had to exist. How else could she explain the claw marks on her bedroom ceiling?

       She had a pup named Bone but he was so small that he even struggled getting into her shoebox when they would have played hide-and-seek.

       However, when brought to the attention of her recently, uncaring mother, she either got one of two responses: "You probably do it in your sleep honey," or "We all know you have a sleepwalking problem sweetie and your bed is not that far from the ceiling."

       Sadly, it was true. Having a bunk bed was probably not the best idea for a person who would sleepwalk in the middle of the night, but they had bought it prior to her getting the sleep disorder and it cost too much to have to replace it.

       That could have been the reason, or it could have also been because, as her mother always said, "Why mess with something that isn't harming anyone?" At the time, they had decided not to get rid of the bed.

       For a long time before the marks appeared, Leann had always loved sleeping at the top because her glow in the dark star stickers were settled there. When she couldn't sleep, she would stare at them and count them until drowsiness overtook her. However, during the past few months, they disappeared one. . .by. . .one.

       She noticed it when her counting shortened every day. This started around the same time that her sleepwalking began. Not everything changed immediately. The differences were subtle...almost ominous.

       In fact, her family did not realize her new disorder until they found her jumping on the roof one morning and they couldn't call her down. They had said that she eventually collapsed and when they brought a ladder and approached her, she had made a dent in the roof.

       Nobody new how long she had been there but, from then on out, doctors had recommended she sleep in on the lower bunk to minimize any chances of receiving injuries.

       They had said that her disorder was probably only temporary because it could have appeared due to stress at school. Her parents were given instructions on how to treat Leann when she was in that state and with that, they had unworriedly left the clinic. She had no reason to think that something was completely wrong with her. Then, a week passed.

Despite her parents' reprimands, Leann could never explain why she always awoke on the upper bed of the bunk in her room. She was instructed repeatedly that she was to sleep on the bottom but she couldn't avoid the inevitable morning spent above the area where she had originally spent the night in. Leann could never recall disobeying her parents when she went to bed so she simply blamed her sleepwalking.

If she was being honest however, she didn't see what the problem was so, when her parents frowned and began their now daily lecture, she drowned them out and made her way past them to the kitchen. Her normal routine consisted of grabbing a bowl of the cornflakes and sitting next to her puppy's bed on the porch.

Bone, a golden pup gifted to her last Christmas, would usually bound up to her and take a seat near her feet. Strangely, that morning he did not. Instead, he had lifted his head from his bed and stared blankly at her. "Hi Bone, how is my little baby doing?" Leann had made a move to grab him but he backed away hastily. The poor thing was shaking and she immediately became worried. She had stood up and called her mother.

When she arrived, Leann pointed to Bone and explained what was wrong. "Oh, honey, he's a dog, he'll be fine so long as you care for him." With that, she disappeared back into the house. Although she was worried, she didn't know what to do. She gave one last look at her beloved dog and went back inside.