Wandering Moonlight: Writing Prompts & Short Stories

Little Girl Lullaby

*****Ok, so this is one I wrote a LONG TIME AGO. Like at least 7 or 8 years I think. I honestly don't remember. Less than 10 years. So if you're familiar with my writing, you can see how my writing has changed, or not. Idk.

This was a kind of personal, cathartic story for me to write. It's also riddled with triggers, though they're written in mostly metaphors. So TRIGGER WARNING: This short story contains self harm themes, and mentions of sexual molestation. Please do not read if anything of that nature is a trigger for you.

Little Girl Lullaby faces her demons.*****

She knows she isn't crazy. She knows, despite what they tell her, that she is as sane as the next person. But they won't listen, won't let her explain the monsters in the dark and the claws that come, every night, only when she's alone.

She lays on her thin bed, staring up at the white ceiling, begging for sleep to come before they do. Her eyes are cold, dull, but her brain is racing. Three more hours, she thinks. And then they'll be back, faceless and begging to be heard. She shifts her arms under the blankets, pulled up to her neck and almost over her face. It makes her feel safe somehow. Like maybe they won't get her if the blanket protects her like armor.

She looks away from the white ceiling, moving her gaze to the white wall with the black hand prints adorning it like wallpaper. Her memories flash across her eyes, moving fast as a hummingbird's wings, and she fights back a sob. She wishes she could forget little girl lullaby, her white tulle, pink satin slippers, and the ink man with the red eyes and long fingernails. She wishes, and dreams, and hopes, and prays that little girl lullaby will just go away; she wishes, and dreams, and hopes, and prays that the scars on her wrists that demon created would have done their job and she could begin again in the clouds.

She remembers the doctors' voices, all speaking at once. "The monsters don't exist. Little girl lullaby is a figment of your imagination, a vision your psyche created to deal with your childhood."

"No!" she says. "No, I can feel her, here, inside me."

But they never listen, only shake their heads and push her away. But the one doctor, the one who pulls himself away from the others, he seems to understand. He watches her, his eyes so clear she can see into his soul.

"Listen," he says gently, a small smile on his hesitant face. "Tonight, when the monsters come and little girl lullaby asks you where she is, listen, and answer as best you can. Maybe you'll come to understand why they come to you each and every night."

She thinks on this as she watches the room around her, with the black hand prints that cover everything. But, just as the moon begins to rise in the starless sky, little girl lullaby begins to cry.

She looks down at her, little girl lullaby's face coated in pink tears, with the hand prints painted on her white tulle in black ink and the little tiara on her soft hair.

She looks down at little girl lullaby with tears in her own eyes, and asks as quietly as she can,"What's wrong, little girl lullaby?"

Little girl lullaby looks around, doesn't listen, and screams, so loud and piercing and full of fear it makes her scrunch her eyes shut against it.

"Where's my mama?" little girl lullaby cries.

"Oh, little girl lullaby, don't you cry. Your mama's in a palace, up in the stars."

"Oh," sighs little girl lullaby, not listening. "Where's my daddy?"

"Little girl lullaby, don't you cry, your daddy's in the green pastures up in the skies."

"Oh," says little girl lullaby, suddenly afraid. "Where am I?"

"Little girl lullaby, you're locked away, 'cause I can't bear to see your little girl slippers and your little girl bows."