Tag: monster fren

howtobangyourmonster:

There’s something in your apartment.

You catch it out of the corner of your
eye, sometimes, skulking in the shadows. It’s amorphous and reminds
you of smoke, living smoke. Sometimes you see a tentacle-like
appendage, or a tail, the occasional claw or paw. The only thing that
seems consistent is the eyes. Four of them, softly glowing.

You’re not afraid of it. It’s never
done anything to hurt you and at times it can be nice, feeling like
there’s something else in the place. Like you’re not totally alone.

Today is a bad day, though.

You can hardly move, can’t get out of
bed.

Your head pounds from bouts of crying,
interspersed with long stretches of not feeling anything at all. This
particular depressive episode has been going on for a while. The
apartment is a mess, and you know you stink. You haven’t had the
energy or motivation to take a shower in…days? Days. At least.

The apartment is a mess of take out
containers and dirty dishes piled on the small kitchen counter. Piles
of laundry lay scattered across the floor while your open closet
displays mostly empty hangers.

You’re torn between knowing that you
have so much to do and being too overwhelmed to do anything, so
instead here you are, in bed, wishing you could stop existing.

Rolling onto your back, you open your
eyes to stare at the ceiling, and see a writhing, coiling mass of
shadow and smoke above your bed. It’s never come out in the open like
this before, in all the months since you moved in. Four glowing eyes
regard you, occasionally blinking in something that might be
agitation.

It drops to the floor beside your bed
and begins to slither up onto the blanket, making soft chirrup
sounds. You roll onto your side, facing away from it. It makes a
wounded noise and slithers away.

You think you fall asleep. At least,
when you open your eyes next, the light through the window looks
different. You notice the smoke creature staring at you beside your
nightstand. There’s a potato on the table. Wh..did it it bring you a
potato? Where did it get a potato? You don’t have any potatoes. It
pushes the potato toward you with a tendril. You decide to ignore it.

A few hours later you hear a crash
coming from the bathroom. You manage to get up and shamble over to
the bathroom and look inside. The smoke creature is clinging to the
corner of the bathroom ceiling over the sink. Your toiletries and
pill bottles are scattered across the tile.

“What are you doing?” you
ask it. It’s the first time you’ve spoken to your…roommate.

It slithers down the wall and rolls a
pill bottle toward your foot. Picking it up, you recognize it as the
antidepressants you haven’t been taking. Rolling your eyes at the
creature, you get a glass and fill it with water from the sink, and
take the damn pill.

“Happy?” you ask.

Its eyes squint in an approximation of
a smile and it vibrates, almost like a purr.

You lay back down in bed, having used
up all of your motivation to be ambulatory. The smoke creature
cautiously approaches your bedside.

“Yep, I’m still depressed, it’s not a
miracle pill.”

The creature seems to ponder for a
moment, then slithers up onto the bed and wraps around you like a
blanket. It’s soft, and warm, and it purrs. You decide to let it
stay.

It becomes a habit, your strange
roommate curling up around you like a cloak when you’re having a
depressive episode. Leaving little gifts of food and water for you
next to the bed. Occasionally even running a bath for you, though it
has let the tub overflow more often than not. There are lots of movie
nights and cooking disasters. And it’s nice, really nice, having
someone who doesn’t ask anything of you or expect anything of you,
someone who is just there.

There is something in your apartment.
And you hope it never leaves.