Prompt: No supernatural elements

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Dan

It's not there when I get home from school, and it leaves by the time the sun creeps into my cluttered room. Once the moon rises I know it's time, because there is a monster that enters my house in the dead of night.

It stalks the halls of my house, dragging with it a vile stench. It reminds me of rotten fruit. I know the house like the back of my hand, so I've gotten good at avoiding it. All the little nooks and crannies that only a kid could get into, and all the shortcuts between rooms. I even cut a hole in my bedroom under my bed to sneak into the storage room next to it. Hidden by a box on the other side, of course.

Even now I can hear it stomping around. It's in the living room now, pacing in circles. Occasionally it stops, probably to drink its poison. It carries the poison in a stout, square bottle. Slowly killing itself, I guess.

---

The monster showed up for the first time six months ago. After my dad and I lost mom. One day she just fell over, and didn't get back up again. The doctor said it was a stroke. I had just turned twelve. That night the monster arrived.

I was sleeping in my bed, when the door to my room slammed open. There's still a hole in the wall where the handle went through the wall. The monster stood there, staring at me. It had its bottle, poison dripping down its face. I didn't know what to do. It began to mutter to itself. I couldn't understand it. I still don't.

That was the night I was first acquainted with the stench of its poison and the foulness of its anger. It pounced on me, dropping the bottle and letting the poison soak into my carpet, a dark stain spread across my floor. Its claws sank into my neck as it spat and hissed and cried at me. I cried too. It slunk away after I started crying, scooping its bottle up, muttering to itself again.

The next morning I saw the monster on the couch. It was gripping and empty bottle tightly. When I got home from school it was gone. It showed up again when the clock struck 10. The front door opened and with it came that overpowering stench. I was on the couch, watching TV. The monster kicked it off the stand and chased me to my room, but paused when it saw the stain on the carpet. It left me alone for the rest of the night.

---

Life has been like this ever since. I sleep as soon as I get home from school now, so I'm ready for the night to come. I even stole a knife from the kitchen, just in case. For as much as I'm scared of this monster in my house, I can't bring myself to hurt it back. When it sleeps I can hear it call out a name, some occasional words I can parse. Even when it's awake I hear cries of apology and forgiveness from the living room, the kitchen, its bedroom. And I hesitate. I hate this monster for what its done to me. I hate it for how it has ruined my life.

But I can't hate it. Too many memories flood back to me. Memories of happy days, of my mom and dad. Before the monster came into the house and turned my world upside down.

And so every morning I sneak to the door, the slumbering monster just feet away from me. I sneak and I pray that one day the monster leaves my house.

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Ace

There were worse smells than alcohol and urine mixed together. Of course, Tristan wasn't exactly sure what they were, but he knew they must have existed. Old coffee filters was fairly unappealing, but so was any food that had been left in a container out in the sun to rot. Still, it didn't make the bathroom any easier to breathe in as he hid curled up on top of the toilet.

His knees were pulled up to his chest, uncomfortably tight as they jabbed into his lower chin and pulled the ribs inside his chest close to his heart. It was hard to breathe. They were too close, squeezing in and pressing down and dragging out every second. He wished that he could stretch out if only for a second. His knees were aching badly. The bad position was painful on his ass as well. There wasn't a toilet lid, so the rim was digging in to his cheeks.

A shaky, nervous breath slipped out of Tristan's lips. He ran a hand over his mouth, his nose, bunching it up over his forehead until the skin pulled tight. The skin was red, itchy, and irritated as he scratched nails over it. Pain wasn't a useful distraction, it only hurt more. It made him think for a few second about the bunching of his skin, the way he was likely pink and sweaty. The fact that his cheeks were hot and boiling over to the point that he couldn't handle the idea of missing cold water on his face. He needed a refresher, but the outside was unsafe.

It was the only real think the boy could think to do as he waited and watched. He knew the person from before was still outside. There wasn't a question about it. It wasn't paranoia, or uncertainty but cold fact that sent blood through his veins. A pounding came from between his temples as he waited. His eyes darted to the crack between the bathroom stall and the door, where breathing came in from the other side. It was painful, rasping, like the victim was in pain.

Tristan hesitated, watching the shuffling of feet. They were outside his door. They walked around the perimeter once, then twice as the man went around. He had clean shoes. It was a funny little detail, Tristan's arms wrapping tighter around his knees as he noted the tiles' reflection in the black leather. They were unnaturally clean, polished brightly in comparison to the yellow puddle lingering a few centimeters away.

They paced a few more steps. Tristan's body was shaking. An involuntary shiver raced up his spine and back down as he struggled to breathe shallower. It shouldn't have mattered. There was no other way out, and he knew that the man knew he was inside. Knew he was alive and breathing and shuddering with every second that passed.

How much longer would that last? Tristan jumped as a clank came from the outside. Metal against metal, scraped painfully. He couldn't stand it any longer, painfully slowly the boy slunk down from the toilet and set a single foot on the slippy, piss-covered floor. There was a rough wheeze from the outside. The metal crapped again and Tristan noticed the edge of the knife slip between the crack between the bathroom stall and the support beam. He couldn't breathe, choking on the air in his own lungs as he struggled not to let out a painful squeak through his lungs. Followed by the knife came an eye, so dark brown it was black. The edge of a smile followed, and with a flicker of it down toward the lock, the knife drifted with it. The edge of the blade slipped beneath the metal and unhinged it, the door swinging open.

A scream slipped past Tristan's lips as he slipped on the seat and he fell back into the toilet.