The voices they haunt her- their high-pitched screams begging for mercy. She didn’t make it there in time to stop the darkness from consuming them. She raced her fastest time to make it them, but it wasn’t good enough.
The realization sets in… if only she would have believed their stories- the ones she deemed as only that. Frilly fictitious follies that they drafted in their minds at night before bed… one of the realities of kids sharing bedrooms is that they all sleep at the same time. This means there is a lot of chattering, playing, and giggling all at the same time too.
She was foolish in assuming everything she’d been taught by cultural standards was correct instead of using the ears sewn to the sides of that thing that was supposed to guide her through life with reason and intellect.
They’s been telling her the truth… there was something hiding under their beds.
There really was a monster under there.
Not a green, goopy slime creature, but a monstrous man that had sought them out- made a plan and stuck with it. He'd taken them now; along with him to the depths of Hell.
She'd rescue them in the afterlife.
If only she had taken them seriously.