intellectual property of Vera Vandal

I shared a room with my baby sister and she always had to have the door half open so the light we never turned off in the hall could seep in. Every night before we went to bed I always begged her to keep the door closed and her answer was always the same- “The nightmare fairies need light,it helps them trap the bad dreams. And fight the dangling man”

And I would always scoff “None of that is real. There's no such thing as nightmare fairies. Or the whatever man.”

“The dangling man” she corrected.

“Yeah. That.”

I'll admit at one point I got curious and I asked her at breakfast one morning.

“So ,what do the nightmare fairies even look like?”

She beamed up from her orange juice, swinging her legs under the table and happily blabbed away.

“They have big shiny eyes for seeing the bad dreams,long arms and legs for chasing them and they always carry a pouch filled with fairy dust. It's so shiny but it smells like cough syrup.” she wrinkled her nose at that last line.

“Oh okay. They don't have wings?”

“No.” she replied softly

“Why not?”

“The dangling man ate them.”

“Why'd the dangling man eat their-

“We don't talk about Him” She practically spat that last word “Ever!”

Before I could ask why, our mom announced it was time to get in the car and she all but skipped away. Continuing the conversation crossed my mind from time to time but I never took it seriously,it was probably something from one of her cartoons anyway.

Naturally,I was so excited when I finally got my own room. Our parents cleared up the room further down the hall from the one we used to share. We painted, installed a new bed,hung up posters, and everything. Then it was time to sleep and I sighed a sigh of relief as I settled under my new covers after closing the door.

But just a few minutes later l heard my door open. I cracked an eye open to see my sister standing with her hand on the knob.

“Don't close your door.”

At that point I was too tired to get up so I just let it slide. But then it happened again and again and I finally got sick of it. Why do I have to entertain her silly fantasies just because she was afraid. Then I got the bright idea to prove to her that there was nothing to be afraid of. I'd wait until she was asleep and just shut her door too and the next morning she'll wake up and realise there's nothing to be afraid of.

It might have been midnight when my eyes flung wide open,I wasn't sure. But what I was sure of was the sound of breathing,that wasn't my own. My whole body sunk deeper into the mattress as I waited desperately for my sight to unfog. And there,perched on the wall in front of my bed was a large misshapen creature with an overwhelming smell of......cough syrup. The sparse light from the window illuminated some of it's features,it had a wide cat shaped head attached to an oval body with stripes that was glistening in some liquid it's body was secreting,a body that ended in a short stubbed tail and long limbs that ended in crooked claws folded tense under it. It's breathing was soft but ragged, like it was trying not to wake me?, but also trying to get enough air into itself. It's whole body was heaving up and down with the effort. It's black beady eyes were wide open with an emotion I couldn't recognise and never left my face this whole time.

The creature tensed. A tremor spread through it's body and I realised that a pair of stripes on it's back were actually slits. Slits that followed the up and down of it's heaving body,kind of mimicking flared nostrils. It let out a whimper and started moving forward and fresh terror rolled over me when I noticed the liquid coating it's body was actually blood, that the emotion in it's eyes was actually fear and this creature was looking above,not at me.

I mustered the rest of my strength and rolled off the bed the same time the creature leaped and slammed into something bigger. It was a blur of slashes and fangs as the two forms rolled around on the other side of the bed. A series of hisses,a sickening crunch and then...silence.

The other form loomed it's upper half over the mattress at me. It raised itself on two legs and placed it's claws on the bed and smiled a vicious, deranged smiled. Like it knew what it was doing and it enjoyed it.

Just as the thing made to pounce,my door burst open. Light from the hall filled the doorway and two more of the fallen creature brushed past and attacked it. It was a short fight as the thing quickly fell back and dived out through the window that I just noticed was open. The other two creatures circled their fallen brethren nudging it with their maws, then suddenly turned around and shook until a silvery powder fell off onto the floor then slowly as if magnetised it was sucked toward the one on the floor until it slowly made it's way onto it's feet and an overwhelming smell of cough syrup filled the air. It shook itself off and touched foreheads with it's friends as if to say thank you. I was still pressed against the wall beside my door as it all came rushing to me. The nightmare fairies. The dangling man. The nightmare fairies. The dangling man...the dangling man.

They all made for the window but before the last one leaped out it turned and looked directly at me. The message in it's eyes was clear.

I jumped at the shadow looming in the doorway,but it was only my sister. There was no sign of fear in her small face only chiding, same as the fairy.

“Don't close your door.”