Monster

Have you ever had a real-life nightmare? You know, the kind of
experience that just seems so endless, and there isn't any option open
to you save to just endure the pure boundless horror of it all? Well I
have, and it wasn't a very nice experience I can tell you. And what I
am about to tell you is very true, very real and ultimately very
terrifying. It is the story of my encounter with the monster!

It happened one night a few weeks ago. I thik it was a Wednesday.
Having discovered, yet again, that I had not become a lottery
millionaire, I whiled away a few hours reading my favourite book and
then retired to bed.

I was awaken a few hours later by what can only be described as a
constant rasping sound- faint at first but becoming more and more
audible as each nanosecond passed. I glanced at the luminous green
display of my clock-radio - the radio had long since played it's last
piece of electronic techno-junk, but it still mad e auseful alarm, with
it's deafening screech able to rouse me from even the soundest of
slumbers- it was a little after two in the morning. It couldn't have
been an intruder, as the alarm was set and the dog was snoozing merrily
in her basket whilst purporting to being 'on guard' - if she'd been
salaried I would have sacked her years ago!

The rasping sound came closer and closer, accompanied by hot, heavy
breathing. I lay motionless in anticipation of the creature passing me
by or ending my existence in whatever gruesome way it so chose. But
still it came nearer.

"Did you hear that?", I murmured to my wife. She just gave me a dig in
the ribs and told me to get back to sleep. Obviously salvation would
have to come from some other source.

And then the monster entered the room. The door slid open and a dark
shape crept in, easing its slow but inexorable path towards my immobile
body. I thought of letting out a cry of anguish but found that I could
not utter a single sound. The horror was compounded when the creature
climbed on the bed- I could feel the mattress contracting as it took
the creature's considerable bodyweight.

I now took my courage in my own hands. I looked down, only to see the
duvet rising slowly towards myself. I just knew that this was my last
minute of existence on this earth, and no-one was either present or
conscious to share it with me.

The rasping sound turned out to be the breathing of the monster, which
grew louder and louder, until I found it ultimately too terrifying to
gauge its volume.

I closed my eyes tight, awaiting the embrace of a swift death, awaiting
the violent pouncing that was surely this creature's modus operandi in
terms of killing its prey.

Suddenly a plastic beaker was thrust into my face:

"Daddy - milk!"