Poison Nightshade [Monsters Inc.]

1 - Monsters Incorporated

Where did my journey start? At the beginning, naturally. More details, you say? I'll oblige, but very begrudgingly. My name is Nightshade, but my more affectionate nickname is Poison. Perhaps you've heard of my namesake before? The prickled vine whose thorns are laced with the poison to what can stop one's heart in under 24-hours of being infected with it. Knowing you, you're probably thinking - Geez, Nightshade, huh? Didn't your parents love you? Well, it wasn't them who picked that name for me afterall. I worked for that title.

I am a scarer. That means that I scare children, professionally. It doesn't mean that I walk around in a Joker mask scaring the living poop out of youngsters (A monster does that one time and no one forgets it). The monster world, to which I belong, or the captial Monstropolous to be more specific, needs scarers to scare children around the world to collect scream energy. It's the equivalent to what you fleshbags call coal or non-renewable energy. I'm very good at my job, if I do say so myself. I've got my own scare-card, a sort of trading-card game for monster kids. I invented the seasonal creep-and-crawl, the technique that revolutionised scaring forever. I guess you could say I'm famous. But recently I decided to switch from working at my teaching post at Fear Technical College, or Fear Tech for short, and start working in the field at Monsters Incorporated. That brings me back to the question, where did my journey start? That's simple. I saw a television advert.

It all started on a crisp September night, I returned home to my luxurious penthouse apartment in Monstropolous after a long day of teaching Scaring 101 to my undergraduate class. I set down my dufflebug next to the fireplace of dancing flames, that casted villainous shadows to slink across the walls like a film projector and slid into my fleecy bathrobe, kicking off my heels and falling spread-eagled on the sofa. My head throbbed, a vein pulsated in my neck and my feet felt like wax, listless and amorphous. Flicking on the television, glaring at me from its high perch above the fireplace like the dictator of an army. The television sprang to life, pictures flashed on the screen in a spectrum of colour, faces and words - advertising thousands of different products that I wouldn't need at all.

'Dull scales? The all-new scale buffer comes in handy for -'

'Ever felt blocked? But regular laxatives -'

'With top scarers like that of James P. Sullivan, Monsters Incorporated works hard to get the energy that you need to you when you need it. We power your car, we light your home...'

Interest suddenly peaked, my fingers hovered on the remote, ready to change the channel if need be. Suddenly, the picture changed. It showed a handsome blue monster spotted with purple, smiling at the camera as he spoke.

"We're working for a better tomorrow, today."

"We're Monsters Incorporated!"

Suddenly awed at what I saw, my insides contracted in competition. I realised that I knew him - James P. Sullivan, a monster that weasled his way into the scaring program and then got himself expelled from MU, my old university. A growl exploded out of me in remembrance of his awful ways - he's close to breaking the all-time scare record? I know it sounds petty, but I couldn't let him go down without a fight - with my experience and prowess, I was going to make it impossible for him to break it. I was going to break it first.

Smirking viciously at the disappearing image of my old university rival, I realised that a change in career wouldn't be the worst fate for me either.

"Watch out, Sullivan. Poison's back." I warned just as the commercial ended,  five little words flashing onto the screen, urging her to yield to them.

Now hiring, if interested contact : www.MonstersInc.gore/We Scare

***

The sun oozed across the morning sky, sending drops of sunlight into Nightshade's apartment. The crisp blue sky gave her a feeling of readiness that she needed to start the day. She had officially quit her job three months ago, but today was going to be her first day at Monsters Ink. The early sunlight didn't bother her, since she had already woken up at five o'clock. She was an early-morning monster, she didn't particularly like to prowl the streets at night and slink away from the sunlight when it rose, unlike when she was in university. But she couldn't recollect her memories now, she had to get moving before she was late-early for her new job.