Monsters

Monsters Hide Under The Bed

Once the mess was cleaned, and all the tiny cuts on the back of his neck healed as if they were never there, he sat down on his bed, his feet dangling off the tall surface. The room was darker without the light, but the window let in just light enough to see clearly. An ice cold hand grabbed his ankle again and he yelped and pulled his legs onto the bed with him, studying where nothing was there. He could have sworn he felt something grab him, and he panicked at the thought that some stranger was in his house under his bed.

His eyes darted around his room before he remembered the school-issued training kunai he still had packed in his pocket. He pulled one of the knives out and carefully went to peek under the bed. He instantly froze when his blue eyes met a pair of red ones that shone in the dim lights like a cat's. Neither set of eyes moved, frozen in time for what seemed like forever until light from the window glinted off Naruto's dull excuse of a weapon. The light reflected under the bed and right between the red eyes, showing only the wall as the creature hissed and disappeared.

Now seemed to be the most appropriate time to use one of the words Kiba taught him. "What the fuck." He stated, going back to sitting upright. "Is there a raccoon in my house?" He rationalized, before hopping to his door so his feet wouldn't be in reach of whatever cold-handed giant raccoon that was under his bed. He went to his tiny kitchen and tried to figure out what in his scarce refrigerator he would be willing to sacrifice as raccoon bait. He hated it but dried instant ramen was what he had the most of, so he grabbed a brick of uncooked ramen(he preferred the cups anyway) and an old blanket.

He decided that the best course of action, seeing as the raccoon didn't like light apparently, was to make a little blanket tent attached to his bed with crushed ramen bits in the middle and then when the raccoon crawled out to get the bits he'd scoop it up in the blanket and see where to go from there. A fairly decent plan seeing as he was still in a daze hoping the raccoon just had wide-set eyes and wasn't as big as him.

He wasn't a very good fighter, but he had good base strength so he could probably hold a wild raccoon the size of him long enough to find something to do with it, he hoped. Now wasn't the time for thinking. He made sure to stay far enough away from his bed as he fastened the blanket loosely to the edge of the bed and over the floor with enough space that the raccoon would have to be full out from under the bed to get Naruto's precious bait. Then he walked on the spot, exaggerating his steps to make the creature think he'd left, and he waited.

He didn't have to wait long, it seemed the thing was more curious than anything, and soon a small moving lump in the top of the blanket told him his plan was working. Once he saw the entire lump of raccoon, he quickly grabbed both ends of the blanket and scooped the thing up before it could comprehend what was happening. Naruto was surprised that this plan had worked at all, but he was confused at the frantic noises the lump was making. It wasn't hissing and chirping like a raccoon, it wasn't barking or yowling, and it was definitely a bit bigger than him.

The noises it made were echoed, like words shouted from across a cave so distorted and warped that he couldn't understand them. He didn't know how the creature could sound so loud and quiet and far away even though it was being held in front of him like a caught fish, writhing. "I'll let you out if you calm down!" He yelled, his young voice squeaking a little. It seemed whatever it was, it could understand him, because it paused right there.

Naruto slowly lowered the blanket lump, until the thing was back on the floor. Keeping the opening an arms length away, he slowly opened the makeshift trap, and the thing stayed still.

He opened it more until a bit of the sun's light poked into the bag and a pale white hand pulled the blanket back up, making something that would have sounded like a yelp if it weren't so distorted and echoed. Naruto remembered that the thing seemingly hated light, and so closed the bag back up and let it go entirely. "Wait a second, I've got an idea." The thing shuffled around but didn't move, possibly out of lack of options to do so.