"I don't want to be here anymore."
The young girl stared at the floor with long blond hair falling in her face. She couldn't look at her mom, but she didn't know why. Her dad always said she should try harder to overcome what was bothering her inside, but she couldn't conquer something she knew nothing about. She wasn't sick. Her mom, Kate, made absolutely sure her doctor told her that, even if he seemed concerned when he did.
"What do you mean, sweetie?" Kate finally focused on her daughter. She'd been engrossed in Jerry Springer — a rare chance since her husband was on the road for another few weeks.
The young girl shrugged and sighed. "I don't know. I just don't want to be here." She glanced at her mom to see that look. The look she hated more than anything because it put her on the spot, and her cheeks burned hot with shame.
Kate smiled affectionately and patted the green sofa beside her. "Come here. You want to watch a movie? Princess Goblin? That's your favorite, isn't it?"
Sera fell onto the couch and stared at the floor. She didn't want to watch cartoons or go through the usual routine. It was the best way her mom knew to distract her from panic attacks, but tonight Sera was calm. The serenity she'd found frightened her in some ways, but she couldn't piece together an explanation that would make sense. All she knew was that she wanted to go to sleep and not wake up.
Sera mumbled as her mom brushed some of her hair aside, "The Princess and the Goblin."
"Alright. Sit still." Kate stood to open the VHS cabinet while Sera stared listlessly across the room.
Their dog, Bear, a Chow, came shuffling in with her purple tongue hanging out, and her perky ears and soft fluff brought Sera a sign of comfort. Bear stole Kate's spot and the young girl laid her head against a sandy-colored warmth. The familiar sound of the VCR accepting the tape resounded in the quiet room, save for the clock that struck midnight.
"Hey, mom?" Sera slid off the sofa as Kate returned with a bowl of macaroni and cheese.
"What's wrong, sweetie?"
"Can I just go to bed?"
Concern washed over Kate's features. "You don't want to watch your favorite movie?"
Sera shook her head and made her way toward the dark hallway. Memories resurfaced of the last time she'd sleepwalked down it. Dream visions of a beautiful field of flowers beneath a blue sky comforted her before she regained consciousness. Her hands were outstretched to touch the slatted white doors of the hall closet, and she fell to the floor. Out cold.
The girl shivered as a familiar panic threatened to shake her. She didn't like uncomfortable memories because they only brought the possibility of them happening again, which wasn't an option. She hurried the rest of the way to her small bedroom and closed the door behind her. She waited to see if her mom had followed, but it seemed she was finally alone. Which is the way it needed to be.
A large double speaker tape deck powered to life. Sera carefully selected one of her favorite cassette tapes — Beautiful Garbage by Garbage — and dropped onto her metal frame twin bed. She closed her eyes and waited for the woeful tones of Shirley Manson to lull her to sleep, but no such sleep came. The day had worn her down so much that she was too tired to sleep. Silly.
A slight breeze rustled her collection of Spice Girls dolls. Sera sat up from where she'd been contemplating the best way to stop seeing anything at all, and she noticed nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe the wall shelves had come loose.
Another cold breeze. It was obvious that time.
The girl dived under her comforter and pulled it up to her nose. If she was certain of anything right then, it was that monsters did not dare to harm someone beneath the safety of their blanket. The closet door she made certain to always close creaked before a feeling of being watched alarmed her. Sera swallowed hard when the sensation of a hand brushing over the comforter triggered trembling. Her blanket was yanked to the bottom of the bed and she was left vulnerable — out in the open for the monsters to consume.
"You're pretty young, you know that?" A deep voice with a sarcastic lilt invaded the dark silence. When Sera sought out the source, a passing car's headlights illuminated a reflective pair of golden horns.
"Mom!" The metallic bed frame rattled with the floral bulbs around the bars. Surely, that would've caused enough noise for Kate to come running, but it all came to a stop as the visitor leaned over Sera's bed. His clawed hand wrapped around the metal frame to cease its rattling.
"You don't really want her to come in here right now, do you?" he said. "I mean, the whole reason you're here is to be left alone."
Sera squeezed her eyes shut as the shaking caused her teeth to chatter. She couldn't get a single word out to save her life, which was ironic considering her whole reason for seeking out a forever sleep.
"I'm not going to hurt you, chill," the tall figure said. He stepped back into the shadows to observe the shivering child. He hardly considered himself frightening, although to most humans, the sight of horns and red eyes in the middle of the night wasn't exactly comforting. He was hardly the angel he once existed as, but he still possessed his shoulder-length blond hair and unearthly beauty. That didn't matter to a kid though, and that was why he never dealt with children. He should've never answered the call. "Alright, whatever. I'm not going to eat you, so go back to your self-destructive thoughts alone."
As the being raised his fingers to snap, Sera found her courage. "Wait! What are you?"
He twisted his hand in midair, and Shirley Manson's angst fell to a tolerable volume. "Aren't you a bit young to be listening to that shit?"
Sera's shivering slowed to a tremble as the sense of danger receded. Surely, he would have harmed her by now if he'd meant to. "I like it," she mumbled.
The figure spun back around to face the child who'd curled up with her knees to her chest. Her eyes were wide and her mind buzzed at impossible speeds. There were so many thoughts turning into a cacophony that threatened to drive the being mad, and it was another reason children were low on his list of humans to entertain. Their minds were chaotic and they were too curious about everything. "Okay, whatever," he sighed. "Anyway, what's your deal?"
The girl furrowed her brow. "What?"
"What..." The being sighed again and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Why do you want to sleep forever?"
"Oh, that." Sera picked at her shirt. "I want to just go to sleep and live in my dreams."
The visitor quirked a brow. Something else had surfaced in that tiny, underdeveloped brain. It intrigued him. "You know that isn't possible," he said.
Sera took a deep breath and stared at her knees, her fingers squeezing light denim. "Since I can walk while I'm sleeping and still be in a dream, why can't I just have that happen all the time? There's a way to do that, right?"
Understanding dawned on the visitor and he sobered. The red in his eyes ceased glowing and he sank down onto the girl's bed with his legs crossed. Her expression told of her confusion when she laid eyes upon him. He looked like a very tall man adorned in a white button-up shirt tucked into a pair of faded jeans. If it weren't for his horns and strange eyes, she'd think him nothing more than an average person.
When their eyes met, he was unwavering in his attention. "You want to die. Why?"
The word hadn't crossed her mind. She knew death meant to stop existing, but was that how people went away to live in their dreams? She'd never known anyone who'd died, but surely, the dead must have had dreams like she did. "I think so, at least."
"Why?" the figure pressed. "You're ten years old and barely out of the womb. What reason could you have to want to die?" He huffed. "You haven't even suffered through puberty yet."
Sera's face scrunched in confusion. "Puberty?"
"Oh, hell," he groaned. "Listen, you're way too young to be feeling whatever you're feeling right now. I doubt you have a reason that'll convince me you actually want to die."
Sera reached for the remote to the small TV on her nightstand and switched it on, and The Munsters drifted over the now barely audible Shirley Manson. "Sorry, it's too dark and I'm scared."
The figure squinted as his eyes were invaded with light and snapped to turn off the stereo, the loop of the child's thoughts combined with all the artificial noise too much for his short temper. "You didn't answer me. Why do you want to die?"
Sera grew shy and pulled her comforter up to her chin. She grabbed the small security blanket she'd had since she was an infant and chewed on the silk edge. "I don't know. I just feel really bad."
The figure's stare intensified. "Yes, you do know. Why won't you tell anyone the truth?"
The girl finally looked at the figure, and his eyes brought back the fears she often had of monsters. Maybe he was one after all. "Because no one will believe me. I told the principal at school that I was bullied, but I got blamed for it. I'm the one who got in trouble — like always."
The figure's patience wore thin. "What did you get in trouble for? What happened to make you want to call it quits?"
Sera dropped the blanket and grew somber as the memories returned, and it was clear in the way her eyes glazed over. "At lunchtime yesterday, the boy I had a crush on found out I liked him because my friend told him. I was really happy at first because I thought we could be friends, but he told me I was gross. Everyone started laughing at me and I got really sad and started crying."
The figure's attention turned to the hard floor that was covered by a decorative fuzzy carpet. "And then what?" he asked.
"Then I went to the principal's office with my friend." Sera's feet fidgeted under the blanket as she grew more uncomfortable. The memories weren't anything she liked recalling, and she'd rather just forget about it all. Talking never resulted in any solutions. "I just wanted to go home, but the principal put me in a room alone with some tissues. She said if I cried I'd feel better."
"Human empathy at its finest," the visitor droned. "What did you get in trouble for?"
"This girl in my class, and some boys, beat me up at recess," Sera continued. "She bullies me all the time. My friend told the principal I started it and everyone lied and got me in trouble. So I got blamed even though I didn't do anything. They believed my friends."
"Those aren't friends," the figure said.
He stood to approach a white dresser with a large mirror. Beneath it was a row of small troll figures with gems in their belly buttons, their hair wild and in numerous colors. A clawed hand grabbed a green one that was supposed to be a costumed version of Frankenstein's monster. The child certainly had an interesting mind full of strange curiosities from what he could catch, but there was a pain there as well that was underlying. It was more than a human of that age should be expected to carry, and there was much more to the story than just being bullied at school and then victim-blamed.
There were flashes of memories with a man's face and a belt in his hands. Blackouts and irrational fears and illnesses — of the mind and body — and days spent in the hospital. He feared a different kind of hospital visit was looming, but he couldn't be sure.
He froze as he caught himself worrying over it all and dropped the troll doll. This wasn't his problem. He had been curious and only meant to lurk because of the child's call and her strange dark aura, but it hadn't been so superficial. Her concerning wishes were real and she meant it with all of her little human heart that hadn't stopped booming in his ears.
The figure turned to face the girl who'd gone silent, and he leaned back on his hands against the dresser. "I don't expect you to understand, but hear me out."
Sera nodded and stared at the being with rapt attention and wonder.
The figure couldn't hide a smile. It was endearing how she'd seemingly accepted him without much of an argument. He continued, "I'm not a dream or a nightmare, or a bogeyman. I'm a fallen angel. Judging by your Bible on the desk, you already know a little bit about that, but I assure you, it's all bullshit."
The girl's eyes widened. "You're a demon?"
"No." The figure cut her off before she could continue. "A fallen angel is not a demon. We just hang with them because we don't have a choice. I am a king of Hell, but I'm far beyond even that." The figure's ego shined brighter than the headlights blinding the room once more. "My name is Byleth. I can teach you more about me, Hell, and everything else, but you can tell no one I'm around." Byleth was sure to emphasize the seriousness of the matter. "If the adults find out about me, judging by their spiritual alignment, they'll try to cut me off."
"But mom knows what's good and what isn't—" Sera started.
"No, she doesn't," Byleth interrupted. "Not in this context, anyway." He approached the child once more and dropped onto the side of the bed. "I can tell you all kinds of things that would shake your world, but you're not ready for that yet. What's important is I'm your ally right now, and judging by everything going on, I'm your only ally. So do you want help or not?"
He couldn't believe what he was considering, but the darkness that seeped from her wasn't just from illness. It wasn't something he saw in children, let alone one so seemingly pure. He'd considered its purpose the moment he detected it while her mind was wide open. She was no ordinary ten-year-old.
Sera nodded as she remained transfixed on him. "So, you're actually real?" she asked.
Byleth's laughter lit up the room and would surely be heard by Kate, but he'd masked his presence well. "Yes, I'm real, sweetie. Only you can see and hear me right now. I'll make sure no one else knows unless it's necessary." As the girl opened her mouth, Byleth held up a finger. "Ah-ah, no. We can't tell mommy. Definitely don't tell daddy. Definitely not him." A low growl rumbled in Byleth's chest like a tiger's. "We'll talk more about them later. For now, just focus on surviving and pay attention to what I tell you."
Sera sighed as tears formed in her eyes. "What if I can't do it? What if I'm not strong enough?"
"Stop it," Byleth chastised gently. He stared into Sera's eyes until the tears stopped. "You're stronger than you think you are. Trust me, I know. You can do it."
A deafening alarm bell interrupted them both, and Sera yelped in surprise as her heart boomed in Byleth's ears.
Her shaking hand quieted the alarm and her voice quivered. "Can you walk me to the bathroom? If I wet the bed again mom will get mad at me."
Byleth fell silent in a stupor, and he stared atthe child as all emotion drained from him. What in all the Hells had he justgotten himself into?