I whispered it to myself. I sobbed it into my mother's shirt while she rocked me. Why? Why did I do that? Why did I kill him?

It wasn't just an accident. I had the scissors up to fight, but by then I knew Todd was shot and only Alicia and Joshua were anywhere near me.

Alicia bumped me from behind. Pushed me. Alicia pushed me as Joshua came running. I was afraid of him, but I didn't want to kill him.

It was self-defense. It was an accident. It was—

"Brooklyn, I know it's hard, but we need you to focus and answer the questions." The detective's voice cut through the noising buzz in my head.

"Why does she have to answer questions now? Look at her, she can't do it," my mom said. She covered me as best she could with her arms trying to protect me, but it was too late. I was the only monster in the room.

"Because we need answers. Two people are dead, Mrs. Hadder, and your daughter was a witness."

"No more questions. We need a lawyer first."

Detective Campbell sighed and put his hands together prayer-like. "If you wish to have a lawyer present, that is absolutely your right. I'll let you make your calls."

"Wait," I said. "Did you find Alicia? She was there, she saw Joshua come out of the cabin after the gun shot and she saw the accident when he ran into me. She gave me the scissors to hold. Did you ask her?"

"Brooklyn—"

The lawyer stood up slowly and my mother paused. "Listen, this is one of the things we need to discuss. After you told the officers at the scene that your friend Alicia had driven there, we contacted her parents. She has an alibi stating she couldn't possibly have been there."

"That's not true! She handed me the scissors, she saw everything, she—" I broke off. Of all the details, the pristine white gloves Alicia had been wearing loomed the clearest. Then I understood—there wouldn't even be finger prints on the scissors to prove my story.

"Enough." Mom was firm. "We wait for a lawyer."

He gathered his papers and left the small interrogation room. I blinked at the chipped paint of the off-white walls crowding me. There was a long crack flowing upwards next to the door, branching off like tributaries feeding into a larger river on the way to the sea. I couldn't quite remember how I got here.

It was blur—Joshua's glassy eyes, the driver stopping and then calling the police. The ride in the ambulance, Mom yelling my name, and going from building to building. I would've given anything to go home and sleep and never wake up again.

We waited. A lawyer came, someone Mom's boss recommended. The questions began.

I explained. I described. I insisted. Yes, I was kidnapped at gun point by Todd. Yes, he put me in the trunk, my hands zip tied. I showed him the marks on my wrists for the third or fourth time.

Self-inflicted. The detective didn't say the word out-loud, especially since Todd was wanted in part for trying to kidnap me before, but his thoughts were practically visible, turning in his mind. There was a possibility that I was lying about being Todd's prisoner.

"After Todd left the cabin, tell me again about Joshua's arrival and how he acted," the detective asked.

"He was strange. His eyes were funny, and the things he said didn't make sense."

"Can you explain funny? How exactly were his eyes, his pupils and his expression."

"I don't know how to explain." I dropped my head to the table with a loud whack. The shock to my forehead hurt, but the pain was a relief from the emotional anguish and the pounding headache. "Can I go home for while? I'm so tired. I need to sleep."

"My daughter is a minor, may I remind you. There are laws protecting—"

"A classmate is dead. A wanted fugitive is dead. We need answers. Describe his appearance exactly, please."

"That's all you want to know?" I asked, lifting my gaze from the metal table. "You want to know what his eyes looked like when he came in the cabin?"

"Yes."

"He looked like he had died and come back to fetch me. He was pale and purple, his eyes were rubbed raw. I know Joshua. We played music together, he kissed me. He had a crush on me. But he didn't call the cops to come and get me out of that cabin and away from a psycho who wanted to throw me in the lake. That's what Joshua looked like. A psycho who wanted to throw me in the lake."

"What did he say?"

"I already fucking told you what he said!" My chair flew backwards I jumped so fast.

"Brooklyn!"

Why did you kill Joshua?

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! I want you out of my head! Shut up!" I covered my ears, but the voice was still in there.

Why did you kill him? He went there to save you.

My own voice. I can't even shut up my own voice. I was screaming for the voice to leave me alone. If it was quiet, maybe I could figure out what had happened. Remember every little detail. Hands held me down.

They're going to carry me to the lake. I screamed. They're going to throw me in the lake. Something is in there. I screamed and fought.

"Get in here, bring us the—" my foot connected with Detective Campbell's mouth. Hands were holding me down. I screamed at them to let me go.

Her mother's voice, calm and sweet. "It's all right, baby. Stop fighting. You are safe here."

"Hold her!"

Hard hands held me fast, I couldn't move. "Mom?"

"She needs to see a doctor now," her mother said. "Transfer her to Riverbend now or you will be sued."

Riverbend, where the good times end.

The insane asylum. It burned. It burned, killing how many people?

"No, mamá, por favor no me lleves allí." The Spanish flew from my mouth as I begged Mom not to take me there. Not to the asylum. It was worse than the lake. "Mamá, por favor—"

"Stop! Brooklyn, stop. You need to let the doctors help you. You will be safe and they can get you something to help you sleep. Medicine to calm you down." Tears streaked Mom's face and it was riddled with agony. "You will be all right."

I had refused to speak Spanish since I was a little girl, but using now didn't help my cause.

They were moving me. They were taking me to Riverbend.

It wasn't far. The town was entirely too small. And the mental health institute spread like a monstrous crab across the top of a hill, and the original building, the one that had burned the most was its face and gaping mouth.

They marched me through the door.

"Who is the doctor on duty?" Mom asked the nurse at the reception. "This is my daughter, I have to talk to him."

"It's Dr. Carol, I'll give him a call."

There was a flurry of activity, but all I noticed were lines of dark slime slithering upwards from the floor to the ceiling on the withering walls. They said they were taking me to a bedroom in a different wing.

Seeing clean, white walls, I cried in relief.

It was the newest wing, built when her mother first started working there ten years ago and most of the in-house patients had their rooms there.

They called them rooms. Not cells. But the windows on the doors of these rooms were barred.

For your safety, they said, as they escorted me down a long, brilliantly white hall. You'll be safe here, they said. It's a nice facility, isn't it?

Each step jarred my whole body. Fatigue was taking hold, I wouldn't be able to fight it much longer. Sleep. God, I needed to sleep. It must so late.

There was an open door at the end of hall.

My head was too heavy and hung as I watched my feet eating linoleum tiles. A drop of dirty water glistened on the floor, winking with reflected light like an eyeball.

Another drop was a few inches away. And another. Drip, drop down the hall. A murkey trail leading straight to the only room with an open door.

Something black scuttled in the shadows of the room, claws scraped nails-on-chalkboard against the linoleum. My heart fisted and I jerked to stop.

"Mom, I can't—"

"It's right this way, Brooklyn," the nurse with them said.

Something black the size of a dog, but flat and spider-like, had moved in my room—my cell with barred windows.

"Mom, I want to go home."

"What?"

"You're doing fine, Brooklyn, we'll get you settled here for tonight where the doctors can watch over you," the nurse said.

There was a security guy behind me. Mom and two female nurses, holding my elbos, next to me. At the end of the hall were double doors with a bar release. No visible locks or bolts.

I twisted free and sprinted. My foot hit water and slipped, but I recovered and dashed on, shouts and footsteps right behind. I crashed into the door like it was a wall.

No, no, no! It was locked. Stunned, I turned to face the guard, but he was too fast. I punched weakly, gaping like an idiot when he blocked my fist. Quicker than I could blink, I was on the floor with the guard's knee in my back. I was level with the linoleum, water drops glinting from the neon lights in the ceiling.

The warning scratched in my closet came back. Coming for you.

Neither Todd nor Joshua had managed to take me to the lake, so the lake and whatever was in it was coming for me here. I tried to yell, but me voice had gone hoarse and all that came out was a broken gasp.

"Please, I want to go home. I want to go home! Mom, please, I want to go home!"

"Bring her in here," the nurse ordered.

I couldn't break free of the guard. Tears streamed down my face and I choked, chest so tight I couldn't get enough air. They flicked on the light in the room—the black thing was nowhere to be seen.

It was hiding.

"Mom, please—"

"Shhhh, Brooklyn, baby, this really is the safest place—"

"No!"

"Get her on the bed, strap her down."

"Wait, I don't think—"

"Isabel," the nurse interrupted Mom, "perhaps it would be best if you let us take care of her."

There was water pooling all over the floor. Streaks of brown and red muddled it and mold lined the cracks at the bottom of the walls. I shoved my elbow hard in guard's gut, but he was unmovable.

"Get her on the bed!"

The bed. No, not the bed. There were restraints on the bed, a puddle of water underneath. A puddle—

A drop of water fell from underneath the bed into the puddle.

I froze, then tilted my head to look beneath the clinic bed frame. The black thing was attached to the underside of the mattress. Water dripped from shredded black rags—or skin—hanging from the flattened body, and there were too many arms and legs.

The fuck was that thing? The whitish, bare-bone legs or arms or whatever the fuck they were clung to the mattress with claws. Fucking claws embedded in the mattress.

No head or face, as far as I could see. It shivered and hissed, flexing its claws.

The guard was forcing me towards the bed. If I was lying down, I would be right over that nasty, wet thing with the arms and claws and shredded flaps of skin or stuff hanging off it.

"No," I whispered, shaking my head at Mom. "Don't make me get on there, please mamá. Don't make me, please."

"Brook, it's just for tonight."

"Isabel, why don't step outside?"

"No! Mamá, don't leave me!"

"Get her strapped in, Jason."

"No!"

I was lifted and moved to the bed, kicking and screaming, and between the nurses and the guard I lost the battle to keep my arms and legs free from the restraints. Sobs wracked my body and in a panic I contorted upwards in an arch, trying to keep my back from touching the mattress. All that separated me from the thing underneath was 10 inches of foam.

"Brooklyn, please calm down or they will have to give you a shot. It isn't good, cariño," my mom pleaded. She tried to take my hand, teasing out the tight fist.

"No shot, mom, please, no shots. You'll stay with me, right?"

"Of course, all night."

One of the nurses cleared her throat, shaking her head. Mom pursed her lips in determination. "All night."

"Can you," I said, sobs breaking my voice. "Can you please get something for me? Just to hold?"

"Sure. What do you want?"

"I know this sounds wrong, but can you get me a pair of scissors?"

Horror crossed Mom's face before a blank, professional expression erased it. "I don't think that would be appropriate."

"Mom, I need them. I need the scissors. You don't understand, they keep safe. I can't explain, but I promise I won't use them. Please. Please." Hot tears ran into my ears and hair."

"It wouldn't be a good idea."

The thing under the bed hissed and a tiny scraping noise slithered out with it. It was scratching mattress from underneath.

They finished the last restraints, pinning my whole body down. I faced Mom. "Just stay with me, okay? All night."

A scritch-scritch sounded, and the tiny ping of breaking threads. It was digging into the mattress. Was it going to scrape all the way up to my spine pressing into the bed? I moaned in fear.

"Of course." She pressed a button to tilt the top half of my bed. "I need you swallow some medicine. It's that or a shot, but the pill is better. Lighter."

Lighter. Yes, if a pill won't make me sleep as heavily, then that was better.

I nodded weakly and Mom placed a blue pill on my tongue—a sour, cardboard taste immediately radiated from it. Mom held a paper cup to my lips and water splashed it down as I swallowed.

"Hold my hand, mamá and don't leave me."

"I promise."

I closed my eyes as she wiped my face clean of tears and turned out the light. I trained my ears on the scritch-scritch coming from under the bed and could feel the tiny vibrations the claws made as the thing began to dig through the mattress. I gasped for breath.

Twenty minutes later I was floating.

Oblivion.

*** Well, I don't know about you, but at 40 some-odd years old, I'm still afraid of monsters under the bed. I wouldn't want to be Brooklyn. Thank you for reading and be sure to hit the star if you enjoyed this chapter! ***