Noun
Adjective
Huge; enormous; monstrous
ORIGIN OF MONSTER
1
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English monstre, from Latin mōnstrum "portent, unnatural event, monster," from mon(ēre) "to warn" + -strum, noun suffix
What truly makes something a monster?
Lucy was truly beginning to think there was one living under her bed despite the fact that most stories depicted under-the-bed monsters as creatures addicted to tormenting little children. The legal status of her eighteenth birthday recognized her as an adult rather than a child and thus, wouldn't a monster cease to haunt her and move on to a younger, smaller victim they could easily frighten with the pitter-patter of unseen footsteps and the faint scratching against the hardwood floors?
Did monsters even follow rules, or were they simply unseen creatures that would slink through shadows and dwell in basements; under beds; beneath your floorboards until; with bated breath, they slithered out to salivate over your sleeping form as they contemplated just how best to eat you whole or steal your soul?
"Make sure to let us know if you're not coming back tonight again, hon! I know you're an adult now and everything...But your father and I still worry, so just give me a text or call if you're planning to stay out all night, okay?"
"Sure thing, Mom! I should be back late so don't wait up, I'll make sure to lock everything back up when I get back and try to keep it quiet!"
A semblance of a whisper or a sigh came from under the bed as she held her breath, listening and waiting to see if she would hear any of the creaking or clicking she'd been hearing over the last few weeks. When there was nothing past that semblance haunting, taunting her sanity, Lucy dared to dangle her legs over the side of the bed for several agonizingly long moments before settling her feet firmly onto the floor. Her very bare feet. An eternity seemed to pass before she decided that in the absence of any otherworldly appearances or attacks on her bare ankles, it was time to get up and get dressed to go out on the town with her friends.
"I'm leaving! Bye Mom, bye Dad! Love you!"
The whisper picked up for a split second and then disappeared into a low rumble that vibrated beneath her feet, disappearing instantly after and allowing her to go about her business of dressing the rest of the way and making her way downstairs.
The bedroom floor vibrated in a mixture of anxiety and fury as the creature beneath fumed. Why did she insist on going out so much simply because she was now an adult? He'd been watching the tiny human for years now, watching her grow and taunting her fears at every chance he was given, but things had changed the last few months. In the time leading up to her upcoming adulthood, what had once been a shy, tentative little pre-teen had turned into a bolder, more outgoing young woman that spent more and more time away from the bed he dwelled beneath, watching, waiting to torment her again. It was agony when she was away, and though he could have chosen to vacate the home and seek another younger, fear ridden creature to torment for the next decade, he'd simply put too much time into little Lucy and he would not accept defeat from something as simple as a lack of curfew.
He would be the laughingstock of the monster world if he was beaten by a human that barely stood at five foot, barely capable of reaching the shelves in her kitchen without a stool or hoisting herself in the kitchen! He'd heard the struggles throughout the years, listened to the complaints as she sought ways to retain independence despite her unfortunate physique. He'd listened to her fears and tears as she ranted and raved on those ridiculous devices called smartphones, lamenting her lack of womanly curves and the disadvantages of her height when men rejected any advances her sudden boldness had seen fit to put forth.
Listening to her displeasure and her tears was the equivalent of human heaven to him, it was oh so delicious when the scent of salt filled the air and the keening of her attempted quelling of those tears came to be... She was just too much of a delight to give up from a few rough months, but he was beginning to lose his patience with dwelling in the shadows just watching, waiting, hoping for the inevitable day that he could taste a piece of the human's very soul.
Some humans would call him a demon, a devil, should they have the misfortune of coming face to face with his otherworldly form. Slithering from beneath beds and slinking through the shadows of the house, always watching, always waiting to claim another victim and feed on their fear, barter when they offered their souls for a chance at peace like the weak species that they were. How he craved the chance to show her his true form, to unleash the tendrils of hellish creation upon her from the shadows and watch her shudder, shake in her bed and quake with terror at the untold horrors that might await her.
Perhaps this would be the night. If she continued this pattern of staying out all hours of the night and waiting until the sun began its ascent in the sky then his chances would continue to dwindle, forcing him to choose between leaving or revealing himself in the bright hours of the morn. She had been quite clear about the intention to stay out later rather than the entirety of the night and that left him optimistic that she would return before or near the cusp of dawn, allowing him to either end the night or begin the morning with the shrill screams of terror when she saw the horror of his true form.
The clock ticked obnoxiously downstairs as the humans went about their business for the night, keeping track of their minutes and hours, even their seconds as the elder humans went about preparing for the night and then, ugh, the sounds they were making were enough to make him vomit if he had the same instincts as their kind. Even with his own creation and physiology it was nearly enough to make him nearly vomit! Would they ever retire for the night?
With a final groan and what was borderline a keening wail in the distance, the sounds began to dissipate for the night before he heard the creaking of the bed as they shifted about, undoubtedly making themselves comfortable for the night before the sounds ceased altogether.
Finally.
Humans copulating was one of his least favorite noises to endure, and some of them did it so frequently that it was no surprise they were constantly spawning more their kind for him and his to torment throughout the eons. Humans were so naive, putting off years of interactions with his kind as night terrors or hallucinations or any other variation of mental disease, anything that would give them an explanation other than an otherworldly being that could contort themselves under a child's bed. Not that it was a disadvantage to any of the monsters gaining power by tormenting those small human spawn, but one would think that after centuries of doing so that they might finally gain enough intelligence to launch a proper investigation into the possibility of the unknown. They certainly had the resources in this day and age, but they'd rather cart their children off to foreign buildings with bright white walls and diagnose them with this or that, only to return home with numerous orange capped bottles that prevented the children from panicking at the presence of the creatures under their beds.
The ups and downs of monster-hood were never-ending, it seemed.
The ticking seemed endless as the minutes passed and then the hours, claws etching grooves into the floor beneath the bed as the creature waited impatiently for its prey to return from her late night escapades. Perhaps if he was lucky she would return with one of her female friends and there would be double the fright and glory by the end of it all. For all the trouble this human female had caused him over the past, the least she could do was inadvertently offer him a secondary sacrifice..
There came the faint noise of the lock mechanism downstairs going through the process of accepting the key and allowing her access, followed by the sound of quiet footsteps as she slid through the doorway and closed it quietly behind herself. It had to be in the early hours of the morning now, yes? The sun had yet to cast shadows through the window and the distant snoring of her progenitors was ever present from their room.
He could smell blood upon her entry; had the clumsy creature fallen and injured herself? The adrenaline was heavy in the air as he listened to the stairs creaking persistently under her as she ascended to the bedroom, the scent of blood and a whirlwind of emotions slamming through the door so viciously it nearly stole his very breath. Had someone stolen his prey before he'd had a chance to sink his wicked claws into that delightfully soft, fragile skin of hers? This would not stand, if another had dared to harm what was rightfully his to torment then he would travel the shadows to this oppressor and eliminate them himself! She was his prey, no one else had the right to lay claim to that which he had hunted for so long.
She had worn her shoes into the bedroom, something she rarely did on these late nights in an attempt to quiet her entry, and yet she had worn them all the way up the creaky stairs and into her room where he could spy them from his haven beneath the bed. There were spots of blood on top of the black material, it seemed, yet as she sat and heaved her pathetic amount of weight into the bed there seemed to be no impairment of the feet encased in those revolting things. The blood hadn't originated in or near her feet, so perhaps she had been stabbed or shot, leaving the blood to run down that delightfully pale skin and end near those delicate feet he'd fantasized about mutilating as he drug her down from her pedestal and to the depths below.
Her breathing wasn't labored, though, and it even sounded like she was humming a cheery tune quietly as the shoes were pulled off and presumably inspected, followed by a tutting noise as she discovered the blood and set them carefully off where they wouldn't messy the floor. She clearly saw the blood, but there was no panic coupled with the adrenaline he could feel coming from the creature above him, and the humming resumed with only a periodic... Laugh? She was laughing above him, murmuring to herself about how silly he'd been, just as silly as the rest, but she'd made such a mess of herself this time, how thoughtless she was!
A sweater hit the floor and his interest was fully aroused when he saw how much blood had soaked into the light fabric. Claws worked their way through the grooves he'd been digging throughout many nights of impatience before he breached the artificial light of the bedroom just in time to get hit by a pair of damp jeans, red blotching his black skin and the smell of blood and death invading his nostrils.
"If only I hadn't slipped, it's no fun when they bleed out so fast..." Lucy's cheery tone had faded to one that was borderline misery as he vacated the shadows and warped the fabric of reality to fit into the light, bending and stretching until what was once a pool of inky black spanned its way into a creature nearly brushing the ceiling. Fitting into rooms he'd only seen from under the bed or in darkness was a tricky feat each and every time, but it was well worth the sight of the underwear clad woman before him, blood streaked in her pretty hair and splotched across her skin. Then there was the knife on the bed, and the look of absolute shock on her face when she turned and caught sight of the otherworldly creature hovering above her with a grin far too wide for it's shadowy face.
"M-Monster. It's real, you're a monster."
"No, Lucy," he warbled out through his created mouth, cringing at the feel of the contorted shadows and the way it felt to force his vocals through a quickly and shoddily created form. "Tonight, it seems, the monster is you."
- A nonhuman creature so ugly or monstrous as to frighten people
- any creature grotesquely deviating from the normal shape, behavior, or character.
Adjective
Huge; enormous; monstrous
ORIGIN OF MONSTER
1
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English monstre, from Latin mōnstrum "portent, unnatural event, monster," from mon(ēre) "to warn" + -strum, noun suffix
What truly makes something a monster?
Lucy was truly beginning to think there was one living under her bed despite the fact that most stories depicted under-the-bed monsters as creatures addicted to tormenting little children. The legal status of her eighteenth birthday recognized her as an adult rather than a child and thus, wouldn't a monster cease to haunt her and move on to a younger, smaller victim they could easily frighten with the pitter-patter of unseen footsteps and the faint scratching against the hardwood floors?
Did monsters even follow rules, or were they simply unseen creatures that would slink through shadows and dwell in basements; under beds; beneath your floorboards until; with bated breath, they slithered out to salivate over your sleeping form as they contemplated just how best to eat you whole or steal your soul?
"Make sure to let us know if you're not coming back tonight again, hon! I know you're an adult now and everything...But your father and I still worry, so just give me a text or call if you're planning to stay out all night, okay?"
"Sure thing, Mom! I should be back late so don't wait up, I'll make sure to lock everything back up when I get back and try to keep it quiet!"
A semblance of a whisper or a sigh came from under the bed as she held her breath, listening and waiting to see if she would hear any of the creaking or clicking she'd been hearing over the last few weeks. When there was nothing past that semblance haunting, taunting her sanity, Lucy dared to dangle her legs over the side of the bed for several agonizingly long moments before settling her feet firmly onto the floor. Her very bare feet. An eternity seemed to pass before she decided that in the absence of any otherworldly appearances or attacks on her bare ankles, it was time to get up and get dressed to go out on the town with her friends.
"I'm leaving! Bye Mom, bye Dad! Love you!"
The whisper picked up for a split second and then disappeared into a low rumble that vibrated beneath her feet, disappearing instantly after and allowing her to go about her business of dressing the rest of the way and making her way downstairs.
The bedroom floor vibrated in a mixture of anxiety and fury as the creature beneath fumed. Why did she insist on going out so much simply because she was now an adult? He'd been watching the tiny human for years now, watching her grow and taunting her fears at every chance he was given, but things had changed the last few months. In the time leading up to her upcoming adulthood, what had once been a shy, tentative little pre-teen had turned into a bolder, more outgoing young woman that spent more and more time away from the bed he dwelled beneath, watching, waiting to torment her again. It was agony when she was away, and though he could have chosen to vacate the home and seek another younger, fear ridden creature to torment for the next decade, he'd simply put too much time into little Lucy and he would not accept defeat from something as simple as a lack of curfew.
He would be the laughingstock of the monster world if he was beaten by a human that barely stood at five foot, barely capable of reaching the shelves in her kitchen without a stool or hoisting herself in the kitchen! He'd heard the struggles throughout the years, listened to the complaints as she sought ways to retain independence despite her unfortunate physique. He'd listened to her fears and tears as she ranted and raved on those ridiculous devices called smartphones, lamenting her lack of womanly curves and the disadvantages of her height when men rejected any advances her sudden boldness had seen fit to put forth.
Listening to her displeasure and her tears was the equivalent of human heaven to him, it was oh so delicious when the scent of salt filled the air and the keening of her attempted quelling of those tears came to be... She was just too much of a delight to give up from a few rough months, but he was beginning to lose his patience with dwelling in the shadows just watching, waiting, hoping for the inevitable day that he could taste a piece of the human's very soul.
Some humans would call him a demon, a devil, should they have the misfortune of coming face to face with his otherworldly form. Slithering from beneath beds and slinking through the shadows of the house, always watching, always waiting to claim another victim and feed on their fear, barter when they offered their souls for a chance at peace like the weak species that they were. How he craved the chance to show her his true form, to unleash the tendrils of hellish creation upon her from the shadows and watch her shudder, shake in her bed and quake with terror at the untold horrors that might await her.
Perhaps this would be the night. If she continued this pattern of staying out all hours of the night and waiting until the sun began its ascent in the sky then his chances would continue to dwindle, forcing him to choose between leaving or revealing himself in the bright hours of the morn. She had been quite clear about the intention to stay out later rather than the entirety of the night and that left him optimistic that she would return before or near the cusp of dawn, allowing him to either end the night or begin the morning with the shrill screams of terror when she saw the horror of his true form.
The clock ticked obnoxiously downstairs as the humans went about their business for the night, keeping track of their minutes and hours, even their seconds as the elder humans went about preparing for the night and then, ugh, the sounds they were making were enough to make him vomit if he had the same instincts as their kind. Even with his own creation and physiology it was nearly enough to make him nearly vomit! Would they ever retire for the night?
With a final groan and what was borderline a keening wail in the distance, the sounds began to dissipate for the night before he heard the creaking of the bed as they shifted about, undoubtedly making themselves comfortable for the night before the sounds ceased altogether.
Finally.
Humans copulating was one of his least favorite noises to endure, and some of them did it so frequently that it was no surprise they were constantly spawning more their kind for him and his to torment throughout the eons. Humans were so naive, putting off years of interactions with his kind as night terrors or hallucinations or any other variation of mental disease, anything that would give them an explanation other than an otherworldly being that could contort themselves under a child's bed. Not that it was a disadvantage to any of the monsters gaining power by tormenting those small human spawn, but one would think that after centuries of doing so that they might finally gain enough intelligence to launch a proper investigation into the possibility of the unknown. They certainly had the resources in this day and age, but they'd rather cart their children off to foreign buildings with bright white walls and diagnose them with this or that, only to return home with numerous orange capped bottles that prevented the children from panicking at the presence of the creatures under their beds.
The ups and downs of monster-hood were never-ending, it seemed.
The ticking seemed endless as the minutes passed and then the hours, claws etching grooves into the floor beneath the bed as the creature waited impatiently for its prey to return from her late night escapades. Perhaps if he was lucky she would return with one of her female friends and there would be double the fright and glory by the end of it all. For all the trouble this human female had caused him over the past, the least she could do was inadvertently offer him a secondary sacrifice..
There came the faint noise of the lock mechanism downstairs going through the process of accepting the key and allowing her access, followed by the sound of quiet footsteps as she slid through the doorway and closed it quietly behind herself. It had to be in the early hours of the morning now, yes? The sun had yet to cast shadows through the window and the distant snoring of her progenitors was ever present from their room.
He could smell blood upon her entry; had the clumsy creature fallen and injured herself? The adrenaline was heavy in the air as he listened to the stairs creaking persistently under her as she ascended to the bedroom, the scent of blood and a whirlwind of emotions slamming through the door so viciously it nearly stole his very breath. Had someone stolen his prey before he'd had a chance to sink his wicked claws into that delightfully soft, fragile skin of hers? This would not stand, if another had dared to harm what was rightfully his to torment then he would travel the shadows to this oppressor and eliminate them himself! She was his prey, no one else had the right to lay claim to that which he had hunted for so long.
She had worn her shoes into the bedroom, something she rarely did on these late nights in an attempt to quiet her entry, and yet she had worn them all the way up the creaky stairs and into her room where he could spy them from his haven beneath the bed. There were spots of blood on top of the black material, it seemed, yet as she sat and heaved her pathetic amount of weight into the bed there seemed to be no impairment of the feet encased in those revolting things. The blood hadn't originated in or near her feet, so perhaps she had been stabbed or shot, leaving the blood to run down that delightfully pale skin and end near those delicate feet he'd fantasized about mutilating as he drug her down from her pedestal and to the depths below.
Her breathing wasn't labored, though, and it even sounded like she was humming a cheery tune quietly as the shoes were pulled off and presumably inspected, followed by a tutting noise as she discovered the blood and set them carefully off where they wouldn't messy the floor. She clearly saw the blood, but there was no panic coupled with the adrenaline he could feel coming from the creature above him, and the humming resumed with only a periodic... Laugh? She was laughing above him, murmuring to herself about how silly he'd been, just as silly as the rest, but she'd made such a mess of herself this time, how thoughtless she was!
A sweater hit the floor and his interest was fully aroused when he saw how much blood had soaked into the light fabric. Claws worked their way through the grooves he'd been digging throughout many nights of impatience before he breached the artificial light of the bedroom just in time to get hit by a pair of damp jeans, red blotching his black skin and the smell of blood and death invading his nostrils.
"If only I hadn't slipped, it's no fun when they bleed out so fast..." Lucy's cheery tone had faded to one that was borderline misery as he vacated the shadows and warped the fabric of reality to fit into the light, bending and stretching until what was once a pool of inky black spanned its way into a creature nearly brushing the ceiling. Fitting into rooms he'd only seen from under the bed or in darkness was a tricky feat each and every time, but it was well worth the sight of the underwear clad woman before him, blood streaked in her pretty hair and splotched across her skin. Then there was the knife on the bed, and the look of absolute shock on her face when she turned and caught sight of the otherworldly creature hovering above her with a grin far too wide for it's shadowy face.
"M-Monster. It's real, you're a monster."
"No, Lucy," he warbled out through his created mouth, cringing at the feel of the contorted shadows and the way it felt to force his vocals through a quickly and shoddily created form. "Tonight, it seems, the monster is you."