Monster by Abigail Livinghouse (chromebook ebook reader .txt) 📕

 "We love you Ana, friends for life!" Lisa exclaimed happily.

"The Three Amigos!" Kristen shouted joyously with a smile.

Their figures began fading rapidly, fading,  fading, until Ana could barely make out their silhouettes. It was as if they were travelling backward through a tunnel, and disappearing quickly before her very eyes. She knew this was the last time she would ever see them, and she began to panic.

"Wait!" Ana screamed, reaching out to them. But they were miles away by now, their figures mere spots in the brightness that began to get brighter, shining like a light forced in your face, until it was too bright for Ana's eyes. She shielded her face with her arm, squinting and struggling to see. She said one more thing before the brightness overwhelmed her. "Wait!"

Her eyes fluttered open, and she saw a hospital room quite opposite from the one she had woken up in the day Lisa and Kristen were discovered. This room is bigger, with windows looking out to the gardens of the hospital. There are flowers, balloons, and teddy bears on both side tables shouldering Ana's bed, and the room was packed with people. Her whole family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, even her older brother Ryan had ventured all the way from Florida to be here. There was also Detective Morris, sitting down with a cup of coffee in his hand and casually talking with her parents, smiling and laughing like she'd never seen before. Ana gasped, and all heads turned her way.

"She's awake!" Her little cousin Emma squealed delightedly, and scrambled over to jump on the foot of Ana's bed. She went to hug Ana, but was promptly scolded by Aunt Josie.

"Emma careful! Let Ana rest for Heaven's sake."

Josie gasped and said Emma's name harshly when the little girl ignored her mother and promptly jumped forward and hugged her cousin.

Ana winced, pain stung deep in her chest and reverberated up to her head with the contact. Aunt Josie sprang forward and quickly pulled the little girl off of Ana, but Ana ended up laughing, a decision that also sparked pain throughout her body.

"It's okay, it didn't really hurt." She lied, but the answering smile on Emma's face and the smirk she gave her mother saying I was right, was definitely worth it.

Her aunt and cousin moved away to make room for her parents, brother, and Detective Morris who all made their way around Ana's bed. They weren't looking at her accusingly or with tight faced worry like they had the last time she was in a hospital room, but rather with glowing compassion and almost admiration. It came as another shock to Ana, and she blinked a few times to make sure she was really awake.

"How are you feeling sweetie?" Mrs. Walcott asked, taking Ana's hand in her warm fingers.

Ana contemplated lying for her mom's benefit, but just decided to be truthful. "Crappy."

Her father chuckled, her mom's forehead crinkled with worry, and her brother Ryan cracked a wide smile.

"You always were a trooper, kiddo." He said, and punched her very gently on the arm.

Even though Ryan was twenty two, only a few years older than her, he had always called her "kid" or "kiddo". Normally it irritated the hell out of Ana, but right now she was just about ready to cry seeing him and the rest of her family all crammed into one room, there and not grilling her with questions or accusations. All of them just together, happy, a family.

The only person who was there that wasn't a part of the family was Detective Morris, and Ana turned to him. Her expression must've gave way to a million questions, and he started with one.

"Your charges have been dropped. The labs did recon and found separate DNA, matched with the assailant we found along with you in Manhattan, and the assailant's prints and blood on the two victims." He informed her, in a low yet sharp tone, indicating this was not information he was comfortable sharing, especially with her whole family in the room, but was telling her anyway.

A flutter of gratitude warmed Ana's aching chest, and she nodded minutely. She understood that it was a discussion for another time, just not now.

"When will I be able to leave?" This question was directed at her parents. The warm glow on her mother's face dimmed, and her father's face hardened.

"Two weeks baby, but don't worry we'll be here every day." Her mother said, giving a reassuring squeeze of Ana's hand.

Ana was slightly disappointed, however she nodded and laid back, sighing. She would finally be able to relax. She had cleared her name. She had done it.

"Let's let the girl get some sleep." Her father put his hands on her mother's shoulders and gently eased her away. Her mom reluctantly agreed.

"Of course." She leaned forward and planted a kiss on Ana's forehead. Another thing normally Ana couldn't stand because it made her feel like a child, but at the moment she would've rather been a child than a nineteen year old who had just nearly been killed by god knows what.

Detective Morris nodded minutely at her as he filed out of the room with everyone else. Once the room was empty, it still felt very warm and cozy and filled with happiness that Ana was alive and moderately well.

Even though she could tell by the bits of light streaming through the blinds on the window that it was about midday, Ana realized that she could easily fall asleep. She snuggled further into the bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin, closing her eyes.

Images flashed behind her lids. Empty white stares, a darkness surrounding her, and then suddenly all of that was gone and replaced with Lisa and Kristen. They were smiling at Ana, giving her the thumbs up, and telling her that they loved her.

Ana sat up in bed, her head and heart pounding. She swung her legs over, feeling the soft carpet under her bare feet. Lawrence stirred behind her, groggily waking up and looking at her with bleary brown eyes.

"You okay baby?"

Ana nodded even though she wasn't too sure herself. She hadn't dreamt or thought about for that matter of the day after she had killed the Monster, for years. She wasn't sure why her subconscious had drudged up those images for her to relive. It gave her chills, and Lawrence reached out and gently touched Ana's shoulder.

"Are you sure?"

She turned to look at him and gave him a small reassuring smile. "I'm fine honey. I'm just gonna get a drink."

Ana stood and made her way down the steps to their small kitchen. She grabbed a random glass from the cabinet that she hoped was clean enough. Sometimes Krista didn't clean the dishes properly. She usually just yelled, "All done, Mommy!" after only rinsing them out with water.

Ana filled up the glass from the tap and took a sip, still stuck on her dream. It was strange for her to dream about the encounter with the Monster she had had when she was nineteen.

She looked out the window above the sink, at the moon still high up in the night sky. It must've been only a little bit after midnight. Ana had gone to bed at ten. The dream seemed to last much longer than just two hours.

Ana sighed and dumped the rest of her drink down the drain, placing the glass in the sink. When she had killed the Monster, that was the closest encounter she had ever had with a demon. That's what she believed it was anyway. It sure wasn't anything she had ever seen before in her life, and she never needed to see one again.

Now at twenty five, she still remembered every detail from that night. The words said, the fight with the Monster where only one of them could live, and the dream with her long deceased friends Lisa McCain and Kristen Kelleher.

The dream was something she didn't fully remember until a few days after she had been released from the hospital after being patched up from her encounter with the Monster. Ana  had a few jagged scars forever imprinted on her chest, right where her heart was. Marking the place where the demon had sank its claws into her.

Ana's fingers ghosted over her chest where the scars were, shivering. She never heard any voice again, and she never told anyone that the Monster had gotten inside her head. It was something that made her skin crawl to even think about, so it was something she just never shared. Ana never even told Lawrence.

Her eyes flitted to their wedding picture hanging on the wall, and then the picture directly beside that of her, Lawrence, and their daughter Krista. She smiled, thinking of her bubbly little girl with the name that was a mixture of the names Lisa and Kristen, in honor of Ana's brave friends.

"Mommy?" Ana turned to see Krista standing in her nightgown in the doorway to the kitchen, clutching her favorite teddy bear and rubbing her eyes.

"What's the matter sweetie?" Ana knelt down, brushing Krista's curly brown hair out of her eyes.

"I had a bad dream and I went into yours and Daddy's room but you weren't there." Tears were glistening in Krista's green eyes, and Ana's heart melted.

"Oh honey I'm sorry. C'mon." Ana scooped up Krista and held her in her arms, making her way back to the bedroom.

 "Why don't we get some sleep?" She said, but Krista had already dozed off. Ana smiled at her sweet daughter as she walked down the hall.

Ana took Krista to her daughter's small pink bedroom, laying her down on her bed and kissing her on the forehead before returning to Ana's master bedroom where Lawrence laid snoring. She returned next to her husband, who threw his arm around her waist as he turned around, sleeping soundly.

Ana smiled, closing her eyes and feeling that sleep was actually closer than she thought. Her life now had changed so much since that night in the alley way of Manhattan, facing off with the demon who had claimed the lives of her two friends. Today, Ana had no regrets. The only thing she wished had been different was that Lisa and Kristen were alive to be with her today, as her two very best friends. But she had them in her dreams, visiting her every now and