The Slobbermonster

For the MAMA Scared Stiff Contest

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Slobbermonster - the first monster I thought existed under my bed.

When I was around 5, only months after I had first arrived in America, I woke up one day to find my pillow wet in places I didn't think my mouth would even reach. I brushed it off as me probably drooling in a strange sleeping position. The ceiling leaked sometimes as well, since our apartment was underground, and I only had a little vent near the ceiling of my room to see the change of daylight. Maybe some water had dripped on me when I was sleeping. The mysterious case of 'drool' on my pillow went on about once a week for a while.

But then one night, I remember dreaming about 2 moons emerging from under my bed, and in the morning, I woke up- ...but I couldn't open my eyes. I panicked, thinking I had turned blind. One of my hands lay in a wet puddle of drool(?), so I raised my dry hand to my eyes, trying to brush off the eye-crust that one sometimes wakes up with. But, I usually never wake up with that much eye-crust. Did I cry during the night?

I dreamed about the 2 moons again occasionally, until my family moved out of the apartment. But not before I gave a name to the thing I thought came out from under my bed during the night to drool on me - The Slobbermonster.

In the end, I just figured I had really weird and drool-prone sleeping habits back when I was a child, most likely attributed to the sudden change of environment and my childish anxieties. _{Though I'm pretty sure I've never drooled that much. Honestly.}

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Slobbermonster (c) *lushan