I walked through the tall gray doors, two armed guards flanking me. The asylum was cold, chilling me to my very core. My shoes clacked against the hard floor, the sound echoing around the room.

I tried to ignore the peoples screams, but some fell into my awareness, making me flinch. This was not a happy place. The doctors had released me on one condition; I talk to them.

They wanted me to talk to the very reason I had been admitted. They told me I was crazy, that there was no such things as monsters. There were.

They walk around us, keeping out of sight until they get hungry. Except the Fates. They didn’t come out because of hunger, they wanted to play. The girls looked innocent, like normal little girls. It was a lie.

They’d ask you to play a game, and you would agree, thinking they were just poor little lonely children. I fell for it, I agreed to play a game of life.

I remember my face when they pulled the board out, I was expecting Life, with the little cars that you had to run around the board. Instead, I was the game, we were playing with my life.

There were four pieces, each girl had one, and so did I. Each space held something different, every one determining what would come after me. I still had the scar across my cheek from the werewolf, and my mind still shied away from the cold dark eyes of the vampire.

I had never finished their game, and I knew they wouldn’t be happy. No one quit once the game had started. I realized after countless sessions of shock therapy, that no doctor would believe me. Nobody would.

The walls blurred past me as I continued to walk, wanting to stop, but knowing they would just lock me up again. So I kept moving, the room they were waiting in getting closer and closer.

The door came too soon, suddenly right in front of me, the guards behind me to block my escape.

I turned the knob slowly, the door making a creaking sound as I pushed against it. The light in the room was dim, making my heart race, my mind begging me to leave. I started to inch back, but the door slammed shut, locking me in here with the monsters.

“Hello, Iris.” Clotho purred, her voice crawling up my skin like spiders.

She stepped out into the light so I could see her, Lachesis and Atropos right on her heels. Their innocent faces didn’t fool me, and they knew it. Their smiles morphed into something gruesome, their pointed incisors similar to those of a dog.

“We didn’t get to finish our game,” They hissed, in perfect sync. “And the game can’t go unfinished.”

The air started to grow foggy, and I banged my fists against the door, begging them to let me out before it was too late. The wind pulled against me, sucking me into their teleportation vortex. My scream not being heard by anyone.








~~~




I landed on my stomach, all the wind knocked out of my body with the impact. The Fates surrounded me as I lifted myself off the ground, their chanting growing until weeds sprouted from the earth, encircling my wrists.

I pulled against the restraints to no avail, they were unbreakable. Their laughter filled the air as they pulled out two dice pieces, one held pictures of different monsters, the other coated with numbers.

My head start.

They threw the dice, water splattering up as it landed in the grass. They frowned looking at the 20 the one flourished, but their moods quickly lifted as they looked at the monster.

The vines around my wrists disappeared, and I didn’t wait to see the creature pulling itself from the dirt, I just ran. My feet padded against the forest ground, counting off the seconds I had left.

20.….. The Fates cackling as they anticipated my death.

15.….. The monsters roar as it broke free from its underground prison.

10.….. The sound of my heart as it thumped erratically in my chest.

5.….. The shallow breaths escaping out of my mouth, as my lungs ached.

0.….. Times up.

The monster broke through the trees, my cover falling away as they fell like dominoes. My legs pumped, pushing myself faster against the growing darkness looming behind me.

My fear filled the air, coating it in a thick gloss. Eyes stared out at me everywhere I looked, blood shot and filled with menace.

“Iris…….” The wind hissed, making me jump as it licked past me. “It’s coming to get you……”

Black spots flecked across my vision as I looked around wildly, the wind encasing me in its thick voice. Scorpions skittered across the ground around my feet, trying to sting me.

I pulled a branch off a tree, holding it out like a golf club. My hands shook, making the wood jerk in my hands as I batted away the monstrosities. It went right through them, no matter how much I swung at them, I never hit anything.

A roar ran through the air, making creatures everywhere scatter. I started to run but hot breath blew against my face, throwing me back into a tree. My head hit the bark with a crack, the world spinning on its axis for a moment.

The monster got up in my face, its body protruding at strange angles, completely covered in mold. It bared its teeth at me, each about the size of a basketball.

It dived forward biting into the tree, giving me only seconds to roll away. It reared back, jumping at me again. I tried to feign left, but it managed to catch my shoulder.

I let out a scream as blood pooled down my arm, soaking my shirt in red. I fell to the ground, the blood loss signifying my looming demise. The creature leaned down over me, his black eyes sensing my pain.

“The branch…..” The wind whispered in my ear.

I vaguely realized I still clutched the wood in my hand, and as the monster came in for the killing blow, I lifted it up. It went through its head with a sickening crunch, the creature landing on top of me.

The monsters giant torso cut off my air supply for a moment, before it just disappeared. The wind lifted me off the ground gently, carrying me along with it as it left the forest.

And the last thing I remembered before I blacked out, was the Fates screams of indignation.









~~~




I laid on the floor of the padded cell, rolled up with my knees to my chest. I slowly rocked back and forth, welcoming the silence of the room.

A woman came into the small cell, giving me medications for my hallucinations. I smiled at her as she left me in peace, relaxing in the bliss of the medicine.

The lights flickered, before going out altogether. The ventilation system shut off, a hum filling the air in its place. I rocked faster, chanting to calm myself.

“Not real,” I muttered, my sight completely cut off by the dark. “There is no such thing as monsters, it’s not real.”

The lights flickered back on for a moment, shadows flitting across the room, before once again disappearing with the dark.

“There is no such things as monsters.” I muttered again, my heart drumming faster than the medication should’ve allowed. “There is no such thing as…….”

“Iris……” The wind whispered.