Monster.

I hear his loud footsteps make their way into the empty nothingness that my room and everything in it has become. It doesn’t matter how quiet he tries to be, he’s too big to take soft steps. Either way, I seem to have trained my ears enough to hear the cars driving on the interstate, five miles away. Not that that ever did me much good.

‘It might have two months ago.’ I think to myself and my lips twitch into the phantom of a smile. Within seconds it’s gone.

I don’t move as he approaches my bed. The bed I’ve been curled up in for what feels like years, though my logical half reminds me it’s only been months. Two months since I was shot. Two months since I found that I was, in fact, a monster. Two months since I almost killed him. But it was only one month since I stopped movement all together.

My foot twitched in the awkward position I’d found myself in this morning. I never slept soundly anymore, nightmares always seemed to plague my mind and invade my dreams. My toe was rubbing against the hard material of the cast on my leg.

He stiffened and almost didn’t take his next step. I always told him it wasn’t his fault, but I could still feel his guilt without rolling over to look into those big brown eyes. Those big soulful eyes that always melted every part of me. I could feel it because I’ve realized that, somehow, I can read the emotion of a room. Since this is my room and the only habitants were the two of us, it was easy.

I was void of emotion. I was a big black hole just waiting for the mattress to eat me alive and save the people around me from my own destruction.

He was the only one who couldn’t stay away anymore.

I felt his warm hand on my back, and it dwarfed me. He was a giant. “You need to eat something.” He said quietly, but I didn’t even blink as I stared at the blinded window before me. I wasn’t going to move, not for him, not for his brother, not for anybody. Not today, anyway.

He ran his hand up my side a little, trying to comfort me and I tried not to shiver at the touch.

“Please, Ash. For me?” This was the first time he tried that and I almost moved, I almost gave in. At any other point in my life I would have gladly done anything for him. I would have died for him.

Not today. Not this month. Not last month.

‘Maybe tomorrow.’ I tell myself, not daring to convey the thoughts aloud.

But like I said, I’m just a big emptiness.

A monster just waiting to be found.