Lozmerelda Faces Her Fear

Taking a deep, shaking breath, Lozmerelda yanked the quilt to below her chin and leaned towards the light switch by her bed. Giving the bright, boring, colourless room one last lingering sweep with her tired blue eyes, she flicked off the lights and slammed her eyes shut. Her fingers gripped the fourteen inch alder wood stick in her hand tightly, and she cursed herself internally. She was twenty-two years old, an experienced witch who had graduated Hogwarts near the top of her class. It was ridiculous that she should be scared of the dark at all, let alone the false creature she laughed at during the day and cowered from at night.

She pulled the bedclothes closer to her, her elbows and nose tucked just outside the warmth they created. Opening one eye gingerly, she stared through her askew glasses in the direction he always seemed to appear in her mind. From the corner where her door hung, a darkness started to seep. But this was no regular darkness – this was blacker than death itself, curling out like tentacles and long, thin limbs, ready to grab her and drag her to another plane where she’d wish she’d never been born.

As the blackness crept along the walls, her breathing grew more ragged, the air grew colder and the sweat on her brow began to bead. One trickled down the back of her neck and a small squeak escaped her lips; instinctively, her hand twitched and a flash of purple light erupted from the end of her wand.

This was just the boost Lozmerelda needed. She wasn’t going to allow this anymore. She needed to rest – it was humiliating to allow such a silly fear to rule her, it was stupid to allow something that didn’t exist outside of fiction to haunt her nights and disallow her the release of sleep to wash away the arduous day.

She clambered to her feet, standing unsteadily atop her mattress with the bedding tangled around her feet. Her night dress was crumpled, hitched up at one side from her awkward and tense sitting position, but she was either unaware or uncaring. She brandished her wand before her, surety and determination knitting her brows together ferociously.

“Come on, Slendy. Come at me, bro.”

As if she had summoned the creature with her mind into the physical world, he oozed around the wall and came face to face with her, standing eerily silent at the foot of her bed. His faceless head was straight on and she stared right between where the eyes would be – she didn’t falter; she didn’t hesitate; she didn’t even breathe.

“Ridikulous!” she bellowed, pointing her wand towards the creature.

All of a sudden, he wasn’t the tall, faceless Slenderman of myth and legend that had haunted her for so many sleepless nights. His black suit turned into rainbow-pinstripes and he grew huge, red clown boots. His long fingers curled up and became party whistles that played a tune, curling out and snapping back with every individual note. And he was no longer faceless: he now had giant, pink anime-style eyes, sat too close together either side of a giant blue nose. He developed a giant pair of Jessica Rabbit lips far too high up his face, which was too small and squarely in the middle of his round, white head. He also had ginger dreadlocks hanging down over his shoulders, gathered in clumps of three and tied together with bonnie, yellow-and-white polka-dot bows.

As he tried to take a step towards her, he fell backwards heavily with a noise that sounded like a comedy horn, and ended up stuck on his back and unable to get back up. His face was adorned with a look of mingled surprise and shock as he rocked side to side, trying to arise once more.

And for the first time, the young witch started to laugh. Long and hard Lozmerelda giggled and guffawed, until her sides ached and tears streamed down her face. The calamity she had created faded into nothing as she fell backwards, hardly able to breathe from the all-consuming laugh. It lasted a good ten minutes and, as she finally wiped her eyes and removed her glasses, she couldn’t help but grin.

She sighed once, contented and quite proud of herself, and had just enough time to picture the image once more with a brief chuckle before sleep finally overcame her, and she was dropped happily into a calming dream.