[ WP ] The monster under your bed is protecting you from something much worse .

I hear the familiar boards creak as my child tiptoes to her bed. As always, she moves quickly, panickedly. She hates the dark, and what's more, she hates what the dark holds. I can hear her heart skip a beat as she hops into the bed. The frame creaks, the mattress shifts. After a few minutes pass. Her heart rate gradually slows. She is asleep. Good. 
 
 
 I pull myself out from under the bed, careful not to make a sound. I did not need her to wake. For her to see me at this age would be disastrous. For her to see what I protect her from... it is best not to dwell on what that would entail. I watch her for a moment, listening as her heart beats steadily. She is healthy, she is safe. It was my duty to keep her that way. It is a duanting task to love and protect a creature whose very nature drives her to hate you. But that is the lot of a guardian. 
 
 
 Time passes. I know not how long I wait and listen, my child's persistent heartbeat thrumming in my ears. Time is a strange thing when the sun does not shine. I wait. Then it is time. The anointed moment ticks by. The Witching Hour arrives as it always arrives. The world comes into sudden clarity, and my challengers for the night appear. 
 
 
 `` Name thyself'' I say, my voice a whisper, barely audible. 
 
 `` We are'' comes the replies, spoken from grinning lips set into to lumpen faces, faces that try to peak past me to see my charge. 
 
 `` No games. Name thyselves'' I repeat, my voice no louder. 
 
 `` We are as we are, good guardian'' they say in horrid unison. 
 
 `` Your names, vile ones. Name thyselves at once!'' My voice is an acrid hiss. The creatures recoil, weary of what I might do. There was an etiquette to uphold, and they wondered if I might break it. They hoped, for it would mean my end. 
 
 `` I,'' began a creature like a shrivelled child, its eyes hollow and glassy, `` am Waste. I am she who inflicts slow death upon the innocent. She who strikes ill the young for the crime of youth, which was denied me at the dawn.'' 
 
 
 `` I,'' began a horrid hag, bloated and sagging hideously, `` am Ruin. I am she who tempts children with vice, who brings rotten bloom and false ripeness to the youth. I am the mother of alcohol, the matron of heroin. I inflict addiction and sin upon the innocent, for I was not saved from my hedonism at the dawn.'' 
 
 
 `` I,'' spoke a skeletal figure, a sickly grin of needles splitting its face from ear to ear, `` am Irreverence. I am the font of sarcasm and cynicism. It is I who drains color and wonder from the world, I who brings depression and doubt, who drives the innocent to take their own lives in despair. I steal hope and blind the eye to the glory of creation. I rot the mind and dull morality. I wear the disguise of wisdom and progress. I do this, for at the dawn I was turned the wrong way, and saw not creation come to be.'' 
 
 
 `` Waste, Ruin, Irreverence. You come to corrupt my child. To rob her of innocence as punishment for that which was your fault, or else no one's fault. You spite her for she is pure where you are wretched. You would destroy her for the crime of being. I will not let this be.'' 
 
 
 I bore my fangs, a flash of silver rage filled the room. I loosed my claws and dug them into the floor, ready to pounce, daring the horrors to make their first move. My child was dreaming mere feet from me. I glanced back at her, her innocence written upon her angelic face. It was anathema to me for even the idea of her corruption to exist. 
 
 
 One night I may succumb. One night my will may prove weak, my body may prove old, my claws may prove dull. But not this night. This night no horror shall tough my child. The coven of corruption steps forward, teeth nashing, claws flashing. I growl low in my throat, and pounce. The battle begins. My child slumbers mere steps from the brawl, at peace with the world, sheltered from the cancer I hold back. 
 
 
 Come morning, the horrors are gone. The sun shines through the window and falls upon that peaceful face. She wakes, and jumps from her bed, bounding out to greet her mother and father. I lay beneath the bed, nursing my wounds, resting, conserving strength. I will have another trial tonight. I must be ready. I must protect.
