[ TT ] A child is kidnapped . Outraged , the monsters that live under their bed and in their closet vow to find them .

I am the bed monster. 
 
 I *am* because children's dreams have power, too much to be held inside of their little heads. 
 
 *I* am The Nurse, because the child was born with heart defects. She spent many painful days in a hospital bed, and came to dread the caring people that hurt her to make her better. And so her darkest dreams brought me to her. 
 
 And now, for the first time, I am not with her. What I am requires me to bring her fears to her, to give them a shape that she can understand. To hurt her to heal. 
 
 And I can not do that because she was taken by men who want to hurt her to hurt. I do not understand why this hurts me, but it is not the kind of hurt I know, the kind that has a purpose. This is a bad hurt, a *wrong* hurt, and i think now what I am is a thing to make it stop. 
 
 Her hurt is my hurt, and I use it to find her. I move in the way that is not moving but is being, and now I am being in the room where she is. They are bad-hurting her, and I watch for a time to understand this kind of hurt. It is new to me, just like it is to her. 
 
 But now she knows this thing, and so now I know it. She is afraid of it, and does not want it to be part of her. I take it, and now I know both kinds of hurting. I do not like the new kind like I did the old one, but now I understand that it has a purpose as well, but it is not for children. 
 
 It is a good hurt for men that hurt the little ones. I know this now. 
 
 When I visited her at night, I did not take off my mask. She could see the smile in my eyes and the blood on my gloved hands and that was enough. But these men do not deserve the eyes or the mask or the gloves. 
 
 I remove them and then I show them what was underneath, what was hidden from the child. They do not like it, because now I know that what is underneath is for the other kind of hurting, and I am much, much better at it than they are. I am as good at as the child can imagine, and she has a *very* good imagination. 
 
 I let her see what I do to them because it hurts her, but it is the kind of hurt that makes her better. Because I am her Nurse, and that is what I *am*. 
 
 
 

