Well Writ woke with a start to the sound of his daughter screaming. The gray stallion quickly ran down the hall of his house, almost breaking down the door to get in to his daughter’s bedroom. He found her sitting up on her bed, still screaming. Writ immediately sat himself down beside her, and she instinctively wrapped her hooves around him, tears forming in her eyes. Well Writ comforted her while she gasped and hiccuped for breath.
“T-t-there w-was a-a m-m-monster c-c-coming to e-eat me!” she sobbed, burrowing her muzzle into her father’s coat.
Writ sighed. A nightmare.
“Honey, you had a nightmare. There is no monster coming to eat you,” he said, stroking her purple mane. While she calmed down, Writ took the moment to admire how much like her mother little Glass Flute looked. Her purple mane was much darker than her mother’s, closer to the dark blue Writ’s was. She had her mother’s coat, a creamy yellow, and her father’s eyes, a blue the color of a clear summer afternoon. She was the only connection to Color Crash that Writ had. He could remember her orange eyes, her sweet voice, and her happy-go-lucky attitude towards life. His eyes started tearing up. She’d passed on, an accident involving booze and a hundred-story drop form the construction site where she worked bringing about her demise. He lingered on those thoughts, before snapping back to reality, as Flute asked a question.
“R-really?”
Writ smiled down at his daughter. “Of course. You know, I was scared of monsters when I was your age, too.” Glass wiped the tears from her eyes, which now sparked with a slight curiosity. Writ continued.
“I woke up, thinking that some monster was hiding in my closet, or under my bed. I was so scared, I peed on the bed!”
Glass giggled at the thought of her father peeing on his bed in fear. Her eyes were mostly dry now. Well Writ smiled at the sight of his daughter laughing. He kept going
“Why, I was so scared, I had to sleep with my parents! They wouldn’t believe me when I said I had a monster in my room. They just told me to go back to bed. I didn’t like that. I thought, ‘I need to show them that there IS a monster in my room. Maybe then they will believe me.’ So you know what I did?”
Glass looked up at her Dad, eyes wide. “What?”
“Well, I stayed up all night, trying to catch the monsters. But, they were smart. They knew to hide, because I was looking for them. So I decided to do something else.”
Glass was leaning forward in anticipation, curiosity burning in her eyes. “What? What did you do?”
Writ held up a hoof. “First, I waited until night came.” He held up his other hoof. “Then, I got out of bed, and trotted up to the closet, where I thought all the monsters were, and I opened the door. And then.....” He suddenly started to tickle Flute furiously. “Then I was tickled to death!”
Glass Flute tried to resist, but eventually fell, laughing uproariously at her dad’s antics. He continued until they both were on the bed, giggling and laughing. Once they’d both calmed down, Writ spoke again.
“So, you want to know why I told you that story?”
Flute turned her head, her big eyes watching him. “Why?”
Well Writ picked up his daughter, standing up on all four hooves again. “I wanted to show that there is no monster under your bed. There is nothing in your closet, and they’ll stay away from Manehatten. You have nothing to worry about.” He put her back on to her own bed, fluffed her pillow, and put the covers over her. She yawned, her eyes growing sleepy.
“Really?” she yawned.
“Yes, really.”
With that, Flute fell asleep. Writ slowly backed out of his daughter’s room, heading back to his own to get some rest. As he got into bed, he thought back on the nightmare Flute had. It certainly wasn’t the first time she’d had those nightmares. He’d sent her to many psychiatrists, and the’d all said that it was stress and grief of losing her mother. He didn’t think so. Color had died more than a year ago, and the nightmares were happening much to often for that to be the cause. He came to a horrifying conclusion at one point.
What if I’m the reason? He thought, What if she is afraid of me, or blames me for Color’s death, and thinks I’ll do the same to her?
He almost immediately dismissed the notion. She doesn’t blame me, she knows that the ‘bad liquids’ are the reason, and that Mommy had made a mistake. I treat her very well, so she can’t be afraid of me; tonight just proves that. Writ’s mind wandered through thoughts, until he drifted off to Luna’s realm.
Writ woke once again to the sound of Glass Flute screaming. It had been a few days since their talk, and se hadn’t had a nightmare since then. Turning the lights in the hallway on, he once again burst into her room. He was somewhat surprised to find Flute hiding underneath the covers, hyperventilating.
“What’s wrong, dear?” He trotted over to the hidden filly, pulling the covers away.
“There’s something in my closet.” she whispered this in a fearful tone.
Writ chuckled. “This again? Honey, we already went through this, there are no monsters in your closet.”
Glass Flute grabbed the covers back from her Dad, pulling them up so she could just peek over the top of the covers.
“I know there’s something in there!” Writ tried pulling the covers back down, but to no avail. He chuckled again.
“Well, Princess, how about I check and show you there’s nothing in your closet?” Flute nodded furiously.
Well Writ stood up, trotting across the room, and, putting a gray hoof on the door of the closet, opened it. He was about to tell Flute there was nothing there, when he noticed the foal sitting, front hooves hugging herself, at his hooves. The foal looked up, and Writ felt a feeling of dread. It was Glass Flute.
His daughter looked into his eyes, fear rooting itself into Well Writ’s core as he heard a thump as something jumped form the bed, and the sliver of light form the hallway suddenly disappeared, as she said:
“Daddy, there’s something in my bed.”
Author's Note
Something quick I wrote based on a comic that I saw.
Didn't have time to do much thinking into a plot, but this is more fear factor than anything.
