My Friend...

It was dark. The air was sticky, making me writhe and kick the blankets off my chubby legs. With wide eyes I looked around. My tiny heart pounded with growing terror.
Were they here? Had they come while I was sleeping?

My tiny hands felt nothing except my teddy that had somehow crawled away from me during the night. I managed to grab him by the ear, pulling him towards me in a tight hug. He always helped me keep calm on nights when my friend didn’t show. Thinking of him my small frame trembled, not with fear but of sadness. He hadn’t shown up in a while.

‘But he only comes to chase away the bad men’ a voice told me. I squeezed my eyes shut. The bad men, the way they smelled funny like too sweet flowers and how they were always saying I was sick and needed to get this out of me. I wasn’t sick…at least not how they were saying.  They said my friend, my protector was bad and would hurt me, but they would keep me safe.

But he never made me feel helpless like they did. There were no wandering hands in the darkness with him, no threats of being hurt!

I panted trying not to remember. The last time it’d happened I tried screaming, kicking anything I could do to get away. I told mommy about them, but she didn’t believe me. She would just keep clasping her hands together mumbling to someone I couldn’t see. Saying how I needed to be ‘saved’.

Saved….I did need saving! From them!  

Tears stung my eyes at the bad memories, the pain, the fear. My skin was sticky with sweat when I felt a cool breeze seemingly from nowhere. My eyes popped open. Was it him??

Sitting up quickly I gazed around but saw nothing. My heart felt sad for a moment. I thought I would cry again and then I saw him. He was sitting casually on the side of my bed. In the moonlight I could barely make out the dark suit he always wore. I heard the faint ticking of his pocket watch as he shifted to glance at me.

He smiled.

“Ah, good. I thought I had woken you at first.” His voice always calmed me. It was pleasant and sounded slightly strange to my ears, but I liked it anyway. As he peered closer to me, inspecting me as he always did, I saw his eyes plainly in the darkness. They gleamed a dark shade of red like something out of a picture-book. His hair smelled clean as always. Sometimes I wanted to reach out and touch it, enjoying how it tousled around his shoulders.

“No bad hands?” he asked softly. I winced. I hated this question every time he visited, but I knew I had to tell the truth.

“Some…a few days ago…” My eyes welled with tears but my friend wiped them away gently.

“  Suus 'Licuit, Jake” he said gently. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but I still felt bad anyway. They made me feel bad for it. I wanted my bottle, it always took the sadness away.

I smiled when my friend handed my bottle to me. It looked clean and full again as if by magic! I took a small sip…chocolate milk! Mommy never let me have this kind, but my friend snuck it to me anyway. There were many nights I was grateful for these small gifts.

Then my friend looked serious. I knew when he made this face to pay close attention.

“They don’t want me around you Jake. They keep trying to drive me away. Do you understand?”

My brow furrowed as I tried to think. All the screaming, weird chants and water being thrown everywhere? I nodded, swallowing a mouthful of milk.

“They say you’re bad…” I whispered. “But it’s not bad hands with you, you keep me safe!” My hands clasped to my mouth. I spoke a little too loud. Mommy would come for sure now!

But there was nothing. She must be asleep now.

“Yes, I do, Jake” my friend whispered. “And I’ll keep coming back as long as I must to see your safe. Until you can get away from here…only then will I leave you…”

I panicked, grasping his clawed hand in my own tiny one.

“No! Please don’t, they’ll get me if you do, never leave, please…” I begged nearly sobbing again. My friend looked as if he would scold me for a moment, then his gaze softened. I felt his lips on my forehead as he lay me down, drawing cool sheets over me.

“Then I’ll stay as long as I have to.” He grinned in the darkness before singing a song gently in my ear. It was in that strange language he sometimes spoke, but it lulled me to sleep every time.  

My bottle and bear safely clutched in my arms, my friend disappeared as quickly as he came, as if into thin air.