The following short story was inspired by a Reddit writing prompt: You find a baby monster under your bed, revealing the true horror: Responsibility.

“Look what the tooth fairy left me!” Leah shouted repeatedly throughout the house.

It was a Saturday morning and neither of the young girl’s parents wanted to wake up quite yet. Not that the parents were lazy or negligent. It was two in the morning.

“Look what the tooth fairy left me!”

The mother rolled over and nudged the husband with her left foot. “It’s your turn to make the toaster strudel,” she mumbled.

The father did not move nor respond. He currently had to lead a fleet of spaceship pirates to burn down his corporation’s headquarters.

“The tooth fairy came today!”. Their daughter’s voice echoed from outside their bedroom now.

The mother nudged the husband again, this time with both feet. “It’s your turn to crush her dreams. I had to do it with Santa last year.”

Still no response from the husband.

“The tooth fairy left me a baby!”

Both the mother and father jolted awake.

“Leah what’s that you said?” the father asked.

“Did you leave a Bratz doll under her pillow?” the mother asked him. “You were supposed to leave a silver dollar like last time.”

“I left 10 cents and a stick of gum,” he said.

Their daughter came bumbling in the room, her hair frizzled and wild-looking from all of the running she did.

Cradled in her arms was something bundled in several sheets, which she must have taken from her bed. The seven year old was short for her age, which made the sight even more strange.

The daughter eagerly waited at the foot of her parents’ bed. “Come look at her. I think it’s a girl.”

The father got up from bed and walked over to the daughter. “Did you go snooping around the- HOLY SHIT!”

In one swift motion the father swatted the bundled mystery from the girl’s arms and picked her up with his other arm. He then quickly darted away from the dropped object while chanting a number of other swear words.

“Patrice get back! Holy shit, holy shit, oh god,” he said, sounding more and more frazzled.

“Daddy those are bad words!” the daughter said, pressing her fingers to his lips.

The mother didn’t know what to think. On the one hand her husband, Bennett, had played a number of scare pranks on her in the past, but on the other hand, she’d never seen him pull off such a convincing act. In any case, she had to see the source of all the fuss. Curiosity was always her first reaction to strange events.

Ignoring Bennett’s furious hand motions to come over with him and Leah, the mother crawled across the bed toward what had been dropped. Slowly she peered over the foot of the bed to take a look.

Definitely not a Bratz doll.

Pink, splotchy, wrinkled skin. Abnormally short limbs. Two pairs of small, beady black eyes. And a mouth that extended across its entire face. It looked like a mutant guinea pig except it was the size of a small dog.

“Don’t leave it on the ground!” Leah cried. She tried wriggling out of her father’s grasp but he had a deathgrip on her. “The baby needs to be fed!”

“Leah, where did you find this?” the mother asked.

“Under my bed,” Leah replied. “It showed up there after I heard a boop boop sound.”

“I think it’s an opossum,” the father said. With Leah still in his arm, he darted over to the bed’s end table and grabbed his iPhone. He instructed it to find pictures of baby opossums. A moment later he said, “Er… nevermind. Definitely not an opossum.”

For the next fifteen minutes, both parents began googling for baby versions of whatever animal they thought it was.

“Not a raccoon.”

“Naked mole rat? Hmm, close but not quite.”

“Not a sphynx cat either…”

“Those things are dreadful.”

“Where’s Daphne?” Leah said.

“Who is Daphne?” the mother asked, now browsing pictures of baby hairless dogs.

“Daphne’s my baby from the tooth fairy! I just named her that.”

The mother crawled across the bed again to check on the unknown creature. It was gone. The blankets that previously wrapped the creature were now stretched toward the door, where a thin trail of something slimy began on the hardwood floor.

“I think we should call the cops,” Bennet said.

“Call the cops and tell them some strange creature is in our home and we don’t know where it is?” Patrice said, sounding slightly hysterical. “They’ll either think we’re crazy, or they’ll find the goddamn creature and lock us away in some hellhole so we never go to the media about the whole thing!”

“You’ve been watching too much Stranger Things.”

“That’s a fair point,” Patrice said while nodding. “But still, no cops. Animal control? Maybe. Either way, we have to find that goddamn thing.”

“Why do we have to find it? That’s exactly what the kids from Stranger Things would do. And every other horror movie,” Bennett said.

“OK. Fine. Let’s pack for a night and stay at a hotel and call the cops. I’ll pack Leah’s…”, the mother looked around, “…where’s Leah?”

The dad looked around. He sat their daughter on the floor a while ago and didn’t even realize she was gone.

“We’re terrible parents,” he said.

The two of them left the bedroom and frantically called their daughter’s name, but there was never a reply. All the while they slowly followed the trail of slime left behind by the creature. To their horror it led to Leah’s room.

“Leah, baby, where are you?” the mother called, now breaking into a run towards Leah’s room with Bennett.

Their daughter’s bedroom door was half open. Beneath the door frame the slime appeared thicker.

Bennett rushed through the door first. Inside he found the uncomfortable site of two plump legs dangling from underneath the bed. Before Patrice even got inside he was already pulling at Leah’s legs.

To both of their relief, Leah emerged from underneath the bed. She was covered in the same horrible slime from the trail outside.

“Leah don’t ever hide from us like that again,” Bennet said sternly after pressing her head to his chest.

Meanwhile, Patrice had something else on her mind. Without saying a word, she grabbed ahold of their daughter’s bed frame and pulled it across the room.

It resembled a hole, or a crater perhaps. A deep, plunging mass of darkness carved its way through the hardwood floor. It existed in the middle of where the bed resided. A swath of thick slime covered the opening, at which the trail they followed came to an end.

“Oh god, what is going on…” the mother said desperately.

“We need to get out of here now,” Bennett said.

Patrice took a deep breath and nodded. But then she noticed something.

A deep panic ran up her spine that made her lips tremble and voice quiver.

“L-Leah?” she said feebly.

Bennett, confused, looked down at Leah. Slime and messy hair obscured her face, so he brushed it back to see if anything was wrong.

Four beady, black eyes and a mouth of sharp teeth were the last thing he saw that night.

THE END

Short Story: The Toothfairy’s Gift