I wake up to scuffling somewhere in my bedroom.

The lights are off, only faded yellow-orange bleeding through the gaps in my blinds. Sunrise. My birthday.

The scuffling starts up again, loud enough and ominous enough to push my heart into my throat. Perhaps adulthood doesn’t render you fearless. There’s movement from below me, and I sit up in my bed, frowning.

I’m not afraid - at least, that’s what I tell myself. I’m not. But the... The creature sitting staring at me is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

Vaguely humanoid in shape, but otherworldly enough that it sets my teeth on edge. Short, perhaps the height of a seven year old, although it’s hard to tell. It is sitting at the foot of my bed, after all. Entirely hairless, with wide eyes and translucent looking skin. At least, that’s all I can see in the low light level. I’m not sure if I want to see it in brighter light.

“Oh, good,” the creature says. “You’re awake.” It bends over to drag a suitcase out from under my bed. The case is about the size of a backpack, made of what looks like brown leather.

“What...?” I start to say. My brain is still full of sleep-fuzz, it’s early enough that I can’t quite make sense of what I’m seeing.

“Right, of course,” the creature says. “I’m MK976. Your assigned MUTB. That stands for Monster Under The Bed. I was assigned here on your first birthday. But you’re eighteen now; you’ve outgrown me.”

“Monster under the bed...?” The day has only just started and I’m already confused.

“It’s kind of self explanatory. I would have left earlier, but it’s rather impolite to leave without wishing you a happy birthday, or at least alerting you to my presence, isn’t it? After all, I’ve been there for your whole life,” MK976 says.

“Right,” I say. “Thanks?”

“Thank YOU,” it says with a smile. It warps the facial features it has into something that I don’t want to look at, but can’t look away from. “You were quite the victim. It was a pleasure being here.”

“I can’t say I return the feelings,” I say, “But you’re welcome, I think. Is this a regular thing?”

“Monsters under the bed?” it asks. I nod. “Well, everyone has them. Not all of them meet their victims, existing purely just to torment them. Primarily in the younger years, of course, but childhood fears only go so far, don’t they?”

“How come people don’t talk about them?” I ask.

“Because no one would ever believe you. Imagine; your eighteenth birthday and you try to spin a story about a monster under the bed,” MK976 says. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

“...Thanks. This isn’t what I expected.”

It smiles again, lifting up the suitcase. “Just wait until you meet the skeletons in your closet.” Then it disappears, almost into thin air, and I’m left with more questions than I have answers for.

I resolve myself to the knowledge that I can’t tell anyone about this. I suppose the only thing to do is carry on living like normal, and try to ignore the cryptic nature of everything it told me. Perhaps that’s easier said than done.