His eyes are golden. They look like that of a toad. They shine in the darkness.
That was the first thing I saw of him, two glowing dots shimmering in the pitch-black space under my new bed. It was a large canopy bed with light pink curtains. My parents and I had just moved the day before and my dad had immediately assembled it in my room. Him and mom had prepared the whole room for me, they had built up closets, cupboards and a desk. All the furniture was of a pleasant pastel purple color. It was the first night I would spend in this beautiful new room and I already loved it to bits.
Still, the golden dots stood out to me, so I got on all fours and crept up to the bed to look underneath it. However my eyes were only met with utter darkness, as if the only light able to reach the space underneath the bed was this odd, golden shimmer. I frowned in confusion and reached out to poke one of the dots with my finger. It felt like jelly.
“Ow.”
I gasped and backed off, quickly pulling my arm out from under the bed. When I had calmed down a bit, I looked around. I was all alone in my room. Pressing myself to the floor again, I stared into the blackness. “H-hello?” I stammered.
“Hi.”
The same voice. It was deep and rugged, but not unpleasant. It sounded rather nice, actually.
“Are those your eyes?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Ooh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s okay. You didn’t know.”
I hummed quietly. “You have very pretty eyes. Like a toad.”
The voice from under the bed chuckled. “Thank you.”
“So, um… I’m Mel. Who are you?” I asked, extending my hand under the bed once again for a handshake. However instead of fingers, something warm and furry wrapped around it. It felt almost like a dog’s tail. It tickled my palm a bit and I giggled.
“I’m your older brother.”
“Are not,” I puffed. “I don’t have any brothers. No sisters either.”
“Am too. Mom and dad just never told you about me.”
“Why not?”
The voice from under the bed sighed. “Because they hate talking about me. So much so that they will get very angry if you ever mention me.” After a short pause, he added, “We don’t want that to happen, do we?”
I shook my head. “So, how much older than me are you?”
“I’m not sure. A couple hundred years maybe?”
I snorted. “You’re lying! You can’t be that old. You’d be dead.”
“And yet I’m here.”
“But mom and dad aren’t even that old,” I argued. “How can you be their son if you’re older than them?”
“It’s complicated. I could explain but… ugh. Not in the mood for some long-winded story.”
I puffed my cheeks. “Fine. So, what’s your name?”
“My name? I’m afraid I don’t have one. You can give me one though if you’d like to,” my brother replied.
“I’ll call you Jasper then. I like that name,” I said.
A low chuckle came in response. “I think I do too.”
The next day, I didn’t mention Jasper to my parents. Or any other day, for that matter. At first, it was because I didn’t want them to get angry. However my interactions with my older brother soon became a thing of such intimacy that I didn’t even want to tell them about it at all. I would talk to him about everything, even about secrets I didn’t even share with my mom or dad. Jasper was very understanding and always good for some advice. We became incredibly close incredibly quickly and soon enough, I felt like he was the only friend I actually needed. I knew he felt the same way. He would tell me how much he loved me all the time, and how much he missed me when I was at school.
But my brother wasn’t exactly easy-care. I always had to feed him. It was difficult at first, but at least he wasn’t picky. I would sneak all sorts of food and snacks from the kitchen upstairs into my room for him. And he would eat so much. He barely ever stopped. My parents would sometimes allow me to take my meals upstairs with me under the guise of me wanting to do homework while I ate, but after a while, they grew really tired of not having me around for dinner or lunch. So they forbade me from doing it.
Jasper wasn’t happy with the small portions and tiny snacks I was still able to steal for him. After the third time I only brought him an apple, he really began to complain. “Can’t you get me anything more meaty? This won’t do… I’m so hungry…” he moaned.
“I’m sorry,” I said truthfully. “Why don’t mom and dad ever feed you? Don’t they know you need to eat?”
Jasper didn’t respond. A short pause ensued, neither of us saying a word. I felt terrible.
Suddenly, he spoke up again. His voice was low and foreboding. “Could you do something for me, Mel? Could you leave the window open tonight?”
I nodded hesitantly. “Why though?”
No answer. Still, that night I did as he told me. I figured maybe he simply wanted some fresh air. I didn’t want to upset him either, after the food I had brought him had been so disappointing. I loved my brother after all. That night, Jasper told me a goodnight story before I fell asleep. The morning after that, he was gone.
I noticed when I woke up and greeted him. He wasn’t answering to me. I figured he just wasn’t up yet. It was Sunday, so I didn’t have to go to school or anything. My parents seemed to still be asleep, so I quickly ran down into the kitchen to grab a couple slices of bread. I took them upstairs and slid them under the bed for Jasper. Instead of him immediately gobbling them down though, they remained untouched.
“Jasper?” I uttered. “Wake up, I got you something to eat.”
Everything was silent. I started letting my hand travel around in the darkness, but was unable to find anything. That’s when it finally sank in that he wasn’t there.
I never stopped waiting for Jasper to return. Every morning, I’d check under the bed, clinging onto the sliver of hope of seeing his two glowing eyes again. I would leave the windows open every night, even if the cold air seeping in through them would make me shiver. Days of waiting turned into weeks, weeks into months and months into years and eventually, I must have been around thirteen–I gave up. I left my secret brother behind, and with him all the times I had cried myself to sleep, caught a cold because of the open windows and checked the space under my bed in vain.
It was around that time I began to doubt his existence in its entirety. I figured Jasper had been nothing but an imaginary friend, a specter a lonely child’s mind had conjured up and discarded once it had grown useless. Deep down, I must have known I was merely lying to myself, but I liked this conclusion better than the alternative. Believing I had gotten rid of something of the same worth as a once beloved childhood toy was better than knowing I had been abandoned.
The missing person reports and cases of people being found mauled in the surrounding neighborhoods simply didn’t register with me. I didn’t suspect a thing when my parents suddenly started getting reluctant to let me leave the house on my own. Curfews were placed on our small town, policemen and -women patrolling the area after dark became a common sight. I think I understood somewhere in the back of my mind that these abductions and violent attacks had reached our own neighborhood, but as I said–it simply didn’t register.
That only changed when I was sixteen. I would always catch a ride with a friend of mine who went to the same high school as me. Her name was Ruth and she was kind enough to drive by my family’s place every morning to pick me up. The last time I saw her was early on a chilly day in fall. Thick fog was rolling through the streets, covering our town with its gray, damp veil. When Ruth arrived outside, I was already standing on the porch waiting for her. Her car’s red paint was shining through the fog, becoming brighter and brighter as I walked towards her.
I climbed in on the passenger side and wrapped my arms around my backpack which was resting on my lap. I exchanged a few words of greeting with Ruth before we set off. She had to drive very slowly and carefully due to the fog, causing us to arrive at school about ten minutes late. I thanked her for the ride, as always, she said it was no big deal, as always; and then our ways parted in the main hallway. That was the last time I saw Ruth.
That day, the final classes were interrupted by an alarm ringing, our teacher turning pale and telling us to hide under our desks while she went to turn off the lights, lock the door and windows. At first, we all thought it was just another drill seeing as we had those a lot. But as our teacher told us in a quiet voice to remain silent and quickly counted us to take attendance, the suspicion of something being different this time began to increase.
After about forty minutes of hiding like this, we were finally released as our teacher unlocked the door for us. Our parents had been informed already and apparently, during these forty minutes the police had been called and searched through the building. None of us knew why though just yet.
My parents picked me up from school right away. My mom explained on the car ride. She was sitting in the back with me, something she must have planned in advance so she could hold me while I cried.
Ruth had wandered off to the back of the school building to sneak a cigarette during the last break. When she hadn’t returned to her classroom though, a teacher had sent out another student to go look for her. They found the remains of her body behind the school gym in a pool of blood, next to her bag, a lighter and a box of smokes.
This was the final straw for my mom and dad to decide to leave our hometown. We moved to a suburban neighborhood pretty far away. I had to change schools, but that wasn’t too much of a bother. Ruth’s death had left me frightened and sad, she had been a close friend of mine for years. I had simply wanted to get away from it all, I guess.
The new place was nice. It’s where I graduated, got my first job at a gas station and my first apartment. Living on my own was great. I remember I enjoyed it from the very start. I was doing okay for myself. I was fine. Until everything changed this morning.
I had had the night shift at work yesterday. It ended at around three in the morning, which is when I headed out. The sun wasn’t about to rise yet so the streets were dark and empty, apart from a group of four guys who were walking ahead of me. They looked pretty young and all of them were wearing those jackets you’d see on members of high school sports teams. They appeared to be pretty drunk, more stumbling along the sideway than actually walking while grabbing each other by the arm from time to time to keep their balance. To be honest, I thought it looked a little funny, even though I felt bad for them. They seemed to be pretty out of it.
I stayed behind them, keeping my distance. That meant I had to walk rather slowly but that was fine–I only had to get back to my car after all. I would always pull up next to the entrance of the city’s park. When the first trees came into sight, I let go of a quiet sigh of relief. I couldn’t wait to get back home. The four drunk guys were still more or less blocking my path but I knew it wouldn’t be long now.
We were about to pass a large maple tree when something dropped from its cave of thick foliage and landed on the ground, right in front of the four young men. At first, I didn’t even understand what was happening. It was the boys’ screams that tore me out of my trance. My eyes fell onto the creature that had been hiding in the maple tree.
It was enormous, but with the way it pressed itself to the ground, it took me a second to notice its full size. It was almost gliding across the street as it stalked towards the four youths, its head lowered menacingly. Its black fur was gleaming in the faint light of the street lamps shining down at it from above and its long, thin tail was whipping the ground behind it. Its mouth opened to reveal too many rows of jagged, sharp teeth, the shape of which reminded me of a broken glass bottle. It let out a low, rumbling growl, finally prompting a vocal response from the four guys and me.
They let out screams of terror, but as my voice rose to join theirs, the shriek died in my throat. It had been in that very moment that I saw its eyes. They glaringly stood out from the rest of its bestial black body.
Two glowing, warm golden orbs. Like the eyes of a toad.
I stared at him and Jasper stared back. He slowly proceeded towards me, but there was no menace in his gait anymore. The four young men stumbled apart, almost like they were making way for him, only to run off. Jasper rose to his full height. He was towering above me. If it hadn’t been for his demonstration a few moments prior, I wouldn’t have believed him to ever have fit under my bed. Maybe he had grown since the last time I’d seen him as well.
I felt tears form in my eyes. “It’s you,” I uttered, my voice barely above a whisper.
He didn’t say a thing. It was then that I admitted to realizing what I had probably known all along. The day I had released my big brother from my room, I had unleashed his hunger onto innocent people. I wondered for how long I had been carrying this feeling around in the back of my head.
“Please,” I began quietly, trying to keep my voice from breaking. But Jasper interrupted me. His mouth didn’t open when he began to speak, but I could hear him in my head.
“I’ll be back for you soon.”
With that, he suddenly turned and dashed off into the darkness of the park, leaving me by myself as he disappeared between the trees. I was alone again, standing underneath the flickering street light. I wiped the tears from my eyes and slowly, with shaking steps, made my way over to my car. I drove home in complete silence, not even listening to the radio.
I stayed up until daybreak. Sleep wasn’t an option. Now that it’s night again, I admit I am very tired. I spent the day at my parents’ place. I love my mother and father with all my heart and this might have been my last chance of seeing them; talking to them. Tell them as much. I don’t think they noticed anything off about the way I was acting. I’ve always been good at hiding my fear and sadness.
I’m not sure what Jasper will do when we meet again. I’m of course well aware that he might eat me. I don’t really think he will, at least I hope not. Then again, I know he might not be the same as all those years ago. I want to try and convince him to stop these attacks. Maybe I could get him to move into the woods or something so he’ll feed on animals. But to be honest, most of all… I just want to talk to him. If he won’t be here for that, I guess I can still comfort myself with the knowledge of being able to properly feed him at least once.
All this time, all I had wanted was to be his little sister again, no matter how insane that wish might have been. Now that I know I’ll see him again, I’m so incredibly happy. I know I shouldn’t be. I know anyone who reads this will think I’m mental, but I can’t help it. I’m so happy I could die.
I mean it.