Link to article: A Child to Teach.
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[[>]] [[module Rate]] [[/>]] It relaxed for a moment, savoring the moment. It liked to have some leeway, and little children afraid of the dark gave it plenty. It wondered what it should do this time, pull it under the bed? No… the kid kept stuffed animals under there, and if he thought those wouldn't save him, he would eventually learn to cope with the dark, and nobody wanted that. Well, maybe some people did. Those "men of science". It would show them, as much as they wanted to believe humans were rational beings, calling a hand a foot does not make the name fit. It had already started fostering movements against them, expanding people's imagination so that they could see what would happen if they let these charlatans and quacks continue their practice. But for now, it had a child to teach, and it was starting to think that maybe the ceiling fan might work as a proxy. ------- Billy laid wide awake on his bed in his polka dot pajamas. His eyes were wide with fear, glancing around his room, trying to see if any monsters were coming to eat him. He pulled down his covers and looked underneath the bed. His teddy bears were still down there as usual, holding down the fort so he could sleep safely at night. Breathing a sigh of relief, Billy pulled the covers back up and looked at the ceiling. He tried to not think about the video he had seen earlier that night, a scary mummy man who came out of people's closets and ate them as they were asleep. He remembered to say his good night sentence, "Good dreams with good people.", and faced away from the closet, hoping that his older sister wouldn't walk around outside his bedroom door to scare him like she did last night. Billy really hoped that there was nothing in his closet. He decided to make sure, and peeked over his shoulder quickly, trying to catch the mummy man unawares. The closet was still closed, dark as always. Billy faced upward again, trying to focus on the ceiling. "Good dreams with good people." he whispered to himself, unsuccessfully trying to not look at the closet out of the corner of his eye. He finally refocused on the ceiling fan, non-threatening as always, its mesmerizing blades slowly sweeping through the air. There was something off about the fan though, something... sinister. Its dancing paddles no longer floating through the air, but cutting into it, grasping it, molesting the space around it. The four bulbs no longer seemed like sources of protection as they did when they were turned on, but more like eyes, one staring directly at him. The chain used to turn it on gradually extending itself like a long finger, wrapping itself around Billy's feet, slowly working their way up to his neck, where it strangle him while the eye bulbs watched. Billy squirmed under his covers, pulling them up over his head. Safe in the darkness, he closed his eyes in an attempt to go to sleep. It didn't work, he couldn't stop thinking about the ceiling fan, how it had seemed to come alive, trying to ensnare the little boy beneath it into its dastardly trap. Through the covers, his imagination saw the blades curl in like hands, extending their reach and plucking the eye bulbs out of their sockets throwing them onto the covers around him, slowly closing in, as the fan itself detached and began to encapsulate Billy. He saw the inside of the fan, a giant gaping maw of teeth and claws, ready to start eating him from the toes up. Green arms growing out of the top, grabbing Billy's feet, and holding him in place while he was eaten by the fan. "Good dreams with good people." Billy whimpered to himself this time, feeling the drowning weight of the covers and the stifling hot air around him close in. He started having trouble breathing, and with a quick motion, he brought the covers off of his head and took a deep breath of fresh, cold air. He made a quick glance at the ceiling fan, and it was just as it was before, spinning slowly in the fascinating way only a fan can spin. Billy once again sighed a deep sigh of relief, closed his eyes, and entered a good dream, with good people. ----- Bill sat in the board room all by himself. Its cold, blank walls and empty chairs all seeming to stare back at him. He had been early, and was starting to wonder when everybody was going to show up. It was already fifteen minutes past the set time, and Bill was starting to worry. The only people who were so notoriously late was the Human Resources manager, and only when he was going to fire somebody. //Oh god, were they going to fire him?// He had been such a good employee all these years, what had he done to get himself laid off? He //needed// this job, he had three kids and a wife, he could barely pay for them now, if he got fired... //oh god//. He started imagining the conversation. Bob would just walk in, as nonchalant as possible. Probably humming a tune. He would take his time sitting down, pretend to sort through some papers in his briefcase, trying to pretend that Bill wasn't there. Suddenly, he would strike up a conversation, maybe flash those white fangs of his. //"Oh, hey there Bill, how's the family?"// Bill couldn't let him say that sentence. He needed this job so badly, in this market, there was zero hope of getting a new one, especially in his line of work. Bill sighed, whatever the problem was, it couldn't be good. The door to the meeting room started creaking open. Bill looked up from his thoughts and tried to see who it was. It was Bob. Bill narrowed his eyes, he was ready for any news. "Sorry to keep you waiting Bill, but as you can see nobody else is going to show up. And I was a bit late, had to lay off some poor suckers. I came here to give you some news..." Bob started, pulling out a chair close to the door. "Out with it man." Bill got through his gritted teeth. "Congratulations Bill! You're getting a promotion. Great job all these years Bill, you have really shown you have what it takes!" Bill's jaw dropped with surprise. "Wh.. What?" "You're now the head of Finances!" Bob flashed him his startlingly white teeth while extending a hand. Bill shook it slowly, slightly dazed, "I don't know what to say." "No need, we are going to be moving you to your new office right now. So pack your things!" Bob helped Bill out of his seat. Bill slowly started to smile, the day was starting to look up, and any fears he had before were gone. ---- It wasn't having a good day. The only things it had been getting all day were stupid mundane things, mostly job related, and with new Illumilight system for kids, nobody was having any fears about going to bed. It was bored out of its mind trying to figure out ways to innovate on old ideas. There wasn't really anything to be afraid of anymore, in the past couple of years, all ideas of monsters or forgotten creatures of yore had been dispelled and forgotten. It would just have to wait, mankind always forgets why they do things, and man always goes back to doing the wrong thing when he forgets. It still survived on the fringe of civilization, in the dark corners of the world. And if it had learned anything from mankind, it was patience. And so It waited, biding its time, preparing for the day when we forget about it, but until then, It had some employees to scare. [[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box]] [!-- N/A (No Images) --] [[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box-end]]