Why would you make me like this?
The boogeyman?
What is my purpose?
Thought I tried my best, the Man in the Moon never answered my questions, my pleas…
I am the fears that roam in the shadows of the night; I am the eerie silence that creeps and crawls over your nerves.
I am fear.
And the Man in the Moon made me that way, for whatever reason.
There was a time I and the Man in the Moon were friends. He would talk to me and I would have done anything he asked of me…
But those days were long passed and I'd started to forget what his voice sounded like.
In my determination, one night u paced, under the Man in the Moon's light, my hands clasped behind my back.
"What is my purpose?" I asked him like I had so many nights before.
Unsurprisingly he did not answer.
"…Why was I chosen to be fear?" I breathed in defeat; I was tired of talking to thin air and an unresponsive glowing orb in the night sky.
"Yes, I am fear! I bend the rules! I shape my own truths…" I called out in my rage.
"But every time I tickle at a child's disbelief, every time I see fit to…rid them of their childishness, to make them behave and learn…you send those Guardians to stop me!" I ranted, pointing an accusing finger towards the shining Moon.
"They thwart me at every turn! They make children laugh, sing, and play. But there is something I do not understand…" my voice grew softer. My shoulders slumped.
"Your Guardians give children fear: fear of reality, fear of life. They are afraid to grow up. Afraid to believe that maybe the Easter Bunny isn't real or that Santa didn't really leave they presents under the tree."
Still the Man in the Moon did not answer me. He was always listening; never replying.
"Why did you do this to me!?"
"I didn't." the Man in the Moon's cool and gentle voice graced my ears; it startled me.
What did he mean he didn't make me what I am? He had the gall to displace the blame?
"Then…who?" I asked, almost drowning in my confusion.
"You."
I was dumbstruck at his answer. Then I started to remember things I'd quite forgotten from centuries passed; dark and tragic things I had locked away in hopes that guilt would not find me.
It was true, I had not always been "fear" and I had let a being of fear take me over; I was weak then.
I turned away from the Man in the Moon's light, gritting my teeth and clenching my hands into fists as I retreated to the cool shadows.
I was fear and I was alone.
I sit in darkness, silent and eerie, letting terror and fright wash over my senses like ice cold water.
Yes, I am fear: the dark under your bed, the voices in the wind; I live to scare.
I scare myself.