Boston, Massachusetts

Mills Residence, 2006

Twenty-three years into the future, exhausted parents Emma and Neal Mills were at their wit's end. It was well past Henry's bedtime, and their own if they were being honest, yet the preschooler refused to sleep in his own room out of fear that the shadow monsters would get him.

"No sleep, mommy!" The 5-year-old yelled as he jumped out of bed and clung to his mother for dear life. "The shadow monsters will bite me!" Neither Emma nor Neal knew what their son was talking about.

With a worried glance at her husband, Emma bent down and gathered Henry in her arms, determined to find out the cause behind the boy's sudden change in behavior. "What shadow monsters, baby?" The blonde softly inquired. "Did you watch a scary movie with Daddy?"

"Uh-uh." Henry mumbled into her shoulder. "Billy told me at school today." He fell silent for the next few seconds, and his concerned parents waited patiently for him to continue. "He said…he said…the shadow monsters eat little boys!"

Neal was quick to reassure his son that Billy didn't mean it. "There's no such thing as shadow monsters, buddy." He soothed. "Nothing is going to bite you in the middle of the night."

The frightened child wasn't convinced. "You promise?" Henry asked, wary of removing himself from the comfort of Emma's embrace. "No monsters?"

"Promise!" Neal reiterated. "Mommy and I will even stay with you until you fall asleep."

After a moment of seemingly endless contemplation, and soft encouragement from his parents, the littlest Mills consented with a tired nod and slumped against Emma's chest.

"Finally!" Henry's mother exclaimed, near the brink of collapse herself. She looked down at her soon-to-be comatose child and seized the opportunity to tuck him back into bed before he noticed the difference.

As she went about making their son comfortable, Neal dug through Henry's dresser for the nightlight that hadn't been used in months. "Better safe than sorry."

"What?" She genuinely had no idea what her husband was talking about until a familiar bright blue light caught her attention from across the room. "Oh. Good idea!"

"It's worth a shot." Neal whispered as he turned off the light and shut the door behind them. "Henry's asleep now, but we both know he won't be in a few hours."

Emma sighed. "I know. He was doing so well without it." She lamented, following him into the kitchen. "That kid, Billy, isn't a good influence."

"We're going to have to call the school if it happens again." Neal surmised as he poured himself a cup of tea. "Henry needs to know that we'll stick up for him."

"And we will." The blonde also reached for a cup. "Let's just get through tonight, and we'll talk about it tomorrow. I'm exhausted."

Neal couldn't agree more.

3: 00 AM

He won't let me go.

That singular disembodied phrase, whispered directly into Emma's left ear, was enough to rouse her from a deep sleep and set her immediately on edge. Neal never talked in his sleep, and even if he did, he wouldn't come close to resembling a grown woman with a faint Spanish accent.

I'm so thirsty.

There it was again. Rolling over, Emma attempted to wake her husband to no avail. He was out cold, face down and snoring contentedly into the pillow. She was going to have to deal with this on her own.

The boy's too young…but you'll do.

Then, before she could even begin to figure out what the hell was going on, she felt something sharp pierce her neck deep enough to draw blood.

"Ow!" She yelped, alarmed by the reality-defying physicality of her mysterious assailant. "What the fuck?"

Emma braced herself for another attack by holding one hand against her seeping laceration and wrapping the other around the frame of her wrought iron headboard, lying in wait for an onslaught that she wasn't even sure was coming.

And the longer she continued to wait, terrified out of her mind, the more she was convinced she had imagined it all. Yes, her neck was bleeding (considerably, in fact), but it was probably just a scratch. Nothing to worry about.

So with that, Emma carefully got out of bed and walked to the bathroom to inspect the damage. Neal hadn't woken up throughout the whole ordeal, so it couldn't have been as bad as she initially thought, right?

Wrong.

As soon as she turned on the light, and got a good look in the mirror, she nearly screamed. Anyone with eyes could see that the two deep puncture marks on the side of her throat were not done by her nails. Or an insect, for that matter.

Emma tore her gaze away from her injured reflection to retrieve some cotton pads and band aids that she kept in a drawer under the sink. Satisfied with her findings, she stood up and immediately wished she hadn't.

For in the mirror, drinking fervently from her reflection's dripping wound, was the most frightening demoness of a woman that she had ever seen.