Zeta

Zeta was nine when she discovered that monsters were real. She saw it on the night of Lilith O'Hare's tenth birthday, not that anyone believed her. But sitting there in the dark, hardly daring to breathe, she saw the fat, black thing ooze it's way around the room, like some oversized slug. She'd only woken up to use the bathroom but now she was too terrified to move, her throat so tightly constricted that she couldn't even scream. And she watched as that slug - that monster - approached the sleeping bag containing Tiffany Jenkins.

She saw the giant maw open.

Saw the teeth glinting in the moonlight, slick with saliva.

Saw it swallow Tiffany whole in one swift, silent movement.

And that was when Zeta did scream.

Of course, by the time the grownups arrived and flicked on the light the monster had gone. All that remained was Tiffany's empty sleeping bag, a small stain of some black, tar-like substance on her pillow. A police search followed, but the days turned to weeks turned to years and no trace of the girl was ever found. Only Zeta knew the truth, and for her troubles she ended up facing therapy and psychologists, all telling her how monsters didn't exist.

She never forgot that night, but she learned how to bury the memories. Build up a wall around them and pretend it never happened. But sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw things. Things that lurked in the shadows and had bodies like tar. These, too, she learned to ignore. Monsters weren't real. Never had been, never would be.

Zeta was twenty-one, officially an adult and with a cramped little flat to call her own, when she came face to face with the monsters again. That wretched slug that leered at her with Tiffany's voice. It was like something out of a nightmare, sitting in bed and watching it crawl through her wall, staining the wallpaper black. When it opened it's maw she knew it had come to devour her, but she wasn't willing to go without a fight. She ended up in the kitchen, eyes wide and knife in hand, watching as it came towards her, crooning her name with the voice of her childhood friend.

Something inside her snapped. Zeta flew into a frenzy, lunging at the creature and stabbing it over and over again, black blood splashing across the floor and her nightgown. The slug let out an unearthly screech, curled up on itself and died, melting away until it was nothing but a dark stain on the carpet. Zeta, trembling from adrenaline, didn't realize at first that she'd sustained her own wounds in the fight. Her arm had been cut by the thing's teeth, and it's blood mingled with her own.

Dear Zeta, monsters are so very, very real.

And on that night she unwittingly became one of them.

Did you know that in the UK around 250,000 people go missing every year?

Many of those disappearances can be put down to the monsters that come out to pray on humankind. The monsters that only few can see. Zeta was unfortunate enough to be one of those few. Now half monster and half human, by day she attempts to live a normal life but at night that's when things change. Because at night she goes feeding. No matter how monstrous her other side might be, Zeta refuses to live off human flesh as they do. So instead the hunted has become the hunter. She seeks out the monsters and devours them, just like the slug that took Tiffany all those years ago.

But just how long can she continue to keep these two sides of herself separate?

The human will is strong, but are the instincts of a monster stronger?