Emiko scrunched her eyes tightly closed and curled into a tighter ball, making herself as small as possible in the corner of the basement where she hid with her family. She tried so very hard not to make a sound but it was hard when she wanted so badly to sob out loud. Haha said that if they were very good and very quiet the monsters would not find them. Emiko just wanted the strange beings to go back in the hole they climbed out of and everything go back to normal.

Chichi has said that when the strange machine was destroyed and the land was normal again, that things would be well for them. But then the strange hole opened up and the scary monsters climbed out of it. They kept coming even though the people tried to fight them back. Everywhere they went, a trail of fire went as well. The people of the town had been kept busy putting out fires and trying to fend off the attacks that were getting more frequent.

When the attacks first started, they had sent out pleas for help to the far corners of the world. None had responded to the desperate entreaties and Emiko didn’t understand why. She had seen the armies of citizens band together to fight in the desert above her home. She had heard tales of their courage and perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds. And yet, to a small girl, it seemed unbelievable that none had come to aid them. Chichi said perhaps they never received the messages beseeching help. Maybe they didn’t know that for many nights in a row, evil things crawled out of the ground to wreak havoc on their city.

There had been a pause for several days and the people had almost managed to fill back in the hole. Everyone had hoped that the worst was over, even without help. And then tonight, the hole reopened and creatures poured forth again. They seemed to be looking for something. Emiko only wished they would find it and leave her family and her city in peace. She wanted to run and play and sing again. She wanted to go to school with her friends and play with her dolls.

Emiko curled even tighter and tried to hum softly to drown out the sounds of fighting and fire and the weird sounds the monsters made. She hoped and hoped and hoped and hoped that either they would go away or someone would finally answer their calls for help. She just wanted the awful night to end…