I slumped over my desk, struggling to turn just one more page. That was the heaviest trip to the library I had had in a while.

The Grand Design, Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World, and Great Beyond: Higher Dimensions, Parallel Universes and the Extraordinary Search for a Theory of Everything. Read, checked, done. And now, nearly done with Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel

Just one more page. Just one more book.

Newspaper articles describing sightings. Catalogs from Home Depot over doors. Psychology of children's imagination. Kids' coloring books about monsters. The material went on and on.

My concentration was broken to my stomach growling.

I looked up at my chaotic desk. Not only books, sticky notes, crumpled paper, and a notebook filled with notes scribbled sideways on the pages, but also a few dirty plates and a cup from the day before.

"Here you go. Thought you were hungry. You haven't come out since... Friday." Jackson said, holding out the food and drink.

I was so consumed by my research, that I hadn't even realized how hungry I was.

"Thanks Radar."

"What?"

"Nothing, nothing."

I let my hands rest on my abdomen as I breathed, listening: Listening not only to my stomach, but to the swallowing silence around me.

I yawned, glancing at my window. Pitch black.

I longed for my lumpy twin bed mattress and my empty pillow.

No. I will not sleep. I will not rest. I will not come out.

I finished the last page of the hard cover book, slammed it shut, and pushed it aside. Then I let my head fall on the desk and stared blankly at the overflowing pile of books I had already charged through. I rolled my face over, lazily searching the nearly empty other side of the desk.

Only one book remained.

My arm shaking from exhaustion, I reached for the book.

I straightened, and rubbed the small soft cover between my dry fingers and thumb.

Ugh. I remember you.

My trip to the library was an interesting one. When I marched up to the librarian to check out with my arms full of books and more books, I asked her if she had any more books on monsters.

I will never forget her face...

But after staring me down for a couple moments, she reached under her desk and pulled out the fine gem. She handed it to me, and I grasped it in my free hand.

"What? What is this?" The title read Meaning of Man.

"This is the opposite of what I'm going for." I said.

Yet she insisted. Not wanting to be rude, I checked it out along with my hundred other books. Maybe I wouldn't get around to reading it.

Yet of course, three days later I sat behind my desk, desperate to absorb any more information I could.

My eyes fell on the first page, and—

Oh joy.

Philosophy.

Meaning of Man, by New Age Philosophy Professor Art Day.

I sighed, and turned to the first page.

Chapter One: Man

What does it mean to be human?

I rolled my eyes, and flipped through the book with the tip of my thumb.

That's when I noticed something peculiar.

The author only wrote in questions.

I stopped flipping, and landed on the first page of a new chapter.

Chapter Ten: Monsters

I blinked.

What does it mean to be a monster?

I read on.

What does it mean to be a monster?

A cruel blood thirsty creature that hides in the shadows of the night?

An evil person society rightfully looks down upon?

The unknown?

To us?

What does it mean to be a monster?

What qualifies a living breathing being as a monster? As an animal?

Why are some creatures mere animals and other creatures monsters?

Their familiarity to us?

Why is it when a squid from the darkest depths of the Earth washes onto the shore, it is called a monster by the media, but dogs are considered only animals, pets, man's best friend?

What does it mean to be a monster?

Their inability to be understood and characterized by us?

What makes us not monsters?

Our own anatomy?

Our gift of speech and ideas?

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, would it not?

Is "monster" simply a proud title for their kind as "man" is simply a proud title for ours? Or is being a man or monster not a category of shape, form, and size, but a matter of consciousness or not?

What is a man?

Is being a man only the state of having two eyes, two ears, two legs, two arms, and one nose? Or is a man more than that, but the state of being a flawed character with a loving soul and beliefs, having ideas he wishes to express?

What if animals themselves could speak?

What if machines could love?

What if inanimate objects could think?

What if insects and spiders, what if they could feel and value their own lives as we do ours?

What if monsters were no different than man in their own philosophies and ideals?

Would they then be men like us?

Would we then consider them equals?

Or would they still be below us because of their differing anatomy to ours?

"We're only human."

We're only human? Then why do we put ourselves on a pedestal above all other living things?

What does it mean to be a monster?

Is this the question we should be asking ourselves?

What does it mean to be human?

"Huh." I looked up at my cork board. "I wonder... I wonder if..."

Something was gnawing at the edge of my consciousness. But before I could fit the puzzle piece in, my blurred.

I collapsed into my book from exhaustion.

* * *

"MARY!" My door was practically kicked down, slamming against the wall and springing back.

"Oktoberfest!" I deliriously cried as I jolted upward, paper sticking to my cheek and grit needling my eyes. The room shone with blinding sunshine.

Realizing, in fact, I did not want to get up, I planted my face right back where it had been on my desk, hoping that nagging sound would just go away.

"Look at you! You're late for school!"

It didn't.

I hissed, clawing the surface of my desk, refusing to look up.

"You've been in your room since Friday! If Jackson hadn't been so kind as to bring you food, would you have starved yourself? You're going to make yourself sick! What on Earth have you been doing in here?!"

And a good morning to you too, Mrs. Busybody.

Overwhelmingly groggy, I wrapped my arms around my head. The muscles in my shoulders hardened like cement.

Mrs. Busybody studied my books and my cork-board of evidence.

"Monsters?"

I curled my arms around me even tighter, hiding the flush in my face.

"Have you gone mad?! You've become obsessed! With nonsense! Have you become one of those eccentric conspiracy theorists?!"

I said nothing. I was already half asleep.

"Monsters aren't real!" The old woman lost her composure. "Bigfoot is not real! The Yeti is not real! Nelly is not—

"Nessie."

"Oh shut up! It doesn't matter! You, you—"

Get out of my room.

"There are no such things as monsters."

I breathed heavily.

No. I will not cry. I must not... Cry.

"Is this what that horrible fit you threw was about?"

Oh no.

She found out.

Trying to play it cool, I shrugged, not looking up from my arms.

"Do you need help?" she growled.

I sat up, fully attentive like I was in boot camp. I stared at her grey empty eyes.

"Do you want to leave for therapy?!"

"No. No. No. No help. No help!" I shook my head side to side as if my life depended on it.

"Then get dressed, and get out! I will have no more of this nonsense from you. It's your second strike for reckless behavior, Mary. I never thought it might come to you. You've been so manageable until now. And for such an old age..."

"Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. No help, ma'am. No help. No help."

She slammed the door behind her.

I sat in my chair, my hands gripping my heart as I staggered breath.

No help. No help. No help.

Do not get help.

I ignored the world around me and its problems for one more moment to look up at my cork board.

I must know. I must know.

I sipped a sharp breath.

I will not cry. I must not cry.

No help.

* * *

"Brrrrrrh!"

I shivered as the cold water rained down on my head. Scrubbing my hair, I ignored the soapy suds dripping down my face. I sighed in relief.

I love cold showers.

You can do this, Mary. You can remain calm.

My anger washed away down the drain. I felt new. I felt fresh. I was awake. I was ready for the new day.

Monsters—

"Remain calm!" I interrupted my thoughts.

At the end of my shower, I turned off the water, yet remained in the shower for a few more seconds, lost in thought.

You can do this, Mary. You can get through the day. You can remain calm...

Do not get help.

* * *

It was a slow day in advanced pathway chem. I struggled to not doze off in the darkness of the room as Mrs. Casteel flipped through a slideshow, covering a lesson over the sub-levels in atoms and electron configuration notation. Very gripping material.

My elbow propped on the desk, my knuckles digging into my chin, my eyes were just beginning to finally seal when a scream erupted in the room.

I almost feel off my stool.

"AH!" Mrs. Casteel pierced our ears with her cry. "Spider!"

The dark, tiny creature scuttled across the floor. A chill crawled up and down my spine.

I shuddered, lifting my feet.

The lights were switched on, and all our eyes darted to the hairy little creature, only feet from my table.

It was a grass spider, with a span as wide as a quarter. Though harmless, it still was enough to make anyone scream.

But despite my fear, something intrigued me about the arachnid. Something alluring. And... I felt the same wonder as before with the ant...

Josh leaped from his seat and slammed his sneaker on the spider, killing it instantly.

"WHAT?" I sat, dumbfounded by this action.

"Thanks Josh," Mrs. Catseel wheezed, gasping for breath.

"No! No! Why did you do that?!" I screamed. "You didn't have to kill it!"

"Because it's a spider...?" said Ruby, one of the senior girls.

"You could have just put it outside!"

"Would you pick it up and put it outside? I wouldn't."

"It was harmless!"

"It's a spider."

"How would you feel if a spider decided to squish you because it didn't like you?!"

"What are you, five years old? It's JUST a spider," Josh replied.

"No, no it's not just a spider! It's a living creature with feelings of its own! And you have no right to take its life away like that—"

I picked up my metal stool and hurled it around the room. It crashed through the window, shattering it into a thousand pieces.

The stool disappeared stories below.

I stopped, realizing what I had just done. I stood there, the entire class staring at me, a hush fallen over the room.

I am psychotic.