To Fight the Monster Under Her Bed

“All she did is tell you to go to the collective unconscious?” Kaneko questioned. “That’s the only instruction on how we get out of here? How are we supposed to help them? How am I supposed to help Naoko?”

“I don’t know!” Minny yelled. “I don’t know about any of this! I can’t do this. That’s why I had to get you out. And yeah, we were in a rush, I’m sorry.”

Kaneko looked at Minny with a pitying look. “Let’s just get out of here, then we can help everyone. Focus. There must be some clue as to how we’re getting out.”

Minny listened to her cousin. She sat in near silence, Naoko’s crying being the only thing to break it. There was something inside. Something small that was trying to pull her away, not her body though, her spirit. Something was wrong about her presence here.

“I got here by walking through a door in the school. If we go back there, something could happen.” Minny explained. “It’s only a hunch.”

Kaneko took another glance at Naoko. “Okay, come on.”

Naoko looked up. She stopped crying, though her tears still stained her face. “You want me to come with you? Why?”

Kaneko was confused. “I- I don’t want to leave you.”

Naoko stood up and extended a hand to help Kaneko up. “I’m still gonna be here when you go. You can’t cling to me like this. Not right now.”

Kaneko looked like she wanted to argue for a flash, but cooled off just as quickly. She knew she was only talking to herself. “I’m going to get you back.”

Naoko smiled. Not that sinister, devious smile that the one in real life wore on Halloween night. This smile was smaller, simpler and more… well, real.

Minny stepped back, ready to go. Almost desperate to leave. “Come on. We have to be fast. We don’t know how much time we have.”

Kaneko stood. “Alright. Let’s go.” She turned toward Minny, determined. She never turned back to Naoko. She must have known that the only way to reach her was straight ahead.

They ran quickly through the parking lot and across the street, and up the stairs. Minny had to lead Kaneko, but something was different in the way she ran. She wasn’t winded. She was keeping up with Kaneko, even with her seemingly impossible speed and endurance. Not like in the real world.

Once they got back to that classroom where Minny had entered this world, she began to feel something greater than before. It wasn’t the same feeling though. This sense wasn’t trying to push her out, it was simply leading the way.

Catching her breath, Minny threw open the door, but she didn’t find what she was expecting. Her room was supposed to be right there, the way she left it. What lay beyond the doorway however was not that. It wasn’t the hallway either.

Instead, ‘Downtown Bellwood’ was in front of them. Well, in actuality, it was a small side street that Minny used sometimes when she wanted to walk to the shops and things that were there. She knew the area pretty well as she usually spent her time out of the house.

It wasn’t the real place though. Something was off about its appearance. It was as if it was someone else’s Dreamworld.

Kaneko finally, after a few seconds of Minny looking through the door portal, asked, “Can we go through? That looks like America to me.”

“It is… But not ours? I think it might be another dream. But who’s is it?”

“There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” Kaneko asked.

Minny relents, taking a step inside. “I suppose…”

Before Minny lay a long and full parking lot, just beyond it was the railroad tracks where they had fought Sylvia’s cat. The moon bathed the whole area with a supernatural blue glow. Looking around, many of the smaller, admittedly less interesting shops were replaced with name brand clothes stores. The door they had come out of, which used to be a model train store or something in the real world, (Minny couldn’t exactly remember) was replaced with a ‘Monster House’ store. You usually found them in malls selling both goth and anime stuff, so it was surreal to see it right there.

And looking around, a lot of the stores were like that. Specialty or designer shops peppered the street in between the comic shop and the board game store that were always there.

“This definitely is not our Bellwood. But seriously-” Minny was cut off by the sound of someone shouting something. It almost sounded like an attack call out, like you’d see in a magical girl anime.

Kaneko and Minny started to run towards the main street where the sound was coming from, only to find it nearly completely empty. Lights were hung across the rooftops of the stores, shining brilliant hues of red and green and blue down onto the road.

“Pastel Princess! Use your special move!” A girl cried out, clearly loving what she was doing.

“Sylvia?” Minny whispered.

At the end of the ‘Downtown’ section of the street, a man dressed in a tuxedo stood opposingly against Sylvia and… Minny. Well, apparently this world’s version of Minny, transformed into Pastel Princess.

Kaneko grabbed Minny, pulled her behind the corner again and asked, “So, is this Sylvia’s dream?”

“I- I guess so. It seems to fit. She was pretty into magical girls when she met us, right? It’s kind of crazy though, that’s me over there.”

Minny noticed that Kaneko wasn’t wearing her school uniform from Japan anymore. Looking down, she realized she was back in the same clothes she was wearing on the ship when she was put under.

Apparently Kaneko noticed too, because she asked, “Wait… When did we change? And why am I all scuffed up?”

“I don’t know. It feels like we’re getting closer to the exit. Like, this place knows we’re trying to get out and that’s being reflected in our outfits? That sounds like something that would happen in a comic, so… It’s probably right, right?”

“It probably doesn’t really matter. This is Sylvia’s dream, and you said she was in a coma like I was, right?”

Minny didn’t gather exactly what Kaneko was trying to say. “Yeah… Why?”

“Well, if I was trapped in my own dream, doesn’t it stand to reason that she was too?”

“Oooh. Yeah, that makes sense… I guess we have to. She’s not gonna get out on her own.” Minny said, now determined to help Sylvia out too. “We have to be quick. Do you happen to have your tape gun on you?”

Kaneko gave herself a quick patdown to check. “No, how about your wand?”

“I don’t think so…” Minny trailed off, trying to think of something else that could help Sylvia out. “I guess-”

Suddenly they heard another battle cry, this time they could even understand it. “Super Tape Gun… Strike!”

Kaneko darted her head around the corner to see what was going on. Minny soon followed suit. Once she looked around, she saw something she never thought she would. Beside Pastel Princess was another Magical girl, one with striped red and black hair. Her outfit was similar to Pastel Princess’, except it was all red and black and white. It looked pretty good, or at least Minny thought so.

“What did she do? Sylvia!” Kaneko dashed away, towards the girl. When she yelled, everyone turned to look at her, including the tuxedo-clad bad guy. They were all stunned by her presence. Minny, on the other hand, decided that she had to chase after her.

“Kaneko! Get back here!” Minny cried.

“What the- Ah!” Sylvia wondered aloud as Kaneko ran toward them.

Once she got close, Kaneko punched her other self straight in the face knocking Sukeban out cold in a matter of seconds.

“Why did you do that!?” Both Minny and Sylvia exclaimed at once.

“I’m not the one who put her in that frilly outfit!” Kaneko yelled back, more annoyed than aggressive.

“What? I thought it was pretty cute.” Minny said.

“Wait, how did that- Who are you?” Sylvia demanded while the other two people she was fighting with watched in shock.

Minny gave her other self a small “I’m sorry” wave, which the other awkwardly reciprocated.

Then Kaneko walked over to her collapsed other self and grabbed the tape gun off the floor. “What do you mean? I’m Kaneko. And that’s Minny. Y’know, we have history class together? We’re inside your dream right now… at least, we think so.” She said, her annoyance suddenly re-replaced with a will to get out as quickly as possible.

“Then why did you punch her!? That was completely unnecessary!” Sylvia argued.

“For one, she’s not real, so it doesn’t really matter. Two, she needed an attitude adjustment. Three… I needed a quick way to snap you out of your delusion… or something.”

“You just wanted to punch yourself in the face, you animal!” Sylvia shot back.

Something about this made Kaneko shift her attitude from the 100 miles per hour that she was going at to about zero.

She took a step back, extending the tape gun out in front of her. “Sylvia, how did you know that I just punched me in the face.”

Sylvia went from being shocked to even more shocked. “I- I- Uh… Yeah, I found out.”

“When? How?” Minny asked?

Sylvia paused, looking at the ground before she decided to continue. “I saw you after your fight with that one guy. It was about a month ago, I think.”

“Who did we fight a month ago…?” Minny thought, before Kaneko answered her question.

“Ace? You saw us fighting him at the school?”

“Yeah, I was in a classroom. That’s…” Sylvia looked at the ground again, but this time she didn’t continue.

Minny had to finish the thought. “That’s why you were gone for a month? Why?”

“I- I didn’t know what to do, so I ran away. I couldn’t think of anything else.”

Kaneko relaxed, stepping towards her. “Whatever. Okay, we know who we are and- Well, Minny, can you catch her up to speed on what’s going on?”

“You’re in a coma and this is your dream and we’re trying to get out with you. I have a friend who can help us get out, but we don’t really know where to go even though we have to go as quickly as possible.” Minny explained hurriedly, the urgency of the situation catching up with her again.

“Oh.” Sylvia said, still shocked, but starting to understand. “Um, I really can’t think of anything that would be an exit. What’s it even supposed to be?”

“A door, I think? Kaneko? Any ideas?” Minny asked.

Kaneko thought for a moment, “Hmm, is it this?”

She walked over to the glass door of the comic shop as everyone stared at her. Despite the lights inside clearly being off and the place definitely looking closed, she was able to open it without a problem. As she opened it, everyone was blinded by the light that revealed itself. Kaneko quickly shut the door again, leaving them all back in the relative darkness of the street.

“So…” Kaneko breathed.

Minny asked, “That was it? How did you know?”

“Just a hunch, I guess.” Kaneko said, as shocked as everyone else that that worked.

“We go through the magic portal in the comic shop?” Sylvia asked, genuinely trying to clarify the situation.

“Yep.” Minny said, walking over.

Everyone squinted, preparing for the bright light to come back as Kaneko moved to open the door again. When she did, everyone started to notice something else, a noise was leaking from the door. The noise sounded like muffled cheering, like a crowd was early anticipating the entrance of the lead performance of a concert.

As Kaneko began to walk inside, a voice that neither Kaneko or Minny really recognized yelled at them, “Hey, wait a minute! Where are you going?” It was the man dressed in the tuxedo that the dream Sukeban and Pastel Princess were fighting when Kaneko and Minny first found them

Kaneko was the first to respond, turning around and shouting back, “We already went over this. We have to get out of here! Stop trying to slow us down!”

Minny felt a little bad for interrupting, but she was in a hurry. “Heheh, Sorry…”

“Man, you sucked anyway. I mean, who are you fooling? You’re just a ripoff of-”

“Sylvia! We have to go!” Kaneko yelled, cutting Sylvia off.

The man didn’t have a response to this, looking completely defeated as Minny and Sylvia followed Kaneko through the door. When the door closed behind them, Minny could almost hear a whimper from him before it shut.

Now the 3 of them were standing in a concrete hallway, like you’d see inside a sports arena, where the team always trains and talks and whatever in tv dramas. Except the wall opposite the door where they entered was completely empty. It was nearly pitch black. Someone might have been able to see through it, but then there were the blindingly bright lights that made it next to impossible to even look in that direction.

One end of the hallway, on their left coming in from the door, was a wall. On the right, was apparently the exit, although it was hard to see much more than a doorway leading into another bright room. Minny tried her hardest to not mention any of the strangeness that was quickly becoming a recurring element of the day, all the while, the muffled cheering that they were all hearing was becoming louder and clearer as they pushed forward.

She asked, “So, this definitely isn’t my dream… Where are we?”

“I have a feeling we’re going to find out pretty soon.” Kaneko answered as they approached the doorway.

They passed through to find out what was going on. The bright lights in the abyss were not immaterial, they were spotlights. They were on a stage, with an audience that they could only make out the outlines of, while a person stood between them and another door.

“Ace!” Kaneko exclaims, recognizing the guy.

“Who the heck is this guy?” Minny wondered, cautiously following behind the other two.

The guy, Ace apparently, was wearing a baseball uniform, complete with both catchers mitt and a bat for some reason.

He suddenly notices that the three are standing there beside him and dramatically ducks back towards the opposite side of the stage. “Hail! Pray thee tell what might you be doing on mine field?”

Looking around, Minny saw that the backdrop was painted to look like a baseball field.

“Of course this is your dream. Nobody else would think of Shakespearean baseball plays.” Kaneko bemoned. “Come on guys, there’s only one other door, that’s gotta get us out of here.”

“Oh-ho? Thine wishes to pass through mine field? Well, one certainly can if thou wish to first battle me in the great sport of baseball!” Ace exclaimed, pointing his bat toward the group.

“Let us pass! We have an urgent que-” Minny began.

Kaneko quickly cracked her neck and rushed Ace, taking his bat with her free hand and sweeping his leg with it, sending him flying onto the wooden stage. “Okay, battle over.” She said, jumping over him in order to press through to the other doorway. On the other side of this one was a white light. This one seemed much more palatable though. The eye didn’t strain when looking at the white of the next room, instead it was extremely comfortable to look at. Minny was nearly mesmerized by the strange white until Kaneko ran straight through the doorway and Minny’s line of sight with the light.

She let out a breath and chased after, Sylvia having already decided to follow. Minny had some reservations about leaving the baseball kid like that, but honestly he seems to be in his element and she didn’t want to interrupt that.

She ran around him and followed the other 2 through the door. What she was met with was completely different than anything she’d seen there. The white wasn’t white, somehow it was the absence of white and at the same time, it was the absence of darkness. It was the absence of all color.

“If that was Ace’s dream, then what’s this?” Sylvia asked, wide eyed and obviously caught in the paradox of this plane’s appearance.

Minny had to concentrate to make sure she knew where she was looking. Otherwise it was easy to lose her sense of eyesight to unfocus. Everything looked wrong, but somehow not immediately wrong. It caused her eyes to drift in and out of focus constantly, and she felt like she didn’t know which way was up.

Until Kaneko brought her attention to something that could actually be seen without trying to. “Naoko…”

Minny turned her head toward where Kaneko’s voice was coming from and suddenly saw her. Naoko. The real Naoko. Asleep in bed.

The girl lay under the covers, wearing a long blue pajama top from what Minny could tell. The bed she was laying in was maybe a foot bigger than a king size, and the comforter that lay on top of it draped all the way down the side, pooling onto the “floor” for lack of a better term.

Kaneko slowly stepped up to the side of the bed, placing her hand feebly on the edge of the mattress. “So this is what they did to her.”

“Kaneko…” Minny muttered.

“Where’s the door? Did you find it?” Sylvia asked, not quite grasping the tone of the moment.

Kaneko answered her anyway. “Not that we can see… Do- Do you think we could bring her with us?” She sounded defeated, but not about the door.

Minny tried to answer honestly. “Um, I don’t know but I don’t think that’s a great idea. We have no clue what would happen if she was put back in her body while that thing is inside her. They could merge minds or it could just rip this version of her out of her own head or any number of things that we can’t even imagine!

A silence filled the void of time as these thoughts settled.

“Look, there has to be a way…” Minny tried to assure. “You’re gonna get out. You’re gonna save her. She’s right next to us. We’re so close to it, I can feel it!”

Kaneko didn’t say anything. She stared at her hand as it gently swayed across the edge of the bed, until she grabbed a fist of it. In one rough motion, Kaneko dragged the bedding up into the air until the space underneath the bed was visible.

“It’s under the bed?”

Kaneko didn’t respond.

Reaching behind her, Minny grabbed Sylvia who was still drifting around the space and dragged her around so she could see the bed.

“Oh. Oh my-” Sylvia shut herself up when she saw Kaneko duck underneath.

Minny followed after, emerging in what was thankfully a real room. It was a grimey, lived-in laboratory, but at least Minny could look at it. Once she stood up, Minny looked around the room. There was a number of turned off screens, several large machines that looked like they were used to work with a specific material and looking back to where Minny had come out of, she found a very uncomfortable looking cot/couch.

“This place is a mess.” Sylvia pointed out, standing up.

“What is this place?” Minny wondered aloud.

Kaneko walked over to an odd looking keyboard and tapped a few of the keys. Suddenly, a few of the screens began to light up until they started to show video feeds of both Kaneko and Minny when they were outdoors.

“What the-!” Kaneko shouted.

Thoughts began to race through Minny’s mind. “What was going on? Who’s dream is this? Why do they have real videos of us like this?“ Until only one answer began to fit every question she asked. “Gatal.”

Kaneko’s demeanor changed the instant that Minny said that. She realized it at the same time. She started to kick over and destroy as much as the lab as she could. Using the tape gun that she still had from Sylvia’s dream, she pulled over several large machines and tossed several smaller ones against walls and into various glass containers and receptacles.

Minny and Sylvia both ducked for cover underneath a desk as Kaneko went out on an absolute rampage.

“Kaneko! Kaneko stop! Please!” Minny began to cry, watching so much unbridled rage explode so suddenly. Kaneko didn’t slow down.

Minny felt Sylvia wrap her arms around her as they both huddled under the desk and watched Kaneko destroy everything. By the time she had finished, Kaneko was left in a wasteland of broken machinery, letting herself catch her breath.

Sylvia was the first to get out from under the desk, standing up and asking, “So, do you feel better?” in a slightly condescending tone.

Kaneko doesn’t shout. “No.” Kaneko grabbed some kind of thin metal cup from another desk and crushed it in her hand before letting it fall to the floor.

Minny got up and out from under the desk and said, “Come on, let’s go.” before moving towards the only other door in the room, on the opposite side of the wall.

“No! What are you doing?” Sylvia asked, grabbing Minny’s arm.

“We have to get Kaneko out of here! She has to help the superheroes fight those two.”

Sylvia scoffed. “You’re wrong.”

Kaneko didn’t say a word. She stood facing away from the two of them passively.

“What do you mean?” Minny asked.

“She’s not going to defeat them. The only way you’re gonna beat them is together.”

Kaneko finally responded, scoffing. “Did you get that from another Magical Girl anime? This is the real world, I can take them.”

Sylvia didn’t falter. “I did, and no you can’t. Look, these two have been behind everything you’ve ever fought. They’re the reason I got transformed, my cat, and I don’t know what else. They’re responsible for the coma that I’m apparently in right now, but that doesn’t change anything. No matter what they did to you; the treat they pose, you can’t let them divide you. Because then, they’ve already won.”

A short pause swept over the room until Minny broke it. “So, what are we supposed to do?”

“Work together. Support each other. Be a team, not just two people fighting the same thing. It’s the only way to defeat them.”

“Whatever.” Kaneko grumbled, before brushing past the two of them and walking through the door.

Minny gave a small sympathetic look to Sylvia before following her.

On the other side of the door was what they were looking for. It was Minny's room, basked in the same orange evening light from the window. And on the bed, there she was. Pastel Princess.

She was sitting on the bed with her legs folded. She smiled at the group as though they were old friends, but she didn't speak. It wasn't the same as when Minny had seen herself inside of Sylvia's dream. Something inside Minny felt like she belonged with the girl who sat on the bed. Simply being in her presence gave Minny a new sense of confidence that washed over her body like a warm embrace.

Minny walked forward, having forgotten the argument that just occurred. Extending her hand forward, Minny found Pastel Princess do the same and their fingertips met. They didn't touch, instead, passing through each other. Pastel Princess began to glow a faint blue as Minny continued to push through her, eventually becoming one.

In a few seconds, she was awake. Minny's eyes opened on the ship. Looking to her side, Kaneko's eyes were open too. Now they had work to do.