Stories to Keep you Up at Night

Marco Polo

Trigger Warning! ⚠️ Bre@king and enter!ng, bl00d, and de@th

Hope sat alone in her room, it was a Thursday night, and she had the house all to herself. She lay on her bed trying to decide what to do. Without anyone around to talk to Hope was bored. None of her friends had replied to any of her messages so she couldn't talk to any of them. Sitting up, Hope got out of bed and went downstairs. She walked through the kitchen and opened the door leading to the back porch. The porch was screened in to keep leaves out of the pool they had. Hope exited the porch and went over to the enclosure she kept her bunny in. Opening the door to her bunny's cage, Hope pulled her bunny out and shut the cage door. As Hope exited the enclosure, she heard the sound of rustling leaves. Hope tried to see where the noise came from but couldn't see in the pitch black. Brushing it off as a squirrel, Hope walked back to the porch. When she arrived at the screen door Hope realized that it was cracked open. Hope frowned; she could have sworn she closed it. "The door doesn't always stay closed," she told herself, "It must have swung open." Hope pulled the door all the way open and stepped inside. She went back inside the house closing the door behind her. Now that she was back in the kitchen, Hope set her bunny down so it could hop around. "There you go Fudge," Hope said, "Just don't leave the kitchen." Stepping away from the bunny, Hope exited the kitchen and dashed up the stairs. She went to her room and grabbed the manga she had started reading. Bonding back down the stairs, Hope returned to the kitchen, sat down at the table, and began to read. Hope read for about half an hour before she grew tired of reading.

Setting down her book, Hope stood up from her seat and crouched down to the floor in search of her bunny. As Hope had guessed, Fudge was hiding under the table like normal. After seeing that Fudge was fine, Hope got up and went to the front room to check and see if any of her friends had responded. When she turned on her computer, Hope saw she had two messages from Liz and several from Sammy. Opening Sammy's messages first, Hope saw that Sammy had sent several S.O.S messages and was probably panicking over something silly. Next Hope checked Liz's messages. The messages asked what she was doing. Hope quickly typed her replies and sent them. She waited a few minutes to see if they would respond before logging off. Hope was just about to go back to the kitchen when she heard a noise from upstairs. Hope frowned; what was that? Silently creeping out of the front room, Hope quietly made her way up the stairs. When she reached the top of the stairs, Hope glanced around but saw nothing. A feeling of dread began to pool in Hope's stomach, she didn't know why but every fiber of her being was telling her something was extremely wrong. Shoving the feeling down, Hope began to investigate the rooms. She checked her parent's room first but didn't find anything. Next, she checked the bathroom. That was also empty. After checking her brother's room and finding nothing, Hope finally came to hers. Pushing open the door with her foot, Hope entered the room and looked around. Nothing. Hope frowned; she could have sworn she heard something. Glancing around the room again she noticed something, a note was taped to her closet door. Hope walked over to the closet and grabbed the note. It read 'Let's play a game!' Hope paled, where did this come from!? It wasn't there before! She needed to call 911! Suddenly, Hope heard something from outside. Looking out the window, she saw a figure in the front yard.

Sucking in a breath, Hope sprinted out of her room and dashed down the stairs. Quickly glancing over to the front door, she confirmed it was locked. Racing into the kitchen, Hope grabbed the phone off the wall and dialed 911. The phone rang twice before someone finally picked up. "911 what's your emergency?" The operator asked. "Someone broke into my house," Hope quickly explained, "I'm home alone and I went upstairs because I heard something, and I found a note and I think I saw them in my front yard." "Okay, ma'am are all of your doors and windows locked?" The operator asked wordily. Hope nodded, "Yes, the front door is locked, and none of the windows have been opened recently." "What about the back door?" The other person asked. Glancing over at the back door, Hope saw it too was locked. "It's locked," Hope told the operator. "Are there any other doors in the house?" The operator asked. Hope racked her brain for all of the entrances in the house. She was just about to reply when she heard the sound of the garage opening. Hope paled. "The garage door," she whispered. Dropping the phone, Hope dashed toward the garage door to lock it. She had almost made it when the lights turned off. Stopping in her tracks, Hope desperately scanned the pitch-black room for a light switch. Suddenly, she heard the door to the garage creak open. Hope's eyes widened in fear. Turning away from the door, Hope sprinted out of the kitchen and into the living room. She could hear her heart pounding in her chest and desperately searched for anything to defend herself with. But it was hopeless, she couldn't see anything, and Hope had a feeling none of the light switches would work. Hope could hear footsteps coming toward her. She was just about to run away again when she realized something. If she couldn't see, then neither could the person in the house. Even if she couldn't see, Hope still knew the best hiding places.

She lived in this house, the intruder didn't. Quickly yet quietly, Hope crept up the stairs and into her brother's room. Silently entering his room, Hope tip-toed over to the bed. Underneath her brother's bed in the far-left corner was the perfect hiding spot. Even with the lights on it was so dark in that corner that it was hard to see anyone hiding there. In the dark, it would be impossible. Crouching onto the floor, Hope slid herself underneath the bed and once she reached her destination, she curled up into a tight ball. Hope lay there very still in the pitch black, listening for the slightest sound that wasn't made by her. All she could hear was the sound of her heavy breathing and pounding heart. In the silence, it felt like the loudest thing on the planet. If Hope didn't slow her breathing, surely, she would be found. Focusing on her breathing, Hope tried to breathe slower to ease her pounding heart but no matter what she did, her breath didn't seem to become any quieter. Giving up on that Hope went back to listening for noise. As the minutes ticked by, Hope began to grow restless. She didn't hear anything, where had the intruder gone? As Hope debated on whether to come out of her hiding spot or not, she heard a deep raspy voice. "You're good at hiding," It called out, "I didn't realize you had already begun the game without hearing the rules!" Hope sucked in a breath; they were still there. "Marco," the voice said beginning to move around downstairs. Crashing could be heard from downstairs. "Marco," it said again moving toward the front of the house. Hope could hear things being knocked over. "Marco!" they called again, their voice getting louder as they began to climb the stairs. "Marco," they said, heading into Hope's parent's room. Hope could feel her chest tighten. They were so close. Should she make a run for it? No, whoever broke in was still in her parent's room which was right by the stairs. If she made a run for it now, it would catch her.

Taking a deep breath, Hope squeezed her eyes shut and waited. The sound of footsteps began to come closer until she knew they were in the room. "Marco," it said. Hope held her breath. She could hear them walking around the room searching through the closet, underneath the sheets, and finally lifting the sheets to peek under the bed. Hope opened one eye to see what was going on. She was met with pitch black. Suddenly, the sound of the sheets being dropped reached her ears. The sound of footsteps left the room and walked down the hall. Hope exhaled; they were gone. Now all she needed to do was wait for them to be in her room so she could make a run for it. A few minutes later, Hope heard it. "Marco," it said from her room. Uncurling, Hope launched herself out from underneath the bed and scrambled to her feet. Dashing down the stairs, Hope unlocked the front door and flung it open. She could hear the sound of rushed footsteps from above her. Quietly dashing into the kitchen, Hope made her way to the back door. Hopefully, the intruder would think she went out the front door and give her time to make her escape into the woods behind the house. As Hope entered the kitchen, she stepped in something sticky and furry. Hope resisted the urge to hurl. They had killed Fudge. Quickly stepping over the bunny's body, Hope unlocked the back door and slipped onto the back porch. Running toward the porch door, Hope could hear someone inside the house. Quickly exiting the back porch, she ran toward the back fence and climbed over it. Once she landed, Hope took off sprinting. Running blindly through the woods, Hope wondered if there was a safe place she could go. If she had gone out the front door, she would have been able to run to Oliver's house, but she was going in the opposite direction. All that was left was to hope to outrun whoever broke into the house.

After running for what felt like forever, Hope slowed to a stop. Sucking in deep breaths, Hope tried to catch her breath. She was surrounded by the sounds of crickets and the tree branches shaking in the wind. The moon filtered through the branches providing some light so that Hope could see her surroundings. Once Hope had finally caught her breath, she closed her eyes and listened for anything out of place. To her relief, all she could hear was the sound of the crickets and the person behind her breathing. That's when she realized there wasn't supposed to be anyone behind her. Snapping her eyes open, Hope whipped around and came face to face with the most horrifying thing she had ever seen. The thing behind her looked like something out of a horror movie. Its eyes were missing from its sockets, and it was missing patches of skin exposing the layers of flesh beneath it. "Marco," it rasped, grabbing Hope with its cold hands and ripping her legs clean off. An ear-piercing scream tore through Hope's throat. Blood poured from Hope's body onto the forest floor and the thing sat there and smiled. When Hope finally died of blood loss, it dropped her body to the floor and walked off to look for a new playmate.

Welp- I hope I ruined your childhood. Tell me if I did, I want to feel accomplished. This was meant to be out sooner, I had it all written out and edited but I decided I didn't like the last half of it. So, I decided to rewrite half of it which took a while. It's finally complete now and it's how I envisioned it so I'm happy. Have a great day! Bye! 🙃