Against all of your better judgment, you address the creature. "What...are you.?" You whisper, and you feel as though the sound must have gone unheard as you can barely hear it yourself over the sound of your own heartbeat in your ears. The creature crawled across the floor towards your bed once more. It climbed upon the bed and sat crouched at your feet. "I have many names; call me Jack." It responded with a sickly sweet smile, bearing all of its many pointed teeth. Its voice sounded wrong, distorted somehow. It sounded unnatural, as though the sound didn't originate from his throat but rather from some far-off place, and his mouth merely became the conduit for the echo of it. "Jack?" You whisper. The thing leans forward, looming over you. It laughs, a raspy, sick-sounding, labored laugh. "Laughing Jack" it expands. You shiver beneath the thing. You want so desperately to take the glasses off, to make the creature go away, to run out of this stupid fucking house and never look back. Instead, you introduce yourself. "I'm Kitty." The creature laughs, and its monstrous tongue flicks out and strokes your chin. "I smell Laura on you. I taste Laura on you." You shiver once more and try to will yourself to pull away from the slippery, wet, coldness of the creature's tongue as it explores your neck. Laura... Your grandmother, Laura. Laura, who left this house to you, glasses included. She must have known this creature somehow because this creature seemed to know her. Intimently. "What do you want?" You whisper hysterical, and panic begins to rise in your voice. Your heartbeat thumps in your ears as you wait for the thing to respond. Its tongue retreats into its cavernous mouth, and it laughs its awful laugh once more. "To be your best friend, kitty." You look at it's face, its facepaint creating at the corners of its mouth as it smiles at you with all of its teeth. Then it laughs, it flops backward onto your bed, it rolls upon the floor, it clutches its stomach as if the very question was the single most hilarious thing it had ever heard of in all its life. The Creature laughed and laughed and laughed, and you finally found the strength to take off the glasses.
