You wake up. The water is still running. You're wet and shivering. You hear voices; they sounded like men, maybe? You can't tell. You reach over, turn the water off, and crawl out of the bathtub. You try to stand, leaning heavily against the wall. You're dripping all over the carpet. You reach the living room just as the glass from the window shatters, and the leg of a man comes through the now hollow space. You scream for what seemed like the thousandth time today. The man laughs, and his laughter echoes. Or was it an echo? The leg is followed by a torso, which materializes into a man as he wriggles his way into the house. He is followed by a second man. They are tall and burly. They tower above you as you shrink backward, trying to create space between yourself and these intruders in your home. You try to take a step, and yelp as your bare feet descend upon hards of glass from what was once your window. The first man laughs to the second. "See, I told you! Easy money." The second man echoes his companion's laughter as they take a step closer to her. "Don't worry, little doll, we don't wanna hurt you. So don't scream. We're just gonna take what we want and go." He reaches for you, and you fall backward in your desperate attempt to avoid him. You crawl backward into the kitchen. You try to grab a knife, but the man knocks it out of your shaking hands. You scream, and both men charge at you, but as they do, you drop to your knees and bolt beneath their legs, running past them, out of the kitchen, through the glass-covered carpet, out the front door, and down the sharp gravel road. You can see the bloody footprints you leave behind you glistening in the light of the streetlamp when you glance behind you to see if you're being followed. The men don't give chase. You can hear them rummaging through the old woman's house as you run, the sounds growing fainter and fainter in the night as you run. Blindly trying to put as much distance between them and yourself as possible. The streetlights are few and far between, and you trip on the gravel road in the darkness, scraping the skin off of your knees. You cry out in pain and exhaustion. You crawl on your hands and bloody knees for a few more paces before your fingers brush up against something in the darkness. You know what the object is instinctually. By the coolness of the metal, by the comforting weight of it in your hands, by the compulsion you don't even try to fight as you slip them on. You don't need to see the creature to know he is there.
