The Raven

    Imagine that you are walking along the sidewalk. It is very dark out, and cold, due to the fact that it is indeed fall. You are making your way back home, from a friend's house, alone because you didn't want to bother anyone to come with you. The sound of fallen leaves crunching beneath your feet seems to be the only thing you can hear on this quiet October night. Look around. Can you see any people walking around? Of course not. Why would anyone else be walking around late at night, while its below 40°? It's just you. No lights on in near by houses. No cars driving by on the streets. Not even a dog can be heard in the distance.
         You continue walking in the quiet, dark, and cold night, getting closer to your home. You can feel something in the air. Something....not quite right. You know something is off, but you don't know what it is exactly. You continue walking, just wanting to get home as soon as possible. But then you stop. You can almost  feel a presence. The presence of another person. You turn around, but do not see anything. Shrugging it off as an over active imagination, or just the chill of the cold air, you continue to walk home. Perhaps it is because of your nervousness or parinoia that the night seems darker. A little disturbed, you turn around and do not see anyone. You subconsciously quicken your pace.
        As you start to walk faster, you hear footsteps behind you. Frightened, you turn around, only to see no one there, once again. The logical part of your brain tells you that it is just your imagination. Pulling your jacket tighter around your shoulders, you turn back around, yet again, quickening your pace. You listen to the crackle of the leaves under your shoes to try and get your mind away from the horrifying thought of being followed. This seems to work until you hear those footsteps behind you, once more. Not even considering to look behind you, you quicken to a jog, only to hear the footsteps behind you get faster as well! Panicked, you start running. The sound of heavy boots behind you gets faster and faster.
       Your lungs are burning from breathing the cold air so quickly, but you hardly notice. All you can think about is the footsteps behind you that seem as loud as a hammer against a nail. They sound like they are right behind you. You tried to run faster, but you couldn't. Because everything went dark. As if someone had pulled a black cloth over your eyes.
          You wake up, with a splitting headache. You try to move your arms to hold your head, only to find that they have been tied behind your back, to the chair you are seated in. You open your eyes. You are in, what seemed to be an abandoned factory. No equipment was there, just a large, open space with....That's when you see it. There is a table. On that table, you can see a man tied down. He looks young, about twenty or so. Thick, black hair, that was greased and slicked back. A denim jacket, white shirt, and jeans. He, too, looks terrified, as if he, too, had just woken up.
        Then you saw 'him' enter the room. A man, in a dark, black robe, with black hair slicked back to look like the crest of a bird. To go along with that, he wore a white mask, with a beak, that looked like a cross between a plague doctor mask, and one that you might wear to a masquerade party. You let your eyes travel down to his hands, and that is where they stopped. This man had six fingers....on each hand, with black, six fingers gloves over them as well. He stood at maybe eight feet in height.
        The man in the mask walked over to the man on the table. He held a suit case with him, then set it down on the table. You think to yourself, 'What is he going to do?' You've decided it was nothing good. One by one, the masked man pulled out a hammer, pliers, razors, and a knife. You feel your heart pounding against your lungs, making it hard to breathe. Then it twisted. He didn't use the tools on the man. You looked closer, and froze. The man on the table was already dead, with the expression of fear and pain forever frozen on his sickly pale face. The man in the bird mask untied him, then threw him to the ground, the way a child would when they grew bored with a toy. He looked at you.
          You feel your blood run cold, your heart quicken, and all time stop. He walked closer and closer. You want to struggle, to scream, to call for help....But you are frozen. He grabs you, taking you from the chair, and forcing you onto the table. Now tied down, you are helpless. At the mercy of this terrifying man, who had clear intentions of harming you. He picked up the pliers. You close your eyes, and squeeze them tight. But you open your mouth and let out a scream of pain, when he uses them to pull out your thumb nail. With a little effort, and a lot of pain, he finally pulls it all the way out. He continued this with all of your finger nails. Hot tears stream down your face, warm blood flowing down your hands and dripping onto the table. You hear him chuckle.
         You open your eyes to see him set the pliers down, and pick up the razors. He selects one, then walks up closer to your face. He pushes back your sweat-matted hair, from your forehead. The man started to carve into the flesh, even pressing hard enough to scratch into your skull. You scream, and cry out in pain, feeling the intense sting of the razor. After a while, he stops and holds up a mirror. Your forehead is carved with blood, and forming bruises, and blood is dripping onto your face. Reading backwards, you see that he carved your name into your flesh and bone. Setting the mirror down, he picks up the knife.
        You beg for mercy, but he only clicks his tongue, mockingly. He grabs you face, forcing your mouth open. You are too weak and tired to put up a fight. He uses his knife to cut into your tongue. You can only cry at this point, and feel the warm blood trickle down your throat. When he finishes, he holds the bloody knife in one hand, and your blood soaked tongue in the other. He drops the tongue to the floor, and puts the knife down....And picks up the hammer.
      You are wishing for this to end. You actually want to die, so this pain will end. The bird man raises the hammer, and brings it down with great force, into your chest. You feel and hear, your ribs crack and break. He does this again. Again. Again and again. You can't even cry anymore. The ribs have punctured your lungs, and you choke on your own blood. Your vision gets blurry, and the room gets darker. You look at the man. He starts to remove his bird like mask.

[I]"My name is The Raven."

He takes the mask off, but you die before you could ever see his face, as if it was the suspense and curiosity that killed you instead of blood loss, and internal bleeding.