Be careful what you write

    It was a Friday, I come home from work, I turn on the tv, sit down and set my bag on the table. I open my computer and begin typing. I work as a short story writer, and in October, the topic of the month was horror stories. 'There is an old empty house on Louis street. This house is rumored to have a creature so terrifying it will scare you down to the very depths of your soul, they say that once you see it you will never  be the same. That is, if you get out alive. But one day a woman of twenty seven bought the house. This woman, by the name of Mary Roberts, didn't believe in these rumors. She thought they were ridiculous, and as she moved in she saw nothing wrong, 'till the first night that is. The power went out later that night. As Mary went to bed, she heard scuffling from the living room. She scoffed, thinking that there were rats in her house, and made a note to call an exterminator and an electrician for the lights tomorrow. She fell asleep. Hours later she woke, and went to turn on her bedside lamp, to discover that the power was out. The scuffling she heard before returned, again she brushed it off. Then came the snarling noises, she became suspicious, rats don't make that sound. Next she  heard thumping, like running on carpet, and the thing was getting close. She clutched her blanket, growing scared. She turned on a flashlight and screamed at the sight of the thing in front of her' I saved the document and closed my laptop, it was late and I could finish it tomorrow, the story wasn't due until Monday anyway. Walking back to my room, I put my laptop on the desk across from my bed. I heard the soft patter of rain on my window. I smiled, rain was always peaceful to me. I liked the soft thud of droplets of water, the smell of the dirt after a storm. I lie on my bed, turn off my lamp, and fall asleep.

    Lightning flashed, thunder boomed, I woke with a start and shot up in bed  breathing hard. I look at the nightstand, the clock reads midnight. I lay back and calm down, 'It's just a storm' I told myself. 'You like storms there's nothing to worry about.' I lay back down and hear whispers coming from the main room, I brushed it off thinking that I left the t.v. on. I heard rapid footsteps from the hall. Thunder booms outside, lightning flashes like a giant polaroid camera. My power goes out, leaving me in the ominous inky blackness that is my room. The only thing illuminating my room is the occasional lightning strike in the dark clouds followed by cannon fire-like thunder. I clutch my blankets tightly in my fists.

    I hear the whispering again.

    I freeze, pupils dilating.

    The power is out. The t.v. is off.

    The whispering is louder than it was before.

    There is a small thumping like that of climbing. Another boom of thunder, I jump out of my bed. I stand as far as I can from the hall while still being able to look down it. I can't see anything in this dark, but I know my room like the back of my hand. Lightning strikes again, I scream. Because gleaming against a pair of eyes in the hall. But they aren't normal eyes, as that would have terrifying enough but no, these eyes were pure red. They had no pupil, no iris, nothing. Just an absolute, deep, blood red, and they were at the top of the ceiling no less.

    I am shrouded in darkness again. I fear for the next flash of lightning, because with it, comes with a better picture of who, or rather what, is in my hall.

    I slowly get out of my bed, all I could hear was the loud beat of my heart and the rush of blood in my ears. Then I caught something else, a low growling emitting from my hallway. It was so low that I could barely hear it.

    I can't see anything in the darkness my room has been shrouded in from the storm, but I know my room like the back of my hand.

    The lightning illuminates my room once more, and I get a better picture of the figure. Chills run down my spine as I realize that this has all happened before. Not in real life no, but in story.

    My story. It always was, from the beginning of the night.

    This is exactly what I had written before going to bed. The power outage, the noises in the living room, the hallway. The creature. I made this thing, but I didn't finish the story. I don't know how this ends.

    Do I survive?

    Will I make it out alive?

    Or will this thing kill me and wait till' the next person lives here just like the story?

    All of these thoughts rushed in and out of my head, weaving through my mind, All in the blink of an eye. Just like the lightning.

    The creature had gotten closer, maybe thirty feet away. It had charred black skin, like it had been burned and had long black hair hanging down below it. It had tight skin and no lips, like a skull, there were no eyelids, just the menacing red. It looked like it was grinning, grinning at the thought of killing me. You could see it's rib bones through it's skin, you could see all it's bones through its skin.

    The worst part though, was that it was upside down on the ceiling. It was looking at me upside down, that long dark surrounding it's head like a curtain 

    I stumbled back until I had reached my dresser, I opened the dresser grabbing my emergency flashlight, turning it on I saw that the thing was moving again. It moved like it had no spine, contorting to climb down the side of the wall. When it reached the ground it didn't crouch normally.

    The storm rumbled.

    It's back was facing the ground, limbs backwards, head upside down looking at me. Then the head twisted till it was looking at me right-side up, without moving the rest of its body.

    My heart beating as fast as humanly possible, I was frozen in my spot. I couldn't move.

    It crept towards me on the ground in a contorted mass of a charred husk with deep red eyes, that now that it was close I realized were also leaking blood from them in thick drops.

    As the creature just barely reaches twenty feet away, my flashlight flickers, before going out. 'I didn't replace the batteries last week' I think with dread.

    I am plunged into ebony darkness once again. Only deafening silence is around me.

    Thunder crashes.

Then I hear it.

The ragged breathing. Barely audible sounds were amplified by the roaring quiet of the house.

Fast steps. The creature is running. Running towards me.

Another wave of lightning.

The creature darted left and climbed back up the wall.

    My temporary visibility expired. It was on the ceiling, I knew that much.

    I felt a drop on my forehead, I reached up to wipe it off. It was liquid, lightning flashed and I saw it was blood.

I look up, hearing ragged breathing and snarling.

Lightning flashed for the last time.

The creature is above me. With the light of the storm, the last thing I see is it's charcoal stretched skin grinning at me and it's lidless eyes staring down at me. It leaps from the ceiling.

Suddenly, cold.

Freezing cold.