IN THE SHADOWS

Elizabeth had a sneaking suspicion-no, she was certain-that someone was in her apartment. Nothing was taken, however a few little items were moved out of place. The odd part was that her beloved tea cup, scarf, and couch blanket had all been moved in a way she hadn't intended. The smell of aftershave, missing underwear, the feeling of eyes watching her, and a window that seems to never lock becomes an odd sick normal expectation with every new day.

She is awakened one night by a shoe string cutting off her air supply and is forced to fight for her life. In her struggling and weary mind, she knows she's about to die, but she doesn't anticipate the man strangling her with such hatred to suddenly collapse over, dead, with a gaping hole in his back. She couldn't even get a hit on him. What happened to him? She survived an attempted murder, so the sensation of eyes on the back of her neck should have faded, yet it persists.

She swears she saw a dark and foreboding shadow the night of her attack, and now, sitting in her bed in the middle of the night, her mind can't trust what she sees.

A monstrous creature as hard as stone looms at the entrance to her bedroom, but his eyes are as soft as petals the moment he sees her, and then he flits away like a blown-out candle, leaving her afraid.