It’s a cool, calm night. You worked hard that day, and you feel ready for a good night’s sleep. You climb into your bed and turn off the light. You notice that, considering you live alone, it’s unusually quiet tonight.
Ever since the death of your next-door neighbor, the loud rap music woke you up in the middle of the night no more. The police were quite reliable in these parts, but you can’t help but feel a little disturbed that, for all the blood that was spilled and mess that was caused, the investigators still don’t seem to have a lead. You tell yourself not to worry, the community is on their toes, no sensible killer would go sneaking around this town.
You lay down and close your eyes. As you drift off into sleep, a clear view of the front of your house floats into your vision, lights off except for the television in the downstairs window that you must have forgotten to turn off. You sit up. What kind of dream was that? No, it was more vivid, more distinct than a dream. Strange. Oh, well, you think as you lay back down.
Not long after you close your eyes, you get a similar vision of your front door. Again, you wake up. What’s going on here? No matter. You left all your doors locked. Still, you feel a bit disturbed as you lay back down.
The stairs leading up to the upstairs hallway fill your mind. The picture at the top of the staircase grows larger as you seem to be moving slowly up the stairs. You try to remain asleep, but abruptly sit up when you hear the wooden steps creak outside your door.
Paranoia gets the better of you and you pull a small pistol out of your nightstand you kept around for self defense. Holding it doesn’t seem to give you as much comfort as you thought it would as the steps continue to creak slowly as whatever it is slowly ascends to the hallway. You get up and poise the gun at the door. The creaking stops.
A few minutes pass, and you decide that you really have gone crazy with paranoia. Now that you realize it was only your imagination, you tell yourself to go to bed and have it checked tomorrow. But what were those visions? A dream? A spiritual warning? Your own mind playing tricks on you? These thoughts pester you as you slowly close your eyes, still standing in the middle of the bedroom, facing the door…
You snap awake and you aim your pistol at the bedroom door, ready to strike at any moment. From the “vision” you just saw, whatever’s perspective you were telepathically receiving was standing right on the other side of the door. What do you do? How did it get in? Is this all in your head? Is it safe to return to sleep? No, then it will surely attack, while you’re off guard. You take a minute or so to gather up your courage, and approach the door.
You slowly grasp the knob, turn it ever so softly, then you kick the door open and pull the trigger… or so you almost do until you realize there’s nothing out there but a dark hallway. That was close, you almost caused a huge ruckus in the neighborhood, the last thing you needed for all this stress.
You take a deep breath to regain composure, close your eyes, stretch your tense muscles, and you see yourself from behind, staring out into the hallway.
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