Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26543178-20150628015542/@comment-26543178-20150628034934

Is this version better? I listened to all your feedback.

It was a long night in my suburban neighborhood in Rialto, California. I was upstairs in my bedroom, in my bed, watching YouTube videos on my laptop, with my German Shepard dog Garrick laying next to me. It was a documentary about how a child was found murdered, and they had no clues about the suspect. It was about 2:00 AM. I couldn't get any shuteye at all that night. Occasionally I would hear a barely audible sound, but I couldn't make out what it was. It sounded like someone was choking. I dismissed it as the background music on the video. I got up to go to the bathroom; since I had completely sucked down three Gatorade drinks. I exited my room, leaving the door open for some light. The ceiling light was on in there and illuminated my path to the bathroom. I walked directly across the hallway from my bedroom into the bathroom.

I flicked on the light switch and closed the door. After I was finished doing my business, I went to wash my hands. As I was in the middle of putting soap on my hand, the light suddenly shut off. The bathroom was pitch black. I tried turning it back on, but there was nothing. Each time I flicked the switch, the darkness remained. I decided to finish washing my hands in the dark, and opened the door to find out that my room was pitch black as well. I couldn't see anything at all.

I comically thought to myself, "This is strange, must be something wrong with the juice box." I continued strolling through the dark upstairs, and navigated to the stairway, using only my hands to feel around me. I walked through the dark downstairs and eventually made my way into the living room. I got myself to the front door using only my hands and twisted the handle. It was open. I knew I had locked it; I always locked the door. I felt uneasy as I walked out to my porch. Something was wrong; I felt it. I eventually made my way to the power box, only to find out that all the switches were set to "Off". I immediately switched all of them back on. It took a few minutes for the lights to come back on, which meant my house was still pitch black. This was because the box had a few circuits that were almost fried. I never really bothered to switch them out.

I was feeling really uneasy that someone turned all the power off to my home, especially because it was so early in the morning. I didn't know what to do. I considered calling the police and reporting it, but my phone was still on my bed in my room. As I walked back into my house, I heard loud footsteps coming from the stairway. It sounded like someone was running upstairs. I went back into my house and shut the door. I made sure to lock it this time. I was feeling very uneasy. I wanted to grab a knife from the kitchen, but then I just realized that it might be my dog Garrick making the noises from the staircase. I navigated back up the stairs to my room. Something was wrong. The door had been shut. I started feeling really scared. I heard rumbling noises coming from my room, and Garrick barking loudly, like he was being attacked. It felt like hours when I stood there too scared to even make a noise. Then, Garrick stopped barking. Finally, I built up enough courage to open the door. As my shaking hands twisted the knob and put barely enough force to creak the door, I was completely shocked.

There, standing in my room, was a dark figure. It stood about six feet tall and had an average body shape. It stood like something was wrong with its spine, slouching to the right, and made disgusting gargling sounds. It was standing directly in front of my window, staring at me. I stumbled back, completely shocked, and shut the door of my room and ran towards the stairway. I couldn't see a thing; the lights still hadn't turned on. I fell down the stairs and hit my ankle on the tile floor. I couldn't get back up, because the pain was unbearable. I probably broke it. I looked up only to see that the thing had been slowly advancing down the stairs. My palms started sweating, my body had started shaking frantically, and my mouth went completely dry. Every time its foot hit the steps, I flinched in horror. It sounded like it weighed a ton. I had no other option but to crawl away into the hallway that lead to the kitchen. Finally, the power came back. The back porch light had turned on! I reached up to the light switch and flicked it up. I now saw where I was going.

I kept crawling into the kitchen, and heard footsteps slowly advancing towards my direction. I didn't dare to look back; I didn't want to know what its face looked like. I eventually made it into the kitchen and reached up into the drawer that contained knives and silverware. I pulled the whole drawer out, and got the biggest knife I could find. I looked back to the thing as it walked into the light, and never saw anything worse in my life. Its face was horrifyingly deformed, its eyes out of their sockets, Its jaw was seemingly broken, and its teeth were so rotten they were turning green. It had a hole instead of a nose, and its head was severely misshapen. I couldn't even tell if it was a male or a female. It had uneven lumps all over its body, and cuts all over its face. I had no other choice but to charge the thing, since I couldn't make it to the back slider in time before it eventually caught up. I got up onto my bad ankle, and in extreme pain, I lunged towards it, however, I couldn't do it, and fell back down. It then grabbed my neck and started strangling me. I had started screaming, but none of my neighbors could hear me. I let out one last desperate cry, before I started to pass out. Thankfully, Garrick had been rushing downstairs and bit the disgusting creature-like thing on top of me, directly on the back of its leg. It must have been a really bad bite, because it let go of my neck and let out a terrifying scream in pain. I fell to the floor, gasping for air. I had given myself just enough strength to pick up the knife and stab it directly into its chest. I lunged towards it again, striking the chest. It fell on the floor, and stopped breathing. I sighed in great relief.

A few hours later, I managed to crawl up the stairs and get to my phone. I called the police immediately. Once they arrived, they questioned me. I told them exactly what happened. They took me to the hospital, and gave me surgery on my broken ankle. After the incident, I moved out of Rialto and into an apartment, and hoped to never come across such a horrifying thing again.