I'll Justify My Reasons With Your Blood

The house was way too quiet. I began to turn every single damn light on in the kitchen, afraid that someone might jump out of the darkness. Everything was still, and yet my heart was racing a million miles per hour. Am I just freaking out because I basically witnessed a murder today? Or is it because Jared and Shannon aren’t here? No, that can’t be it. I’m a grown up now, which means I don’t have to depend on them for everything.

I just need to calm myself down, keep taking deep breaths. Nothing is going to happen to me. I leaned up against the wall nearby, closed my eyes and took deep breaths, just like how I do in yoga class. Yeah, that’s it pretend you’re in yoga class, that’s a nice calm safe place. I smiled to myself as I felt my body slowly relax. There is nothing to be afraid of, it’s just my huge empty house.

And just as I calmed myself down, the phone rang shrilly throughout the house, startling me and causing me to jump. Maybe it’s Jared! I leaped over to the phone, gripping it tightly in my hand. Anxiously, I answer the phone, “Hello?” Let’s just say I was disappointed to hear a stranger’s voice on the other line.

“Hey there, Nikki. How’s it going?” he asked.

Ok, first of all I have no clue who this is, so why do they know me? And although it might sound like a nice conversation, his tone of voice totally took it into the opposite direction. His voice was deep and somewhat raspy. “U-um, who is this?” I asked, hating myself for stuttering like that.

He chuckled a little on the other end. “You really are dying to find out, aren’t you? Well damn, if you want to know so bad then I don’t see any reason to keep you waiting…”

And then the phone clicked off, indicating he hung up on me. What the hell was that all about? That must’ve been some prank call…probably one of the neighbors. That would explain how they knew my name and why they were talking in such a creepy ass voice.

Literally, as I was breathing a breath of relief, the lights began to flicker causing a much unwanted horror movie atmosphere. The weird part was that they began flickering slow at first, then the speed of the flickering increased. In fact, it was almost making me dizzy. It has to be one of the neighbors messing with the electric box outside. They’re probably drunk or something and were in the mood to pull a prank on me, seeing as I’m home alone.

Then, before I could even try to come up with anymore excuses, all the lights went out at once, shrouding me in complete darkness. The house once again grew too silent for my liking. There were no noises inside nor outside, aside from the sounds of my deep breaths I was still trying to take in. A sharp sound came from the laundry room, which was down the hall next to the kitchen. It sounded like…glass breaking? And then the window near the sink began to crack a little.

It looked as if some unseen force was pressuring down on the window sending small cracks along the smooth glass. The pressure stopped for a brief moment and before I could say, think, or do anything else, the entire window practically exploded, sending glass shards into the kitchen all over the floor. I have the reaction time of a turtle, so of course this meant I was screwed. I barely even got out of the way before some of the shards enveloped themselves into my left shoulder. I think I was more traumatized by the exploding window than the fact that I was bleeding.

To my horror, every window on the first floor sounded like it was following the same pattern. The sound of the glass cracking sounded like the sick snapping sound of breaking of a bone, and the explosion itself made a high-pitched piercing sound, making me cringe even more. I have to find out what’s going on here…I don’t see how anyone could possibly break a window without throwing something into it. It didn’t even look like anyone was out there. The only way I’m going to feel better is if I get upstairs to get a better look.

I climbed the stairs, two at a time, until I reached my room, totally unharmed. I had paused a moment to glance out the large window in the recreation room we had upstairs, but unfortunately all I saw was darkness. As soon as I got inside my room, I heard the familiar sound of the glass cracking and I realized that the process was continuing, this time on the upper floor. At this point I’d say that it’s safe to say that this is not the neighbors pulling a prank and that my room is the safest place to be, for more than one reason.

I began to walk over to my window, although I was not looking straight at it. I had my head turned because I was trying to figure out where the glass was breaking at then and how long I had before it would reach my room. My hands gripped both sides of the black curtains getting ready to bring them together and protect myself from the windows. As I was going to bring them together, I glanced up and felt my heart sink into my stomach as I screamed my lungs out. There was a man standing on the balcony outside my window.

From what I could tell, he was wearing all black…a t-shirt and pants. He had insanely huge muscles that seemed to be covered in tattoos. The dim moonlight was shining off of his piercings. Was this the guy from the phone call? Wait, why the hell does it matter? He’s probably the one who is somehow breaking all my windows.

My feet felt as if they were super-glued to the floor causing my body to be frozen in this same position. I couldn’t move, even if I tried. Fear had completely taken over my body, and that was plain to see. I was standing so close to the glass door, and so was he. The only thing separating us was the glass itself. I couldn’t help but stare into his eyes. They were so harsh and cold, yet they seemed somewhat amused at my predicament.

It felt as if the world was moving in slow motion, until he punched through the glass and in one swift motion grabbed a hold of my neck, pulling me up against the half broken glass. A small cry escaped from my lips as I felt the sharp glass shards pierce through my clothes and into my back. The man behind me leaned forward a little and wrapped his entire massive arm around my neck, beginning to choke me. Glass shards, followed by thin streams of blood, lined his arms and yet he seemed unaffected.

But then something weird happened. The shards, one by one, began to fall out of his skin and blood went back into his veins, with the flesh closing up behind. What kind of monster is this person? “Oh don’t play dumb, Nikki, you know exactly what kind of monster I am,” he sneered, nearly reading my thoughts.

I honestly had no clue what he was talking about. “W-who are you and what do you want from me?” I asked, dying to know the answers.

“You’re just so full of surprises tonight, aren’t you? Well, I guess I could help you out since you seem to have forgotten. I’m M. Shadows and I’m here to take you back to my place,” he said, sounding like he was trying some pick up line on me, as if I honestly wanted to go anywhere with him.

I could barely speak, let alone breathe, with the positioning of his freaky magic arm. I need to get out of here and fast. My closet is only a couple feet away, and that’s all I need to get to safety. His arm was so close to my mouth, I could probably just bite him or something…oh well, I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. I squeezed my eyes shut, not really wanting to do this, and bit down as hard as I could onto his arm. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth, and I immediately spat it onto the carpet as soon as I freed myself from his death-grip.

I fell onto the ground, gasping for air and choking on that disgusting taste. My fingers gently reached up toward my neck, only to quickly pull back. The skin was already extremely sensitive, indicating that a large and ugly bruise was forming. I don’t have time to worry about that right now. There’s a crazy man in my room and if I don’t get to my closet he will kill me for biting him. I immediately got to my feet, ignoring the piercing pain of the shards still embedded into my skin.

My hand wrapped around the door handle and within a second I was inside my closet with the door locked behind me. Since the lights were out, I grabbed my cell phone out of my pocket and realized that I could’ve called for help a long time ago. Damn it, I’m such an idiot! I was about to dial Jared’s number when I saw that I didn’t get any bars inside this closet. Wow, my luck is just amazing tonight. It didn’t really matter though, because I could still use my phone as a light.

Now, you might be wondering why I’m so relieved to be in my closet. Well, I never thought I’d have to actually use it, but Jared had a secret entrance to the panic room in the basement added to every closet in the house. The problem is…I forgot how to activate the special lock that opened the door. Shadows finally caught on to the fact that I was hiding in the closet and he began banging on the door. He was hitting it so hard that some of the wood began to crack and break. Oh no…what if he breaks the door down before I get into the safe zone?

Panic flooded into my mind. Damn, why can’t I remember what the special lock was? The door behind me began to break more and more and I could hear him growling as the anger continued to boil up inside him. I got a little startled by it and unintentionally fell backwards onto a box of my old Barbie dolls. Some of them came out of the box, and since I’m such a neat freak at times I had to put them back, even in this dire situation. The last one left was some babysitter Barbie. I lifted her up by the arm, moving it into a slightly different position and then I heard the creaking sound of a door opening…and it wasn’t just any door, it was the escape door!

On the inside panel of the door was a first aid kit and a dagger. I grabbed both and jumped down into the mini elevator. I pressed the button and then it took me down into the basement’s panic room. I strapped the dagger onto my lower leg, concealing it with my jeans and then I proceeded to carefully remove the shards and cover the wounds with bandages.

I think I may have actually survived this! I mean, there’s no way they know where I am now and even if they did, there’s no way they’d be able to get inside here. I’m safe. Well, the only problem was…I had no idea what exactly I was up against.

I didn’t know how powerless and defenseless I truly was.