The house is silent other than the rain pounding on the roof and the occasional flash of lightning followed by a clap of thunder. I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep in fear of what would happen if I closed my eyes. Only when the sun takes place of the moon will I finally allow myself to rest my eyes and pray for a painless, dreamless sleep. The light was hours and hours away, leaving me here in the darkness of my own and to torture myself with dangerous thoughts. The most terrifying of these thoughts were that they were real.

Everyone thought I was crazy, that everything I thought was real was all in my head. Everyone refused to believe anything I thought out of the ordinary, even Mike thought I was insane most of the time. I couldn’t understand if they thought my ideas were too preposterous to be true or they didn’t want them to be true because if they were, the nightmares following would also mean death was with it. I couldn’t believe that they would turn on me and my word to avoid the fact that everything I have researched and the night terrors I have suffered for years following wasn’t a figment of my imagination.

The darkness seemed to somehow get darker with every passing second. The growing storm was not helping the situation at hand, leaving me to hope for another troubleless night. My ears strained to hear anything unnatural moving around the house, but once again there was silence. I tried to convince myself that what I was thinking was preposterous. There couldn’t possibly be this kind of creature that science has yet to discover, or that someone would have discovered the abnormal species and share their knowledge with the world. Everyone would know if these creatures did exist, there would be no avoiding the front pages of the daily news, and the lives that would be saved if such news were revealed. Despite my best efforts to stay awake I could feel my eyes getting heavier and heavier.

The quiet rustle inside the closet made me jump out of my skin. My heart began pounding violently in my chest. My mind was racing as my body flooded with heat. I stared at the closet door, the handle unmoving. I was breathing rapidly now and the heat wasn’t going away. Even though I was going against every instinct in my body telling me to scream I stayed silent. I listened hard for another sign of movement behind the door, anything telling me my theory was at all correct. But despite my hope to prove everyone wrong, I wanted to be wrong more than I wanted to be right. If I was right, then these would be my final moments.

I continued to stare at the door handle, unblinking, and thinking to myself what could have made that noise. Everything that I have concluded to in the past, everything that I have ever thought about the possible existence of these undocumented creatures was coming to me now. I have been thinking about this possibility all night, but now these thoughts were sharper, clearer, and more deadly than before. Not only do these creatures bring you to your final moments, but they bring you to the doors of death slowly, hours of horrors until the blackness absorbs you whole. Then the door handle rattled.

When the door opened I couldn’t process a sensible thought. Lightning flashed through the window and what I saw was more horrifying that I would have ever imagined. It walked on all four legs, covered in a thick black fur. Its full body was in the shape of a large dog, but possessed more alien qualities. The creature was tailless and instead of paws it had long, finger-like claws that looked like it could do lethal damage with the ability of opposable thumbs. Its face had a shorter snout with extraordinarily long and sharp canines. Another alien feature were the eyes; white and looked lifeless, but the rest of the animal said otherwise. The way it moved was the most frightening, using its back legs to crawl towards me, using its front legs to reach for me, maybe they were arms. The room was dark again and I had no idea what to do.

I heard it moving through my room, first away from the bed but then doubling back with incredible speed. I finally screamed and got out of the bed. I stumbled over disposed clothes and ran for the door. When I reached the hallway I looked behind me to see the creature moving towards me at a fairly slow pace, maybe giving me time to get away. It’s toying with me. I know that there is little to no chance to survive such a situation, but there is still a chance. I run down the stairs and go run for the front door. I was so close but I heard it gaining on me, there was no way to outrun a creature of such strength and ability compared to any human being anywhere. I knew I would be dead within minutes but I still wanted to see it in the light for the satisfaction of knowing what was doing this even though I already knew. I needed to look at it in its face to know that everything I thought I knew was true, that I really wasn’t insane, that everyone else was wrong, no matter the cost of the revelation.

I was at the door now but there was no sense in leaving the house anyways, since it would follow me unquestionably and attack anyone else on the streets at this hour. Tears sprang to my eyes as I turned on the lights and turned to face my death and accept my defeat. I hardly got to look at the creature before it was on top of me, latching its fangs into my neck with such force I thought I would break in half with it even on me. It was dragging me now, and I was so painfully conscious that I could feel it draining the life out of me. Pain was shooting through my body and was so unbearable I could hardly think anything sensible. As death was drawing nearer I attempted to make a final act, hoping someone would find it and be able to warn the rest of the world. In my own blood pooled beside me I dragged my finger through it and, slow and unsteady, began to spell out the name of my killer. V-A-M-P-I-R-E. My hand dropped to the floor as I lost consciousness.

I knocked on the door with a handful of flowers and I silently prayed that she would forgive me for not believing in her theory of the horrid beast, but I couldn’t make myself believe in such fantasies. No matter how much she believed in it herself, I knew that I never could. Even though she acted as if she didn’t care at all about what I did or didn’t believe, she had stopped contacting me completely. She hadn’t responded to any of my emails, any messages left on her voicemail, anything. A voice in my head told me that she wasn’t coming to the door anytime soon so I tried the doorknob and was definitely surprised by it being unlocked. Knowing Anna wouldn’t care anyways I went inside and called out her name. I saw that the light was on in the kitchen and made my way there with a smile on my face. As I rounded the corner my heart nearly stopped at the sight of the stained red floors. Panic flooded my body and I dropped the flowers and turned to run.