1 Prolog

I open my eyes widely. What is that noise? It's dark and only the moon shines through my windowand paints the room with cold blue light. I can see the outline of my mobile phone and so I can take it.I turn it on and can see a picture of Clifford my dog which died two years ago.

"It's half past two! Who makes such noises at this time?", I mumble half asleep.

Now I realize that the sounds are coming from our house. It sounds like porcelain and glass getdestroyed. A scream. Was that my mom? I have to find out what is going on. So, I decide to sneak outof my room into the hallway only wearing my pajamas and with my phone in one hand. I stay on thecarpets so no one will hear my steps. I don't want to be recognized so I don't turn the light on and Ionly use the light from my phone's screen to see where I'm going. I walk past the dressers and shoerack and carefully look into the kitchen on the right. No one is there. I flinch because of a crow whichhits the window with his beak.

"Please don't harm her.", I hear a shaky woman's voice say. I sneak further until I reach the end of thewall and there, I carefully look around the corner into the living room.

I can hear faint sobs. My mother sits in front of our red leather couch and cries."Please don't harm her!" she whines again. She is holding her own arm. As I look closer, I can see aliquid running down her arm and falling on our white carpet.I look across the room. I can see a shadow scurry across the floor. It looks like a branch. I am sure thatno one is in the room and so I go to my mom. I get on my knees next to her. I want to touch her butshe flinches away from me. She looks scared at me, starts to cry and hugs me. I can feel her tearsfalling on my neck and I get goose bumps on the back of my neck. Together with her I stand up andshe reaches for my wrist. Her grip is so strong that it starts to hurt. She stares at a point behind meand I can see the fear in her eyes like she sees something horrible.

Suddenly I feel an ice-cold wind. I turn around so I can see the window wide open. Long, thin branchesreach into the living room and they start to move slowly. Now I notice that these are not branches,but long fingers. Now I can see the arms too and they are not very thick either. Slowly a figure crawlsthrough the window into the room. It stands up and now I can see it is ten feet tall. It makes a hump,otherwise it won't fit into the room. The creature is completely black and only the yellow eyes areshining bright. That thing is slim and has a long face. His arms reach the floor and his legs are rathersmall compared to his torso.

The monster opens his eyes widely when it sees us and it starts to grin at us and the corners of themouth go from one ear to the other. It opens his mouth and starts running towards us with a loudscream. My mom pushes me away from her and screams to run away. I run as fast as I can and lookfor a place to hide. Then I got an idea. The cupboard under the stairs. I hide there but leave the dooropen a little so I can still see the living room.

The monster attacks my mom. She tries to get away but its arms are too long and too fast. It reachesfor her and digs its long, thin fingers into the flesh of her legs and pulls her towards itself. She tries tohold on to the table, but the creature is stronger. It grins and then it opens its mouth even more andrams its teeth into her stomach. Her awful scream gets stopped by the blood which floods her throat.Frightened I watch it happen and can't move a little bit.

Suddenly the monster stares into my eyes and its former bright white teeth are now smeared withblood. I can hear a whine behind me and I turn around. Clifford! My dog? No, that's impossible, hedied so long ago. He comes to me with his head bowed and I start to hug him. He licks my neck andsome tears run down my face when I see the monster walking towards me. Then I feel a stitch in myneck. Clifford rams his teeth into the back of my neck. I can feel the blood run down my body. Cliffordstarts to growl and bites me again. I feel like my bones get broken and slowly everything gets blurred.I'm losing consciousness.