Loading…

The screen went white and that familiar circular motion began in its center. The WiFi in that house always struggled to keep up, but rarely buffered this late at night. I assumed that I was the only member of my family still awake and scrolling endlessly. My seat in the beanbag often became my dwelling after the daylight hours, when all the others' eyes were shut and all the lights killed. From here I gazed up at the door, cracked open, allowing the faintest strip of yellow to spread across the floor. I had forgotten to turn the stove light off once again. With my head leaned back against the wall, directly below the window, I sighed. Soon enough the screen switched to the all too familiar sign which read “No Internet Connection”. It was then I heard the footsteps.

It must be known that the house I lived in was elevated slightly from the ground, meaning the floors shook a little when walked on. This made late-hour excursions quite noisy to the sleeping family. But this minute, creaky bumping seemed to be an attempt at stealth nonetheless. So, someone else was awake. As it often did, my brain calibrated in mere seconds the possibilities of who could be doing what, and for what reason.

My brother.

My mom.

My dad, although I recalled hearing his droning snore a few minutes ago.

They could be getting a drink…

Using the restroom?

Perhaps that stove light was bothering them, in which case I would probably be confronted sooner or later.

That last guess looked to be spot on. I kept my eyes on the door in case anyone appeared. Then the stove light switched off…

click

Ah, so it must be my mom. She hated the faint light and she didn’t even have to see it for it to bother her. Expecting the footsteps to thump their way back to the other side of the house, I directed my eyes back to the screen, sliding the cursor towards the refresh button. The black, pixelated arrow glided over the white like a blurry little airplane through the sky.

I didn’t hear any footsteps.

Thinking it was odd that anyone should remain standing in front of the stove stationary, my eyes were once again drawn to the opening in the door. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the same loading screen with the circle spinning round,

and round,

and round…

The footsteps resumed and I realized my heart had begun pounding. Throbbing, almost. It seemed odd, then everything stopped. The loading screen disappeared and I didn’t even bother to gaze down at the same error notification. My globes were fixed like glue on the door, adjusting to the new darkness. I folded the laptop screen half-way in order to aid in the adjustment.

kreeeeaaak

The floorboards outside my room strained under something’s weight. I was going to get that confrontation that I deserved. At 1:18 a.m., too. Yet none came. I squinted, raised my line of vision, then froze.

I was stuck. My temples thumped and throbbed as my heart pumped double time. I drew short, nasally breaths as the figure grew more visible to me. My mouth remained ajar and I felt my fingers drop in temperature. No doubt about it, that was a face. But it wasn’t my mother’s.

I blinked speedily, trying to clear my eyes and focus. What was it? What was going on?

The figure was dark and shadowy up until the top of the door. There I saw a pale palette holding a glowing eye. The pupil was small and dark. The eyelids seemed nonexistent. I could see what I thought was a mouth. Not smiling. Emotionles…

The longer I glared the harder it stared back. I felt like screaming. My chest felt like it would explode, my body stayed paralized. For what seemed like years my gaze never left the unsettling horror.

It slowly moved its pupil. Uncannily, eerily it slid its pupil in an upward direction, as if looking out the window behind me. When I thought the bulging eye couldn’t have gotten any wider, it grew. When my heart couldn’t beat any faster, it accelerated. I heard scratching on the door. Then it smiled.

A slow, crazy smile. That blazen, drunken smile.

The one visible eyeball once again made its way down to my poor frame sitting in the beanbag chair. I was frozen solid, trapped in arctic ice, having been there for thousands of years. And now it was smiling at me.

At the same time, I heard a little clank of metal from somewhere behind me. Not daring to let the grinning creature out of my line of sight, I gripped the sides of my laptop with claws of iron. Behind the door I heard another aoft kreeeeak. My teeth clenched and my breaths became heaves as I listened in horror. The familiar squeal of the window opening behind me filled the room as I felt the chill autumn night’s breeze sweep over the top of my head.