Her eyes fluttered open and the darkness immediately greeted her. Slowly, slower than what a person could imagine, she reached for the cellular phone under her pillow. It was three in the morning, the digits told her, and then there was also the sound that usually woke her.
It was the middle of the dawn and that hair-raising sound of clawing was starting to give her the creeps again."It was just a cat…just a cat," she whispered to herself trying to ease the terror. Closing her eyes tightly, she prayed that the noise would stop. She silently wished that the gentle hands of sleep would touch her and send her to the merry world of dreamland…but it didn't.
Instead, she was ignored and left alone to suffer the nightmare while she was wide awake. Her mind wanted her to stand up and check out the noise. In other words, curiosity was welling up inside her and it was starting to take over the greater part of her. Apparently, that was 'only' if curiosity could defeat fear but in her case, it looked like the battle would be long.
The feeling of fear was very much in control to the point that it forbade her to make any movement aside from the heaving of her chest while breathing. The noise, the claws or could be the nails against metal roof, was gradually becoming loud. It was followed by the sound of lizards. Tsk…Tsk…Tsk…it was continuous until it turned to the sound of something licking its mouth as if saying that it was currently eyeing its soon-to-be-devoured prey.
That was it! She stood up, not because curiosity had won, but because the fear had came to the full extent that it drove her adrenaline high enough for her to run to her parents' room and seek refuge.
"There was something outside my room!" She hysterically exclaimed. Her words bewildered her parents but they still went to her room and checked out what she was talking about. They all opened the window in her room which overlooked the roof of their kitchen and she forgot the word to describe what emotion came crashing down on her after she saw with her eyes, after the flashlight illuminated the thing she was talking about, the cause of her fear.
She was embarrassed, deeply embarrassed. The monster was a big black 'fur ball'…a cat enjoying its poor meal for the night. Her parents shot her an annoyed glare before leaving her. She was so much humiliated that she remained standing and staring at the cat. It was only after the cat gave her a wink that she gained her fearful state back. And in front of her eyes, it transformed into a man with bloodied mouth because it was eating something that resembles a flesh.
Before she could scream, a hand was already over her mouth and the man was instantly behind her. She was right about the noise!
She tried to break free but the man was filled with strength.
"Hello, Sakura."