"DAAAD!"
Your voice echoes in the empty house after your father locks the door, the sound of his feet leaving the porch the last thing you hear before you're totally alone. Your hands tremble as you shake the doorknob; hard as you can you shake and shake, hoping and praying that somehow you can make the door open, but you're only a kid and the despite the age of the house, the door is solid wood.
You're not going anywhere.
If you could see the door you'd glare at it, but with the power gone there's no light, and it's the darkness your father wants you to spend the night with, in hopes of curing you of your fear of it. But a storm is raging outside, and with every crack of thunder, every strike of lightning lights up the room, and when it fades the darkness just seems to rush in that much more quickly and that much darker, until you feel like you're in another world. A world locked away from the one outside, full of things you can't see but plenty of things you can hear. Creaks and skitterings and scratchings; there are mice in here you're sure, the house plenty old enough for that, but it would so much more reassuring if you could see them, that you could know that's what it was and not something else…
Wait…
….was that a footstep….
