It was late.
That was Judy's first cognitive thought when she opened her eyes and only darkness met her. A blurry glance at her bedside clock showed that it was just a little past three in the morning. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, Judy sat up slowly, leaving the warmth of the mattress beneath her and the presence of Nick sleeping soundly next to her. Her eyes adjusting to the darkness, Judy saw that Nick was well over his side of the bed and on her side… again. Looking around, the house seemed oddly quiet and almost eerie. A chill crept over Judy, her brows furrowing as she felt the gears in her brain begin to turn again after hours of light dreaming.
This was odd.
That was Judy's second cognitive thought. The house was quiet, not unusual, but a little too quiet. The house was also much colder than it should have been, as if every door and window had been left open, letting in the cold night air. The oddest part about it all, though, was the fact that Judy was awake at such a late hour. It was common for her to sit up abruptly when she heard one of the children crying out or when Nick had a nightmare about being muzzled, all occasional occurrences in the Wilde Home, but as far as she could tell now, there was no immediate cause for concern, which in itself created concern.
Judy was so deep in thought over these strange events that when a large bang went off downstairs it jolted her violently.
"Nick," Judy whispered, shaking his left arm firmly but gently.
It took more than one try to even stir him slightly; he was a heavy sleeper.
"Wha's goin' on?" the fox slurred, his eyes fluttering open and shut.
"Nick, I think there's someone downstairs."
Judy waited for his response, her heart hammering in her ears and her breath caught in her throat, but it never came. She looked down to see Nick fast asleep once more. Huffing impatiently, Judy closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"I can do this," she whispered to herself. "If there's someone downstairs, then this is stupid, but on the other hand, if there's no one down there, then I'm just stupid."
Judy opened her eyes and sighed once more as she quietly slid from the bed, opened her bedside table, and pulled her secondary tranquilizer gun from the depths of the drawer.
"Either way, I can do this," she reassured herself as she checked the gun and its ammunition.
Glancing back at Nick, Judy crept from the room in nothing but light pink athletic shorts and a black t-shirt that was just slightly too big on her. Taking each step slowly, her ears snapped to attention, Judy snuck from the bedroom she shared with Nick, quietly clicking the door shut behind her. She then took a few steps down the hall to the kids' room, peered in, and once she had seen nothing but her four soundlessly sleeping children, also clicked their door shut. Her heart still thumping louder than anything else, Judy eased her way to the top of the stairs, peering down onto the ground floor of the home, but seeing nothing in the dark. She didn't need to see anything, however, as small scuffling noises reached her sharp ears. Gun in front of her at the ready and her entire body at attention, Judy stepped lightly down the carpeted steps, eyes darting around the room. The first room to come into view was the living room to her immediate left, where the large glass sliding door located on the opposite wall that led to the massive fenced-in backyard was open, the gentle breeze lifting the white curtain covering the door now and then.
Anxiety quickly creeping over her chest like vines, Judy quickly noted that if the backdoor was open and everyone in the house was completely unaware of it, then the alarm system they had purchased had been disabled. The system her and Nick had invested in before anything else ensured that no wandering child would get outside without the two of them knowing. The alarm would beep once loudly if a window or door were ever opened, and if a door or window were ever broken into, then the alarm would sound without stalling. Here, the backdoor stood open ominously, no damage to the glass or the frame, yet no alarm had ever sounded to alert the residents of the door being opened. There was also the question of how the door could be open when it had been locked hours before, which Judy was sure of as she had been the one to lock it. With no alarm system for who knew how long, Judy instantly felt much more vulnerable. Without the system, alerting the authorities or calling for help would be manually left to someone in the house, and with only two animals being over the age of three, the odds weren't necessarily in the family's favor.
Shaking these thoughts from her head, Judy approached the open door, inspected the backyard, then slid the door shut and securely locked it before continuing her trek through the home, now making her way to the back of the house, where the kitchen was located with a side hallway leading to the garage. The digital clock on the oven read 3:22. In just a few hours, Nick's alarm would go off, setting them up for another day of dressing four toddlers, frantic working, and wedding planning with their wedding planner (who they had yet another meeting with that afternoon).
The kitchen was quiet and dark, with only a few lights located on the oven, the microwave, and the coffeemaker lighting small spaces of the countertops. The outline of a dark object on the floor near the island in the kitchen immediately caught Judy's eyes. With further investigation, Judy quickly discovered the object was a frying pan laying upside down on the tiled floor. The sound of the loud noise from earlier discovered, Judy glanced up at the rack above the island where she hung all of her cooking pots and pans.
She barely registered anything else before her senses kicked in and she whipped around, firing off a tranquilizer dart as she did so. The large, dark figure that stood before Judy was quick, moving just slightly to avoid the dart and grabbing her wrist roughly, throwing her off balance with ease. The dart pierced the brown cabinet on the far wall, missing the intended target completely, but before Judy could shoot for a second time, she was struck hard in the face, blood instantly pouring from her nose or lip – she couldn't tell which. Suddenly, a scruffy rag covered her mouth and nose, and a bulky arm wrapped around her small body, her tranquilizer gun falling from her grasp and sliding across the room. Struggling violently, Judy attempted to kick and hit her attacker, but to no avail. The attacker only held her tighter, her ability to breathe constricted by the grip. Practically tasting the chloroform from the rag as it entered her lungs with each struggled breath, Judy attempted to quickly kick the ground, making a loud enough noise for someone to hear. After only a couple of kicks to the floor, hard enough to make her joints sting, the attacker easily lifted Judy from the floor, her feet barely grazing the tile now and keeping her from her last chance of calling out.
Attempts at fighting back and being heard became more difficult as the seconds ticked by. Thoughts of her four children and their safety flooded Judy's brain. Hope that Nick heard her, somehow sensed her need and was coming to the rescue, or currently calling for help, or scooping the children from their beds to keep them with him, overflowed her senses. Tears stinging her eyes, Judy could do nothing but hope that Nick would come save her once again.
With the comforting thought of being back in bed next to the warmth that Nick always provided, heavy shadows began to fall over Judy's eyes, her limbs became heavy, and the energy faded from her body.
Then, the world went dark.