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All I could hear was my heartbeat.

Maybe that was why the snapping sounded so loud.

Maybe the power really was out and all the ordinary sounds had stopped with it.

That made sense. I clung to it.

Then it came again.

Right at my side now.

Snap.

Something touched the top of my head.

A hard little tap.

The tip of a finger, I thought.

I tried to jerk away from the touch.

Nothing moved.

Not my head. Not my arms. Not even the hand twisted in my sheets.

The terror had gone past fear. My body had simply stopped taking instructions from me.

Reality shifted.

The dark went fuzzy around the edges.

But I was still awake. Still looking.

Something moved in the corner by my bedroom door.

A tall black edge shifted through the dark.

For one disorienting second, I thought the door itself had moved.

Then something caught the faintest slice of window light.

A shoulder.

Maybe a hand.

The shape of a person where no person should have been.

I blinked.

The corner was solid again.

Had someone been breathing beside me?

My body released all at once.

I came upright screaming. My throat hurt almost immediately.

An acrid taste flooded the back of my mouth, strong enough to make me gag.