[Excerpt from Erin’s diary Rising]

The Entry Titled “Night Terrors”

I find it strange that the scariest occurrences happen during night.

First off, night really isn’t anything to be scared of at all. Okay, I guess it’s really dark and stuff and human eyes can’t adjust, but what would possibly hurt you in the dark? The closet monster? Your brother (trust me; Kevin probably would)? Zombies?

And then there’s the fact that realistically, zombies would not pop out in the middle of the night. It’s probably more around the time where most humans are around. And even if they did, I’m pretty sure they won’t just creep on you silently and eat you while you’re still sleeping… no, they’re bound to give it away with a loud clash. After all, it’s ZOMBIES.

I’m not saying that to guarantee your safety in the dark. - Side note: I’ve just realized that I used the word “you” several times, and though I had to think about this for quite a while, I’ve decided that I’m not talking to anyone in particular… just to myself.

I mean, any assassin could just creep up on you in the dead of night and stab you in bed. Then he could silently slink off, having done his job. And you’d never wake up again. That’s all there is to it.

I don’t know why I’m scaring myself with all this info. I guess it’s because of what happened last night.

After watching a long movie with a few friends, I fell asleep. I guess it was a little embarrassing when I woke up because all my friends were gone and I was alone. That meant that for sure, they all saw me asleep. I bet I looked really stupid, probably snoring my big head off and scarring my friends’ ears for life. That was what I was thinking as I shifted around, trying to navigate my way in the dark.

And then I heard a small little scuffling sound. I froze, but my breathing was so loud in the silent room. And my nose started whistling too, something that it usually does in the most inappropriate of moments.

Ha! I frightened myself nearly halfway to death before finally getting up to investigate the sound that I didn’t make. False alarm. It was my dog, Daisy. She licked my nose enthusiastically before whimpering and scratching a wood door, which I suspected was my backyard door. I groped around in the darkness, felt the cool metal of the doorknob, and let her out.

The darkness was a little… what’s the word? Overwhelming? It was hard to describe, but when I lined up against the wall to go upstairs in my cozy bed, I found myself a little nervous in the dark. It was a completely black night – so black I couldn’t even see the vague outlines of my hand. As a result, I couldn’t help but constantly feel as if something was watching me as I suffered in the dark.

At one point (I think it was somewhere in between the time where I tripped on a mysterious plank of board and before I completely freaked out), I realized that the way I was heading was not anywhere close to the stairs at all. I was actually heading in the opposite direction! The hallway was travelling to the right, and I wondered if I had to go all the way back and retrace my steps. This thought made me a little worried, combined with the uncomfortable thought that something might actually reach out and touch me – one of these paranoid fantasies…

I closed my eyes tightly, though it didn’t really matter if it was open or not, as the room was so dark. Did I just hear some loud breathing terrifying close to me? Actually, I could smell something. At first, I felt as if my nose had been punched. That was how bad the odor was. I couldn’t smell anything for two seconds, and then the smell lingered closer to me.

At that moment, truthfully, I was not scared at all. The smell was so horrible and just foul; it made me feel as if it inhabited into my personal space simply because it was so close to me. I had a good thought in my mind to kick whoever it was that was creating the smell, which (as I found out later) I should’ve done.

Then, as quickly as the smell came, it suddenly faded. My nostrils cleared, though I still remembered a faint whiff of that toxic smell. Then, I heard loud inhaling and exhaling.

-Inhale-Nothing happened-Exhale-OHGAWDITSTHESMELL-Inhale-What happened?-

I found an interesting pattern that way. After a few minutes of merely loud inhaling and exhaling, I figured that the thing in the dark probably wasn’t trying to kill me, as it hadn’t yet. I thought wrong.

I also did guess that the horrible smell was coming from a case of truly horrible bad breath. And being ever-so-polite, I asked the thing:

“Do you EVER brush your teeth?”

In response (which wasn’t really responding to my question): “The harder I breathe -,” sharp inhale, “the harder it is for YOU to breathe,” releasing exhale along with an easy-to-gag-on odor and a real shock. These were the very words from my brother, Kevin, the terror of my entire night.

Author's Note: Yeah, I know it's kind of lame... sorry 'bout that. This was around the period of time in which I was trying to work on my horror stories. My real life brother and I went into a party in which we ended up joking around about strange smells and nighttime horrors; that's how this strange combination came up.