• Ryan woke suddenly. He quickly rose from his bed and looked about his room. It had been a nightmare. Nothing more, simply another nightmare. It was fairly light in his room, and he checked his clock to see the time. The digital display declared it as being 5:47 AM, which couldn’t be right. Ryan made a mental note of this, undoubtedly to be forgotten soon, and got up out of bed and began to get dressed.
    As he stepped out into the hallway and into the kitchen, he sat down at the table, still tired and slouching. He reached up to the corner of the table where the morning’s paper was normally kept, but instead found, to his surprise, a note quickly scribbled down and then stuck to the table with a knife. He stared at it briefly, before finally slapping his hand down on the paper and groggily dragging it across the table to himself, ripping a large gash up the middle with the knife, jammed into the table, in the process.
    He grabbed it between his thumb and index finger, staring at the text:

    “Ryan,
    I am writing this to warn
    you of    -”

    The rest of the note, as well as several of the only readable portions, were covered in a thin layer of caked-on blood. It was then that he finally noticed the deathly silence around him. There wasn’t a sound. No shuffling footsteps in the apartment above, no cars taking their drivers to the morning’s work, not even the patter of the family dog’s paws against the ground.
    “Mom?” he called out, barely louder than a whisper but sounding like a shout in the quiet. “Mom!” he tried again, actually yelling this time. There was no answer but the fading echoes of his own cries.
    He peered out the window overlooking the street. There was a dense fog outside; he could barely even see the road. After gazing for a good thirty seconds, there had not been a single passerby or vehicle, only the slow roll of the pale white miasma. Not even a breeze was visible; every tree branch was still. It was as if time itself had frozen amidst the curtain of haze.
    Ryan turned on the television, only to see a screen filled with static on every channel. He turned it off quickly; the noise was somehow making him suddenly panicked. He quickly walked back into his bedroom and grabbed his small pocket radio, a gift from his uncle for his birthday roughly three years prior.
    He flipped its power switch and began scanning the stations for a news report of some sort, but was only met with fading static on every channel. The static suddenly rose to a strong roar before vanishing entirely, leaving only the sound of a rhythmic clicking sound in the adjacent hallway.
    Ryan shot his head up toward the doorway as the sound drew closer. What was it? The clicking was occurring at a speed too fast to be a clock outside, and it kept getting closer and closer…
    Ryan heard the panting about the same time the shadow appeared on the wall. His dog walked slowly into sight, toenails clicking across the hardwood. “Buddy!” Ryan whispered, relieved. Buddy was a large dog, and just having him around made him feel safer. Ryan had not realized how easily one could be frightened while left alone in dead silence.
    “Let’s go get you some food, eh, boy?” he said, and the dog continued panting.
    Ryan walked into the kitchen, trying not to look at the knife still embedded in the table, and managed a small smile as he heard the dog bark when he pulled out the large sack of dog food. He tilted the sack up and dumped the contents it into Buddy’s food dish, making as much noise as he possibly could. The utter silence around him was becoming overwhelming.
    He gently rubbed his dog’s back as it ate. Even the soft crunching noises that came from the chewing of its food seemed to resonate throughout the entire apartment. It was at this time that Ryan saw the small scar that ran along the dog’s left side. It most certainly had not been there before, nothing had happened to the dog requiring any type of surgery and Buddy had been in no fights.
    “Oh, Buddy, what happened?” Ryan asked, the feeling of dread reappearing suddenly in the back of his mind, where it began to grow.
    Ryan reached a hand out and gently rubbed along the scar as the dog stood, still crunching the food, apparently oblivious. “Buddy?” he asked uncertainly, not exactly expecting an answer in return, but still growing more nervous every second.
    Buddy stopped eating. The dog slowly lifted its head and backed away from the bowl. He stared at Ryan, suddenly petrified. He began to whimper frantically. Every hair on the dog’s body seemed to stand up on end before he suddenly went limp and lay on the floor, unmoving.
    “B-Buddy?” he asked, staring at the petrified body. “Oh, God,” Ryan murmured, staring and unsure what to do.
    With a sickening squelch, the scar running the dog’s side suddenly split open. A single thread of blood dribbled out, and it split into several thin branches that made their way across the animal’s entire body. The channels grew thicker until the dog’s entire body seemed to be covered in blood, which was now forming a small pool in the spot it laid.
    Ryan, frozen with fear, watched on in horror. He backed against a counter as the dog’s flesh slowly began to peel off, down into the pool of blood where it seemed to dissolve. Muscles were steadily becoming visible, as well as the ribs and spine. Its body suddenly started to twitch rapidly, and the white noise reappeared on Ryan’s pocket radio.
    The thing suddenly moved, pawing slowly around in the mess of blood with its heart, now visible through the dripping ribcage, pounding at a rapid speed. It propped itself up on a front leg, with the other three following soon behind. It clicked its boney feet across the floor, slipping slightly in the crimson pool, before it turned to Ryan, poised itself to leap, and snarled.
    It put a paw forward for leverage and sprung forward, jaws gnashing in the air, hungry for flesh. Ryan suddenly rose from his frozen state against the counter, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He ducked down and dove forward, going underneath the beast as it flung itself to the location he had been just seconds earlier.
    Ryan quickly sprung to his feet and ran towards the kitchen table in the adjacent area. He gazed at the knife, embedded several inches within the tabletop, but as he reached for it he suddenly heard a sound that was a mix of growling and howling rapidly drawing closer. He snapped his head to the left just in time to see the dog, teeth bared, hurdling through the air for him a second time.
    He ducked down quickly and the creature landed on the table, causing it to shake and idle precariously before finally toppling over. There was a clanging sound as the knife fell from its former position and clattered across the floor to the other side of the room.
    The dog was still behind the table, which had fallen over and placed the dog relatively close to the corner of the kitchen. Ryan quickly sprung forward, throwing all his weight against the table, and used it to push the dog into the corner, where he held it as he planned out his next move.
    The creature briefly resisted, but there was then no weight against the table as Ryan held it there, keeping the beast pinned in the corner of the kitchen. Ryan slowly leaned back, keeping his feet pushing on the table, and tried to reach across the room for the knife. His hand came relatively close, but it remained out of reach. If he could just stretch a little bit further—
    A sudden thrashing against the other side of the table made Ryan spring back up, pushing with all his might against the table again. The dog was unrelenting in this second attempt, and one of its front legs managed to find its way through, thrashing about wildly in between the table and the wall.
    Ryan continued pushing as the leg made its way to the floor and began to click across the ground; the dog’s nose suddenly jammed its way through, creating more space between the table and wall. Ryan started pounding on the nose with no visible effect on the creature when the leg’s claws embedded themselves in the linoleum. The dog used this leverage to pull itself through with strength impossible for something of its size.
    Ryan and the table were flung away, the table now resting fully upside down on the floor with Ryan lying in the center of the room, scrambling backwards. The dog itself had hit the opposite wall and was slightly stunned, but was coming back to its senses. Ryan crawled away from it backwards, only placing himself closer to a corner, and was now pinned in a situation not unlike that which he had placed his current opponent in only seconds earlier.
    The dog leapt through the air at him a third time, and this time it successfully met its target. The thing landed on him, heavier than expected, and its front claws dug deep into Ryan’s shoulders. He raised his arms up and kept the beast lifted there, its teeth biting furiously mere inches from his face. He looked around frantically to something to fight back with and saw the knife on the floor, this time on his side of the room. He released his left arm, extending it over with fingers frantically scrambling for the blade.
    He scratched desperately for the handle, still barely out of reach. With one final burst of energy, he rolled over toward the knife, carrying the dog with him. Its legs thrashed rapidly through the air as it was slammed onto its back and its head sprung up to attack. Ryan flung his free hand down onto its throat and kept it pinned against the floor, its claws slicing into his arm as they twitched about.
    He fiercely clutched the knife in his hand and plunged it deep into the beast’s chin, where it continued along that path through the roof of its mouth and finally out the other side of the skull. The thing instantly stopped moving as the fatal blow was delivered. The static that had constantly blared on his radio vanished. The last wavering echoes of the beast’s snarls faded away, and Ryan was left alone with the silence again. “I’ve gotta get out of here,” he said, talking to himself for no real reason other than generating noise. He nervously walked to the room that was shared by Mom and her boyfriend and opened the drawer by the bed. Among the various hairpins and spare change laid his mother’s handgun and a spare clip. Ryan pocketed the ammo before carefully picking up the gun, disabling the safety, and making for the exit of the apartment.
    As he opened the door leading to the hallway, he found that all but one of the lights were burned out. The only source of illumination was coming from a faded bulb hanging in a socket at the far left end. The staircase door was on the side located opposite. He cautiously treaded down the corridor into the darkness. As he approached the door and slowly nudged it open, he found that it was even blacker within the confines of the staircase.
    He stepped inside and gripped the rail. As the door screeched shut, the range of vision became even lower. Only a small amount of light was able to find its way in through the small crack underneath the door. Ryan followed the handrail down to one of the flat turns and stopped in the corner to let his eyes adjust.
    He peered down to the next landing, or at least attempted to. The light stopped dead at the spot where he was standing. The only method of guidance would be through gripping onto the handrail and following it down, although he could use the strange wheezing sound to guide him to the bottom.
    That was when he first noticed it. There was deep, raspy noise farther down the staircase, almost like breathing. It was breathing. Ryan stood, petrified in the corner. He listened. It was getting louder now, and a slow limping of feet against the ground could be heard. He raised the gun and pointed it down the darkened portion of the stairs.
    With a sudden whir, the light outside sparked brightly and went out. Ryan was alone now with the darkness and the breathing growing ever stronger. He slowly sank against the wall down to a crouching position, now shaking against the concrete.
    The footsteps intensified and Ryan could feel light thumps as is walked close to him. He listened to it breathe, a deep wheezing noise. The footsteps slowed and then the silence returned. It had stopped. No more breathing, no more footsteps. Whatever had been climbing up the stairs had paused right in front of him, unmoving in the darkness. Ryan stared around with wild eyes. What was it? What was it going to do?
    Ryan heard soft exhale and felt hot breath on his face. He imagined it leaning in toward him, staring with curiosity. “Are you… afraid?” its voice beckoned, almost playfully.
    His radio suddenly shrieked to life. The creature screamed in a raspy voice and Ryan didn’t waste any more time to see what it was about to do. He fired the gun once, illuminating the area with a bright flash.
    There was humanoid-like monster in front of him, slightly to the right. He quickly adjusted his aim and fired again. A shriek of pain resonated through the halls. The second shot had met its target.
    The beast had been closer, but the shot had caused it to stagger backwards. Ryan heard it fall back with a thump onto the stairs and he quickly aimed down. He fired once more, hitting it while it was down.
    The radio stopped immediately. The lights came back on, not only at the end of the hallway but in the staircase as well. Ryan stared with shock in front of him. It was not a man. Not a monster. It was…
    Nothing.