She knew it was coming. She had known it was coming for a while. She had felt it creeping closer; coming closer and closer and closer still. She could feel it now, breathing a premonitory fog. She could feel the scars of its phantom touch dragging across her skin, leaving disturbed flesh. She could feel it slowly change her into its perfect cradle.

It entered her home slowly. It had turned the door handle slowly; yet before she could blink, the door was open. It took its time moving through the house, slowly but not silently. In fact, it wasn't that subtle or silent at all. Certainly, not in the face of the suffocating silence. Sure, when she wasn’t looking at it, it seemed to fade into the background and become…numb. She could hear it, she could see it, but only just as much as she could hear or see anything else, if not less so. However, if she looked, she could sense it, she could see it, she could almost even feel it. Well, now, she definitely felt it. It seemed like the closer it got, the more she could feel it, make sense of it.

It looked so familiar; like so much she had seen before, but no longer saw. And what made it so familiar, yet so…unsettling? It came closer, and she could feel the fear in her heart. Well, not only fear. She could feel…something else, but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what. In fact, now, her emotions seemed to run away from her. They ran, father and father, as it got closer and closer, till it was standing over her. “Nothing left to feel now,” it said? “Nothing to fear,” she whispered back. And she smiled. And then, she screamed.