She woke up, startled. It had not been a dream that she had, it had been a nightmare. She could feel the tears seeping out of her now enlarged pores. She wiped the sweat away leaving her skin a dewy wetness. She rolled over and checked the time. The clock read “5:40 AM.” She never woke up this early, but she was awake now. She got up and peered out her window. She opened the window and there was a cool continuous breeze that rustled the trees and calmed her body and sweaty face. “What was the dream about?” she asked herself. She could hardly remember.     As she walked toward her kitchen to get a glass of water, something black and small shot across her hallway with a “Thump, Thump, Thump.” Then her basement door flew open and then slammed behind the thing. “WHAT WAS THAT?!” She exclaimed. “I have never witnessed something so terrifying in my life! “LORD!” she cried. “I’m just hallucinating!” she said.  And then went to the fridge. (She didn't go to see what it was because that is what she would do if she were in a movie, but this is a short story so NO, she did not venture down the stairs… Not yet at least.       Her hands were shaking as she poured the glass of water into her new SWARVOSKI wine glass. A cold chill ran through her body like an earthquake. Her little hello kitty slippers weren't enough to warm her, so she went to her closet to fetch her pink fuzzy bathrobe. As she opened her closet she fumbled for the light switch… It was not there. She kept looking but nothing was there. At last she exclaimed, “MY GOD WHERE IS IT!!!” She finally found it and switched it on. SHE GASPED. “OH MY GOSH, WHAT IN THE WORLD!” Inside her closet, there was not a monster nor a beast, but there was some kind of black substance dripping down the walls of the closet. “What is this trickery?!” she said. She heard a noise underneath the floorboards. “WHAT, WHO, WHERE?!!” she said.           She quickly grabbed her bathrobe and made her way across the cold creaky floor to the basement. As she walked she heard the voice of her ATS (Automatic Temperature System) say “Temperature lowered to 14 degrees.” “What!!!!???” she gasped. “I didn't do that?” “No you may not have, but I did.” A voice from inside the dark abyss of her basement said. “AAAAHAHAHAAH” she cried. “WHAAAATTTT WASSSSS THATTTTTT?!!!!!!!!” she screamed. Then everything was black, and the feminine voice on the ATS boomed throughout the house “THE THING HAS LOWERED THE TEMPERATURE TO -201 DEGREES, GOODBYE.” And then she heard a scurrying, a tap of a sharp pointy piece of metal on her shoulder, a pinch like one from a needle and then a shock of cold. She was now frozen in time.