• Number Two

    The Startled Sloth

    You wake with a start.

    You're lying in bed, but it seems thirty times darker than it should've been. You try to pull your thoughts together on why you woke up, unable to remember full details of the dream you had. You could only grasp at the faint fragments of the images. You remember the person of your affection, lying down...lying down next to...you. But nothing else on that matter came back to your mind.

    It wasn't what had startled you to awareness. A dried scream had faintly called your attention, but, as you looked around, there was nothing you could identify to make such a terrifying noise. Suddenly, a ghastly light begins to faintly appear before you. A small wind blew to accompany the light, sending goosebumps down your forearms; you left your window closed.

    There!

    There was the horrid scream again! The faint scream, but this time, you felt chills attack your spinal column. Then, you room door bursts from its position, flying off of its hinges and into the opposing wall of your room, avoiding you in its collision course. Standing in the vacant doorway is a ghostly white woman, holding a bloodied butcher knife. A Chesire Cat grin spreads unnaturally across her horrifyingly beautiful face. She raises the knife and charges at you. The only thing you have time to do is scream, and put your arms in front of your face. No time to even hope!

    But wait!

    Sunlight pours into the bedroom, and the ghostly woman disappears. The knife falls to the floor spreading a few stray blood splatters across the floor. You almost sigh in relief whn a single chord is struck in your brain...

    Who had screamed first?