Late Midnight

• Austin Kim , Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2022

The clock ticks repeatedly in Stacey’s bedroom. The light of the night sky blasts and creeps through her bedroom window and blind. Laying on her side on her bed a sound of a slow creaking on the wooden floor anonymously appears. She quickly opens her eyes and gasps. She stays still, unaware of the sound she gets from her bed and opens her bedroom door. The dark hallway stretch’s all the way to the kitchen. She takes one after another step slowly, trying not to wake her family up. Currently, the sound has stopped. And an unaware Stacey walks to the kitchen and grabs a cup and walks over to the water dispenser and powers it on. She waits a few seconds as he holds the cup underneath the dispenser as water starts to pour in until it stops. Stacey, holding the cup moves it to her mouth and is about to take a sip-

“THONK”

Stacey turns her head, shocked and scared, she lowers her cup and makes a run to her room through the hallway and opens the door and jumps into her bed. She’s scared like anyone else. Is anyone awake or not? She may have thought in her bed. He looks right towards the shelf of books where her head is pointed to as she is too scared to move, too scared to check if anyone is awake. Even in an uncomfortable state, she doesn't move. The clock continues to tick as her eyes start to crumble, start to shut. She stayed still, awake for over an hour and with nothing wrong, she started to get over it. As she closes her eyes to fall asleep, a black figure runs across the hallway next to her bedroom at the corner of her eye before fully closing her eyes.

She is shocked, not her family member, not even a normal person. She decides that she isn't seeing things. it was so clear, so realisable. She can’t hold this anymore as she starts to tear up.

“MAMA!” She cries, not moving in her bed. The sounds of heavy footsteps continue, but upstairs this time. The footsteps are fast, like a young kid running around. The sound is so loud, how is her family not awake? The footsteps get closer and closer and louder and faster until it's so loud it seems like the thing is heading for her, right when the sound is a peak, it stops. The sound seemed like they stopped running right next to her.

She stops after the witness, she feels paralyzed. At this point, she's covering her ears as tears run down her face. Wanting to see her mother, walks off her bed and tiptoes to the door. She stands behind the door as she takes one more step, stepping into the hallway, centimetres away from her bedroom. She looks around on both sides and thinks she is clear. But she did not know that the thing was behind her the whole time.