The thing in the window.

Once told me that there was a reason for everything. No matter what happened to me, it was all part of the grand scheme of things. I've only ever heard people say that about bad things, and in my particular case the bad thing was Insomnia. For months I had either not slept or hardly slept at all. I would spend the night lying awake staring at the ceiling. I would fall asleep in the office and lag behind in everything I did. Then, one day, I began to grow comfortable in the dark and solace of the night.

One night, I was lying in bed when I heard the door open. Thinking it was my mother or father, I slowly turned to greet them, when I saw Reese stumble and fall through the door. His clothing was ragged, and his face was cut and bleeding. I quickly got out of bed and rushed over to him, helping him off of the ground and into my bed. He was badly injured, sputtering through blood as he tried to speak. He grabbed my collar and pulled me close, spite of blood cascading onto my face with every word.

"You need to wake up."

My eyes suddenly jolted open, my world spinning. I was no longer in my bedroom, but in the middle of the woods in the dark. In front of me was Reese, bleeding, propped up against a tree. In my hand was a knife, slowly dripping and glistening in the moonlight. I felt the cold breath on the back of my neck and turned around. The shadow touched my shoulder, turning me back around.

The thing has been there for almost a week. The figure in the window. It looks featureless, only skin on a human frame, and it's pressing itself against the glass somehow. I don't know how it got there, and I don't know how to get rid of it.

At first I thought it was a prank, a doll or mannequin that some jerks put there to scare me. But I realized as I walked out of my house to pull it away... it wasn't there. I shrugged it off, thinking that someone had hidden it while I was talking through my door. But I went back in and looked out that same window, and it was looking in, staring at me.

I walked around my house, yelling for whoever it was to come out, but no one was there. The thing is hairless and naked, and it didn't look like it actually had eyes, or even a face at all.. But its head is turned towards me when I enter the room. When I sit on my computer, I can feel its faceless hatred boring into my neck.

But when I turn around, it's innocently turned in a different direction.

Finally on Thursday I tried to open the window, but it stuck. I think the thing's hands are keeping it down. But I got a good look at its face. Its eyes and mouth are behind the skin, pushing outward.

It stared at me, smiling.

And that smile just got wider and wider and wider, until I thought its head would break in the hall. It raised its own hand and bashed the window with its palm. It was mocking me. But I saw the faintest crack begin to appear where it had hit, and I backed away.

No way did I want that smile in the same room as me.

So I got a roll of duct tape, and I started covering the window. I couldn't look directly at it; I nearly shit my pants just knowing it was watching me. But I couldn't help it, I took a quick glance at the skin covered face. A small peek.

I was angry.

That grin was now a gaping frown full of teeth. The skin had ripped away from its mouth and I could see down its cavernous throat. A menacing rumble started to fill the house, and that hairline crack began to spread like splintering ice.

I pulled down the duct tape.

The rumble stopped, the split skin healed over, and it began to smile again.

Now it's night, and the noise hasn't started again.

There are no sounds, no rumble, no crackling glass. Everything's quiet now. I can feel its claws gripping the back of my chair.

I can hear its skin stretching as it smiles.

R's watching me type.