I can remember dying .......

Feeling all of my lifeforce flow out of my body

Along with my blood

Then everything started to go black

I've was always afraid of the dark as a child

My brothers used to torture me with stories

Stories of demons and bogeymen who came out after dark

And snatched naughty little girls from their beds

But, then I entered my teens and became less afraid

Until talk started up in our little town about a monster

Who stalked the lonely, dark roads at night

Preying upon whoever came along

My father didn't let my mother, my sister and myself go out once the sun had set after that

Then, one night my brothers didn't come home

They had been at our neighbors house, not but fifteen miles down the road

Helping raise a new barn

But, they left late that night for some reason and didn't come back

Their bodies turned up a day later, behind our barn

My little sister found them

I was helping my mother preserve our winter supply of meat in the kitchen

When we heard her screams

I got there before my mother, because my legs were longer

Their throats had been ripped out and it seemed their bodies had been drained of all their blood

My father decided he would wait in the shadows, behind the barn to catch and kill the creature

That was his most foolish idea ever

He died that night.....

My mother heard his yells and ran out to help him

She died ten feet from our kitchen door

My sister slept peacefully through their cries of pain, until it came for her

I can still hear her to this day in my sleep

She didn't scream, only whimpered and cried for me to come and make the bad dream go away

Then, she stopped speaking

She never made another noise after that

Finally, the creature came for me

I never saw what it was

It glided into my room, like a thick black cloud, swallowing me in the darkness

I don't recall screaming in fear, only anger at the loss of my family

I fought it until it whispered something in my mind and I felt my body relax

The minute it's teeth dug into my throat I broke out of my reverie and struggled against it

You know when you fight something that is draining all your blood, you can actually feel your heart slow down and every pulse of blood run out of your body, until your heart stops

It hurt every minute I resisted until finally I passed out

I was swimming in a sea of darkness, adrift on my own thoughts

When the darkness was replaced by a bright light

That slowly took the shape of a human face

A man

He extended his hand to me

And showed me the gift he had given me

Immortality...

So you see I'm no longer afraid of the dark

For it is a part of my world now and it follows me wherever I go...................