I awoke from a nightmare. A cold, thick sweat dripping from the top of my forehead all the way down to my brow. Confused, I sat up in bed and looked around me at my surroundings. I didn't usually wake up in the middle of the night. I liked to think of myself as a kind of deep sleeper, but tonight was different. I could feel it in the air.
Deciding that this was no time to investigate, I tried at going back to sleep, "I'll deal with it in the morning" I thought to myself, closing my eyes and wishing of that needed slumber that I needed to catch up on. However, I stayed awake, wide awake now as I stared at the spinning fan attached to the ceiling.

"The dumbasses in all the horror movies investigate."
I kept thinking to myself, attempting to drown out the worried thoughts rushing through my head at the time. Excuses of "what if there was a burglary happening?"
Or "what if I had been woken up by a spirit to stop something?"
I had never been religious or believed in such thing as the afterlife but now I was changing my thoughts. I felt myself grow more anxious in not knowing. If I had faced it then I wouldn't be so panicked.

I knew it was dumb. I knew that I should have turned back that very second but even though it took everything in me to not go, I sat up in bed and slipped on my sandles. Why I was doing this or why I had this sudden spark of bravery never clicked in me as I slowly pulled open my bedroom door. The hallway was empty.
As did every horror movie dummy, I continued to walk. My phone held in my hand, gripped tightly as I pulled out my flashlight. The bright light took me a slight moment to adjust to the vision of the hallway, but after a moment it was alright. Again, there was nothing there. Nothing at all.

"You're overthinking again, Daniel."
I muttered to myself, turning around to go back into my bedroom. That's when I heard it.

Thunk

At first, I thought I was going to jump right out of my slippers and just die right there. No way in hell was I ever going back there. It sounded from downstairs. Nope, no way, nada. But there was something in me, maybe it was that spark of bravery from before that told me to go check it.
Again, I knew it was dumb. I knew I was going to be dead meat if I did go and a burglar put a gun to my head. I lived alone. No pets, no family or friends living with me, so I would have no one there. Perfect prey.

I turned around, as well as turned up the brightness on my phone and started to walk down the stairs. Downstairs there was three rooms. The living room and kitchen had been combined and the bathroom was more in the kitchen end. I had a giant bookshelf put against the wall in which the stairs were and down the stairs was right where the front door was. There could easily be someone here with me now, but I would never know until it was too late. The noise was coming from the kitchen.

Gathering all of my courage, I proceeded to quietly and carefully go down the stairs to the living room. Once I hit the bottom step, I hear a faint 'clank' of a plate in the kitchen. Were they eating in my kitchen? Bold of them to cook and steal from me without fear that I could be awake. They didn't even check if I had been awake, but that would probably be a good thing as I was.
I was not prepared. I had no weapon. What if they were armed? What if they made me do horrible things? The thought circled around my brain and I grew a little dizzy. No, I can't think like that now. Not when there could be a robber in here.

The clanking continued in the next room and I braced myself for what was to come next. Nothing.
There was nothing here. Nobody was in the kitchen. I checked the bathroom. Then, I heard a small, faint sound. It didn't sound like that of a human. Maybe that's what scared me the most. It was behind me. Right. Behind. Me.

I froze in my tracks. Whatever was behind me could result in me either dying or making a complete and utter fool of myself. It was the latter. I slowly turned around, about to become face to face with the perpetrator that had broken into my house. I closed my eyes, tight, and turned my body around.

"Meow"
I would be lying if I said I wasn't caught off guard. I let out a high pitch squeak as I opened my eyes. Then I stopped. A small, fragile feline sat before me, eyes beady green. A black cat. I was afraid of a black cat. Not even a stray either. It was my neighbors, it was evident by the name tag on it's neck,
"Harlo"

"Oh, Harlo.. You scared the shit out of me, you know that?"

The little cat mewed in response. I chuckled to myself.

"I guess you could call me a 'scaredy cat' huh Harlo?"

The feline continued to meow, louder now,

"Shhh.. we don't want to wake the neighbors now do we?"

I paused. Should I wake up the neighbors? Wasn't Harlo an inside cat? What would he be doing outside? The cat purred, rubbing it's petite body against my leg. What a cute kitty. Maybe she had snuck out.

I bent down to pick her up, but she stopped in her place.

"What? It's just me, your neighbor Daniel."

The cat started meowing a lot louder now. Not purring anymore like she had been. I wondered why. It didn't take me much longer to find out.
In the corner, in the bathroom mirror I had seen something. It was still dark in the room, but the little light that shone in from the window from the moonlight was enough to see it.

I wonder why the cat was outside. I wondered how she got inside my house.

Pt. 2??
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