SLEEP (An Original Short Story)

Hannah woke up to the scraping noise coming from her basement. It's past midnight and she just dozed off a couple of hours ago. She's quite sure she locked all the doors before she retired for the night -- especially the door to her basement. She waited for a few minutes for the noise to come back, and was relieved to be greeted by the comforting whisper of the night breeze coming from her window. "Maybe it was just the wind." , she thought to herself. She dismissed the incident and went back to sleep.

An hour afterwards, the sound came again and is now accompanied by a muffled and indistinct whimpers that could be of a woman. She listened intently until the noise faded back into the darkness. Now aggravated, Hannah closed her windows, still convinced that the noise is coming from the outside.

For the third time that night, Hannah was roused from her sleep. It was a loud thump on the floorboard this time, and it sure is from her basement. She had had enough of it. She yanked herself from her bed, grabbed the baseball bat beside her nightstand, and marched courageously to where the noise was coming from. She halted in front of the door to her basement, carefully unlatching every form of security she have installed earlier that day, and quietly stepped into the cold room. As she adjusted her eyes into the dark, a figure caught her attention. It was quietly staring at her from one corner of the room. It was a woman, an aged woman to be precise, probably in her late 70's. She looked so weak and fragile, and was bruised all over her body.

Hannah was taken aback by the sight, but regained her composure right away. She rushed towards the woman, her emotions a mix of confusion and excitement, a horrifying smile creeping across her face. She gripped her bat a little more tightly, forcefully swung it against the target, and smashed the old woman right in the head.

Now panting from exhaustion, she drew herself closer to the limped body to hear the old woman's ragged, painful breathing. The latter tried to open her bloodied mouth as if to speak, but Hannah hushed her.

"Shhhhh. It's okay. I told you to sleep, Mom."

~o~

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