Where It All Began

        Imagine you're laying down on your bed in almost complete darkness. Everything is quiet. Everything is still. Until you notice something shift from the corner of your eye. You try not to move much, in fear of what it is but your eyes attempt to scan the room. You find a pair of glowing eyes staring back at you. Your heart skips a beat from the shock. You can't move because you don't know what to do or how to react.
       
        Your vision adjusts to the darkness and this creature continues to watch you. You see that the creature is as pale as snow, in a humanoid form, with a dirty face covered in mud and old blood. It has no hair and it's eyes glow an eerie yellow. It stays crouched to the floor in order to slightly conceal itself.  You begin to sweat and try to plan an escape for yourself. It's crouching by the wall, so you figure you could make a dash to the door on the other side of the room, but you don't know how fast this thing could be. Eventually and oddly enough, you manage to drift off to sleep despite your immense fear. 

        The next morning, you wake up unharmed. You brush off last night's encounter as a simple nightmare that you had. It couldn't have possibly been real. Monsters like that don't exist. But unfortunately, it did actually happen, because the same thing happens the next night.

        This is what happened to me. I saw the Rake. It watches me. This creature is sickening. It gives off a smell of death and grime. Sometimes, I come close to vomiting. My name is Clare, I am 16 and I am slowly but surely being hunted by the Rake.

        The first time I saw the Rake, was when I was 10. It appeared in my bedroom as I was trying to sleep. I did eventually sleep, and I woke up the next morning thinking it was a nightmare, but it kept happening. The Rake would be in my room for a few nights at a time just watching me. I never understood why, though. It had always made me wonder. Then, it just stopped appearing. I hadn't seen that awful creature until just a couple weeks ago. I was, once again, trying to sleep, when I noticed those creepy eyes. It was crouched in my room again and shivers ran through me. I fell asleep. 

       I am scared for my life. I don't know what to do, how to escape. I just want it to leave me alone. I have made this to ask for help. This is the Rake I am dealing with. I have researched it a little and the way it's victims end up is frightening. I don't want to die like that, ripped apart. I try to keep my composure around the creature, but my mind feels like it's deteriorating. I need help.