Black scales covered the creature's body, including its lizard-like face. A vertical pupil bisected each glowing green eye.

When the creature stepped into the light, its vertical pupils contracted into lines, leaving the green irises more room to glow. Black scales rippled along its flank as it crouched down into the water.

The house was yellow with white shutters.

Darkness clung to the grooves in the yellow siding. The shadows from the eaves colored the tops of the shutters a dull gray. The white where the sun touched them only highlighted the black of the glass they framed. Midnight lived inside, watching through the soulless eyes of the windows.

The pale yellow siding gleamed between the dappled shadows of a sycamore. White shutters offset the darkened windows, promising a quaint, cheery living space.

Abigail walked up the sidewalk. The click of her heels against the concrete put a beat to her determination. A breeze ruffled the leaves of a nearby tree and tripped down into her hair, pulling wisps of it from her bun. Her aunt had a house like this, a subdued shade of yellow with cheery white shutters. Her aunt's place would welcome a visitor with the scent of the roses that flanked the porch, but there were no roses here. There was only a broken porch railing and the birds that cackled and jeered from the trees.