5:55

              The clock read 5:55am when the beast stuck its head through my window.  I was lying in bed half awake, or maybe half asleep.  The thing looked at me briefly, cocking its head to the side as if to ask what sort of creature are you?  Then it was gone, under my bed and out my bedroom doorway.  I could hear it scurry into the kitchen, claws meeting cheap linoleum.
         From the fleeting glimpse I caught of the thing I determined it to be roughly the size of a full grown cat.  That was all it had in common with a cat though, that and the claws.  It seemed to be reptilian, red scaled skin.  If you could call it skin, more like armor. 
         CRASH!
         It had knocked something off the top of the refrigerator.  Probably empty beer bottles from the night before.  I dared not move.  Maybe it would just go away.  What could I possibly do anyway if I were to arise and do battle with this minion of Hell?  It was built for war and I… well, I was built for tearing.  Tearing as in ripping, and tearing as in crying.  It would shred my throat and not even increase the slow pulse of its black heart.  I lay motionless in the dark, under my old blue and red blanket.  I was still facing the window, too scared to move an inch, but I could still hear the Evil stirring in the kitchen.  I heard it jump from the top of the refrigerator to the countertop, then back down to the white linoleum floor.  It was slowly moving across the carpet now.  I could hear its paws sink into the plush brown colored carpet as it traveled on all fours back into my bedroom. 
         I lay still.
         The room seemed to grow colder now.  I was freezing and my breath was making itself visible in the air.  My back was still turned to the Evil, but I knew it was in the room with me.  I heard it journey to the foot of my bed. 
         Then the horrifying thing made a sound. 
         A mixture of a cat’s hiss and the shaking of a rattlesnake’s tail.
         I kept shooing the thing away with my mind.  Go away!  I mentally screamed at it.  I couldn’t tell if it was able to comprehend my thoughts, and if it could, did it even care? 
         I felt the beast moving under my bed.  It was tearing away the box spring all the way through to the mattress with its razor sharp claws.
         I began to tremble, but still did not leave my bed.
         Then as suddenly as it began the attack on the underbelly of my mattress it stopped.  I heard it move back to the foot of my bed.
         My bed shook as it jumped onto it.  It stood a minute at my feet, studying me.  I was still on my side facing the window so I rolled over onto my back to view the thing face to face.  No chance of it leaving me alone now, I thought, might as well face it man to beast.  Its nose was scrunched up with giant nostrils, like a bat’s.  Its eyes were all pupil, totally black, no whites at all.  It had no outer ears that I could see, but rather holes in both sides of its head that lead to a long canal of flesh.  I could now see its long claws, which I now thought of as talons, more like that of an eagle’s, not a cat’s.  I estimated it weighed about 50 pounds, all muscle.
         I weighed 210, all soft beer belly.  I knew I didn’t stand a chance.  It wanted me to fight back; I could see it in its eyes.  It relished the thought of having some competition, even thought it knew I was no match at all.
         With one quick jump it was sitting on my chest.  I let out a scream, the first sound I’d made through this whole ordeal so far.  It tapped the first talon on its right paw three times on my chest and I knew that if it had lips it would be smiling. 
         Its exhalation was hot on my face and it breathed only through its hellish nose.  I mentally told it to fuck off, and as if it understood it reeled back on its hind quarters and let out another hiss/rattle.
         I pissed it off.
         The room was still freezing.  Definitely below 32 degrees, I thought.  Both the beast’s and my own breath was manifesting itself into a visual smoke as if we both were enjoying a cigarette. 
         I knew I had to do something; I was dead either way, so I might as well go out fighting.  I lifted my right hand and attempted to push the creature off of me.  I touched its chest and felt a tough, coarse dermis.  I couldn’t move it one inch.  I could tell it was pleased I attempted to put up some defense.  It wanted to play. 
         In one swift motion it lifted its right arm, extended a razor sharp talon and made a clean slice through all four fingers on my right hand, removing them all.  I let out a roaring scream of pain as the blood spurted from four meaty stumps where my fingers used to be. 
         My second scream must have awoken a neighbor because I heard a door open in the hallway and someone began to knock on my door.  Then a voice came, “You alright in there?”  I cursed the thin walls in the apartment complex countless times before, but I was thankful for them now. 
         “Kick down the door!” I yelled, “Call the police!” 
         The thing, still sitting on my chest, looked at the door, then back at me.  It knew I was calling for help, and it wouldn’t tolerate that one bit.  The beast lifted its right arm again and this time extended all the talons (which I know realized there were six of).  It made one last swipe at me, this time at my throat, I didn’t feel a thing, but I watched the blood pour out of my severely lacerated neck.  My wind pipe was severed, I couldn’t make a sound.
         My head fell to the side just in time for me to witness my door being kicked in by my neighbor.  I had talked to him countless times in the hallway, but I did not know his name.  He was a short man in his fifties, probably only weighed 140 pounds.
         The door came off its hinges and the short man peered in to my apartment.  It was a straight shot from the entrance door to my bedroom and he saw me laying there in an ever growing pool of my own blood.  If only he could take his eyes off of his brutalized neighbor and focus three feet lower he would see the creature crouched under my bed.
         I watched the short man walk in to my bedroom, everything going in slow motion.  The edges of my vision were becoming dark and blurry.  As the darkness crept in and overtook what was left of my sight I saw the monster under my bed rush out, leap up, and dig it’s talons into my neighbors chest.  The short man fell down onto his back as the creature tore his throat out, he never made a sound.
         I heard more doors opening out in the hall, but all I could see now was my own open door and I watched as the beast walked out into the hallway.  I heard voices, then screaming.
         Then I heard and saw nothing.
         Nothing but black silence.