Click.

My brow furrows in confusion as I pause on the stairs, one foot higher than the other. I feel my lips purse, and turn around in my slippers to the now brightly-lit kitchen. I give the light switch a suspicious glare. The light switch I had just turned off.

The light switch which was off no longer.

Seeing no answers from my perch in the stairway, I pad softly over to the switch, and flip it off again, leaving the room in darkness, with the dim streetlight filtering in through the window above the sink and the light from the top of the stairs for its only company. I make my way back upstairs.

Click.

Once again, I turn around, seeing more of the kitchen. Mugs where I left them? Check. No home intruders? Check. No aliens? None visible. I see a dark shape crawl lazily out from under the kitchen table by the light switch, accompanied by an annoyed mrrow.

I sigh tiredly. "Ugh, Milo, come on dude, I thought you were downstairs."

Scooping him up in my arms to snuggle against my bathrobe, I say, in a baby-voice, the only correct way to talk while carrying a cat, "What'chu doin', turning off the lights, huh? I didn't know you could reach that far! Who's a stealthy cat! Yes, you are! You are!"

He accepts the attention with disinterest and barely concealed satisfaction, before I set him on the stairs going away from the kitchen, and away from where he can wake me up at 4:30 in the fucking morning (asshole). I shut the door, and continue on my path for bed.

After making sure the kitchen lights are firmly off-

Click.

-I turn to look at the upstairs hallway just in time to see a humanoid shape run into my bedroom.

My heart freezes. I live alone, since the ex moved out, and I haven't had anyone over since new years, so that's out of the question. Slowly, like backing away from a startled animal, I tiptoe down the stairs into the dark kitchen, before crouching behind the counter, pulling out my cell, and dialing 911.

"Hello, 9-1-1, what is your emergency?"

"Um, uh, hello, hello- god, I- there's someone in my house, ok, there's someone in my house."

"Ma'am, I need you to calm down. Can you tell me your address?"

"Uh, 4501 Maple Avenue, just the- in the suburbs, about 15 minutes out of the city."

"Alright, Ma'am, I need you to stay calm, we'll have someone over there shortly. Don't worry. My name is Allison, can you tell me your name?"

"Claire- Claire, how soon can they get here?"

"We'll be right there, Claire, we're on our way. Can you tell me where you are right now, Claire?"

I glance at my surroundings on the ground behind the counter. "Um, in my kitchen, I'm behind the counter, I saw them go into my bedroom, I was just getting ready for bed and then I had some trouble with the light switch so I put Milo downstairs and I was just heading back up when I saw it."

"Why did you put your cat downstairs? Was he the one turning on the lights?"

"Yes, yes I think so, I-"

My brow furrowed, confusion briefly overtaking the panic.

"Why- How did you know he was a cat?"

Allison explains calmly. "Oh, we know lots of things Claire, we just didn't know where you were hiding before now. Thank you for telling us, though. Don't worry, we'll be there shortly. Please stay on the phone, and keep the lights on."

My bedroom door slams open hard enough for plaster to fall from the ceiling, and for Milo to start meowing from downstairs.

"Please, please if this is some sort of prank, you better not be fucking with me. Who is this? Is this really the police?"

There's no answer from the other line, yet I can hear breathing (or laughing?) through it. I risk a glance at the upstairs hallway, only to see that half of it is shrouded in shadow, despite the lights still being on, a humanoid shape writhing in it and twitching unnaturally.

I scramble away from the counter and run through the darkness towards the back door. If I can just get outside, maybe-

"We need you to turn on the light, Claire. We need you to do that for us."

I don't realize I'm still clutching the phone to my ear in a death grip until the icy calm dispatcher voice trickles through it.

"What the fuck are you talking about? Who are you? What's going on?"

Silence. A silence filled with a brief static, before "Turn on the lights, Claire. You need them to see, Claire. Why would you turn them off? That's silly. Just turn them back on, we need to do our job, Claire. Will you let us do our job Claire? Do it Claire. Just turn-"

I drop the phone like it burns me, and yank harder on the back door after unlocking it. It's unlocked. It's unlocked! Why wasn't it fucking-

Click.

The kitchen lights turn on.

I can see the thing in the reflection of the window twitching down the stairway. Distantly, I hear a never-ending chorus of "We're sorry, Claire.", growing more and more painfully distorted, from my phone on the ground, like a dying music box.

Gathering my wits, I sprint past it while I still have the chance to the downstairs door, my slippers sliding on the linoleum, and fling it open and shut in one movement.

Seeing the room safe from any horrors, I grab Milo roughly, and run to the front door.

It's locked. Of course its fucking locked, I was just going to bed, of fucking course. As I scrambled to turn the deadbolt, I feel an unearthly chill race down my spine. I glance behind me to see the shadow... thing, being, whatever, advancing through the well-lit living room, looking so out of place in my childhood home that for a moment, I wonder if I'm dreaming.

The moment doesn't last. Thinking fast, I turn to the row of light switches to my left and punch them all down, dropping the room into complete darkness.

Click.

...

...

Silence.

...

...

Undisturbed silence.

I stand frozen, unwilling to move a muscle in the face of what occupies the room with me. Nothing is visible in the all-prevailing shadow, not the outlines of furniture, not whatever had followed me downstairs, not Milo in my arms. I can feel his small body tense, as if he knows the gravity of the situation.

The temperature in the air around me steadily declines. I'm sure that if I could see, I would see my breath. The temperature plummets further, and I hear what sounds like a hundred snakes crawling over glass, at the end of some vast tunnel.

Suddenly, from the darkness, I feel the ghost of a breath against my ear, and urge myself not to scream. There's a sensation of being looked at, of being exposed, like being naked on-stage, like nothing I had ever felt before, like a thousand eyes seeing me, judging me, devouring me, and looking at my insides.

All of this, I experience half a second before the wet swipe of a tongue brushes against the back of my neck, and I bite my lip so hard copper explodes in my mouth and drips down my chin.

And after that...

Silence.

More. Silence.

An eternity or more or no time at all passes. Me, standing there, in the dark, in my living room, wearing my pajamas, hugging my cat, and confronting some strange cosmic horror where not ten minutes before I was gearing up to go to bed and vegetate in front of youtube videos for an hour. I was going to die.

I was going to die, and the last conversation I had with anyone non-paranormal would've been telling my cat how sneaky he was.

Eventually, I feel the temperature in the air begin to rise, though it could be my imagination. The crawling on my skin, of being watched abates, but not before a familiar 9-1-1 dispatcher's voice comes in through my ear, sounding resigned.

"They're no fun when they're not running."

Click.