Suddenly the heater turned off, and all was quiet... much too quiet. She looked up from her book and at her closed door, the silence pressing in on her ears. It was almost eerie, and to reassure herself Mary peeked out her door and into the hallway. She looked left and right between her parents' room and her brother's room, concerned. Both doors were closed and the crack between the door and the carpet was dark, meaning that the lights were turned off. Just ten minutes ago, the lights had been on and the doors open. 

Mary tiptoed out into the hall and walked to her parents' room on the left, wincing as she expected the weak floorboard in front of the door to creak. But it didn't, and Mary looked down. Her foot was in the exact spot, and she could feel the boards give way under the pressure, but yet they made no sound. Starting to panic Mary opened her mouth and tried to say something, anything, but no sound escaped from her lips. It was like all the sound in the world had been... turned off, like someone had pressed the mute button on the TV. 

She suddenly felt like she was suffocating and took deep breaths, assuring herself that she still had air, it just made no sound coming in and out of her lungs. She turned the doorknob on the door and swung it open into darkness. Peering in, her eyes still adjusting, she could make out two lumps on the king-sized bed. They're just asleep, she told herself frantically, her heart pumping faster with adrenaline. Mary groped for the light on the wall and found it, flicking it on. Light illuminated the room.

Light illuminated the horrific scene before her.

Mary screamed a silent scream, her mouth open in a gaping hole that resembled the one she felt like she had been swallowed up by. It was like something out of a horror movie, so unreal, so... bloody...

On the bed, her parents' bodies lay entwined, her father holding her mother close as their petrified faces displayed their last expressions of terror. Everything was covered in blood like they had vomited it everywhere upon seeing whatever had done this to them. Mary stood rooted to the spot, unable to look away. Then her feet moved on their own and took her even closer to the scene of the murder. The stench of dried blood filled her nose and made her gag, her eyes watering with the smell of death. But still, as if she were possessed, she leaned in and looked at her parents' glossy eyes. 

It shouldn't have been possible, but there was a reflection in them, of long sharp claws, reaching out to tear them apart. The last sight to meet their eyes before they died. 

All of this finally got to Mary and she rushed to the bathroom, hurling up everything she had eaten in the past week.

It was only when she was able to look up did she notice the message written on the bathroom wall, in her parents' own blood: YOU'RE NEXT.