| abstract | - On a cold February day in a small town in Alabama, a young boy played in his front yard with his friend. They both had toy lightsabers in their hands; one had a red one, and the other a blue one. The sun had just started to set and the house door opened. A woman stepped out and yelled, “Johnny, time for dinner!” The young kid said goodbye to his friend, who wishes to be unnamed in the telling of John’s story, and ran inside to eat dinner. When he sat down at the table, his mom set down a bowl of warm spaghetti and a glass of apple juice, and told him to dig in. He grabbed the fork and shoveled the noodles and meat sauce into his mouth. He chugged the apple juice in nearly record speed, raced to the living room, and turned the TV on. He watched the episode of Power Rangers without his eyes ever leaving the screen, and then began to get ready for bed. He walked up the stairs and into the bathroom and grabbed his toothbrush. He brushed his teeth, took a quick bath, crawled into his pajamas, walked to his bedroom, and crawled into bed. “Mommy, can you read me a bedtime story?” he called down the hall. “Sure son, one minute!” she called back. “Ok.” Johnny’s mom walked into his room a few minutes later, with a little book under her arm. She read Jack and the Beanstalk to Johnny, and kissed him goodnight. Within minutes, Johnny was in deep sleep and was completely still. Until he started writhing, as if in pain. Johnny was in a dark room with no light and the only sound was a soft electric buzz. Johnny tried to, but couldn’t, move; he tried to scream, but something stopped his throat. Suddenly, a single light flickered on above Johnny and illuminated everything within a thirty foot radius. It was revealed that he was in an old warehouse. Johnny saw that he was tied to a chair and tried to wiggle out of his bonds, a trick he saw in a Power Ranger episode. He looked up after his failure escape, and saw, just on the edge of the illuminated circle, a woman in a white gown, stained with dirt and blood, with sickly pale-green skin dotted in black scabs, greasy blonde hair streaked in blood, long, claw-like finger nails, and the most repulsive face ever imagined. Her eyes were beyond bloodshot with white irises with just a touch of purple, and piercing white pupils, and her mouth was full of nasty yellow fangs, covered with black lips pulled back into a sneer. She took a step forward and seemed to teleport two feet in front of her, like a movie that skipped frames. She skipped another two feet, then another, and another, until she was only two feet away from Johnny, still sneering. She stood there for, staring into Johnny’s eyes—staring into his soul. Eventually, she raised her right arm a little and let out a low, zombie like, moan. Johnny’s eyes moved down to her hand and watched as her fingers got longer and started to twist together until her nails met together and her fingers were stretched into a long spike. Johnny screamed, successfully this time, as the woman raised her spiked hand, and pushed it through Johnny’s torso.
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