The Horrible Thing That Slipped Through My Window One Night

After a few more hours had passed and Thomas had annihilated the planet of the space invaders, he turned off his computer with a sigh and leaned back to let a couple of lengthy farts squeak out of him. It was hot and humid in his bedroom; the first day of June had occurred yesterday and the temperature outside was well over eighty degrees. Tom didn't like the heat at all, but after fifteen years, he had steadily learned to endure it.

After taking a few moments to relax in his weak chair, Tom stood up and walked across the royal blue carpet of his bedroom until he reached the door. Outside his room was the second-story loft, complete with oak flooring and a chandelier. To the left was the door to an upstairs bathroom and straight ahead was a staircase. It was the staircase that Tom was interested in. He descended, made a quick trip to the kitchen to grab a couple chocolate pies and a can of lemonade, and finally walked outside onto the green lawn. He grabbed his favorite folding chair from off of the ground (it was colored a musty orange, but it was fluffy and comfortable) and plopped down into it beneath the shadow of an oak tree.

It was nice in the way that all warm summer days are; there were birds chirping in the distance and the occasional sound of a vehicle approaching and then cruising past on the main road. Even eighty degrees didn't feel too bad with the subtle breeze that was blowing by.

And there was shade.

Tom's cabin was set just far back enough in the woods so that it couldn't be made out clearly from the end of the driveway. There were tall maple trees and solid, knotted oaks on all sides, which dwarfed the home and made it seem insignificant; however, that was only an illusion – the cabin was neither small nor insignificant in any way. If you ignored the trees, the house had a look of sturdiness about it, as if even a tornado would need to put up a stubborn fight in order to do any lasting damage. It was composed of two stories of thick, rounded logs beneath a black-shingled roof, with a silver ladder leaning against it in case of a fire. The roof actually peaked in two different places in order to allow room for the upstairs windows to stare down onto the green lawn. Winding around was a porch that had a welcoming look about it.

Tom sat in the fluffy orange chair, slurping at his lemonade – his chocolate pies were already being digested – and took in the deep silence, breathing the smell of fresh-cut grass. For some reason a bad feeling was slowly beginning to form in the pit of his stomach. It wasn't something physical; it wasn't like the cramps he used to sometimes get after devouring too much food at once. It was more like the woozy, frantic feeling that came before he was asked to give a book report, or before he got on a roller-coaster.

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