Colors

I droned away at my keyboard barely aware that it was three in the morning. Insomnia should be banned, I thought. All of the colors on the screen were beginning to fade and swirl and a pale blue film seemed to cover the whole thing. I rubbed my eyes for the umpteenth time to try to get them to recover. No luck. Now the thing had little yellow dots floating all over it.1

Oh, well, I wasn't really getting anything accomplished anyway. I closed the lid on my laptop and decided to fix myself a drink in the hopes that a little alcohol would increase my chances of falling asleep before the sun came up. I walked into the kitchen, not bothering to turn on the light and reached into the fridge for the Coke and Long Island Iced Tea mix. I went to the cabinet to grab a glass before the light from the refrigerator went out and started to carry my items back into the living room where the idiot box happily awaited my return. 2

The top part of my front door was all glass and as I walked past it, terror struck as I saw a pair of gleaming red eyes only inches away. I screamed and dropped everything and as I did, I knew what was coming. I bolted from the kitchen, through the living room, down the hall, and into my bedroom trying frantically to remember where the hell I had put my gun. Before I got there, I heard the sound of my front door crashing down and huge thudding footfalls pounding on the carpet coming right after me.3

I exploded into the closet and pulled the shoe box from the top shelf, hoping against all hope that the damn gun was loaded. I felt the cold blue steel in my hand and reached to pull the safety off as my closet door was torn from the hinges. I had only a split second to recognize the hunger in those glaring red eyes before the monster launched itself at me. I felt its claws dig into my shoulders, slicing muscle and sinew as I pulled the trigger. Fear and adrenaline kept my finger firing the weapon even as the beast snapped my head around sideways. I collapsed to the floor with him on top of me and under the glow of his red eyes, I saw the inky blackness spilling on the floor around my pain wracked form. Around me stars of color seemed to dance, brilliant white and blue and yellow at first until they faded into nothingness. 4