A dark and stormy night...

Outside, the wind howled and rain hurled itself against the glass of the window in a relentless barrage. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, briefly illuminating the street outside the apartment complex, a deserted street...save for a dark outline of a lone figure, shrouded by the shadows. The outline was indistinct as though swathed in a cloak, the hooded head gazing up towards the window of Ran's apartment. Another bright flash from the heavens, and the street was empty once more.

A few minutes ticked past, Ran's work drawing closer and closer to conclusion. By the time 3:10 AM had hit though, a sudden sound broke the background pattering of rain striking the window, sharp and loud. It was the buzzer for her apartment - someone from outside must have pressed it.

Ran jumped when she heard the doorbell, nearly falling off her bed in the process and taking of the covers along with her. She tumbled over to her feet and blew a few hairs off her face as she looked towards the door. Totally flabbergasted. It was three in the morning, who would be...

Patty.

It wasn't even the first time her 'boss' had pulled this sort of thing.  During the first few weeks they met, Patty came over at least three time in the middle of the night, knocking Ran right out of her much-deserved beauty sleep. She figured it was just some quirk that came with the differing time zones, with Patty getting used to living on the other side of the world. She guessed they were past it, but apparently not.

She groaned and opened the door as far as the chain would allow and peeked out from the darkness, rubbing her eyes and yawning the whole time. "Patty, do you know how early it is?"

As the door creaked open, the chain rattling as it went as far as its length would permit to keep the door barred, nothing greeted Ran's eyes save the fuzzy half-gloom of late night darkness, the image of the familiar hallways outside her apartment slight warped and unsettlingly misshapen as the mind sought to fill the shadows with patterns. Nothing stirred as the seconds ticked by, and it seemed apparent that no one was out there. Certainly not Patty anyway, who would have made her presence felt even before the door was open.

Before the door could be closed however, a blur of motion came from the space beyond Ran's apartment, the origin clearly having came from the other side of the door. The object lunged in through the gap, flailing wildly, clawing around itself in a blind frenzy. A flash of lightning sliced the heavens, and it illuminated the form for a split second - an arm, fingers curled into claws, scraping at the wood wildly. Just as suddenly, it retreated again, leaving behind an eerie silence...and the iron-like tang of something in the air, the woodwork damp where the fingers had been clawing...

...okay, that was weird.

Ran's first guess was that the kids down the hall were playing a joke, but they usually didn't get up this late, and they were so young that the storm probably freaked them out, anyway. Maybe her doorbell was on the fritz? That had happened once. She pressed the button and it got stuck all day, drained a lot of power. But someone would have to had pressed it, first.

She was about to shrug it off when someone - or something - tried to claw its way in with a flash, nearly cutting her in the process. It all happened so fast that she barely registered it at first, and by the time she slammed the door shut, whatever it was had gone. Ran let out a quick shriek and fell flat on her butt, thankfully near the wall light - she immediately flicked it on to try and see where the scratches were.

As the light flickered on, illuminating the room, what had happened to the door was immediately apparent. The paintwork was scratched, little rents gouged into the wood, clearly made by something harder and sharper than human nails. But those were minor details, as the source of the strange scent was revealed. Staining the door where the hand was raking away, wet, sticky marks of crimson were already starting to drip their way down towards the floor.

Blood. Rich, fresh blood.

Suddenly, just as the bulbs had began to warm up, the room was abruptly plunged back into darkness. Thunder rumbled, and as it ebbed there was a change in the sound of the apartment - there was no background hum of electronics, no purr from her laptop charger. The power was out, and only the dim glow of the laptop screen remained...

Ran almost fell back again when she saw the blood, and the lights going out didn't do much to help her frayed nerves. Her mind immediately tried to rationalize it as she sat on the floor with her heart threatening to beat out of her chest. Someone was messing with her. Patty? No, this was a little too imaginative for her. And too creepy. And disturbing. Patty freaked out when they watched Paranormal Activity: Tokyo Night, for crying out loud.

Her first thought was to run outside, but no, whatever this was would be out there. Instead, she immediately pushed up and started to edge her way through the room, trying to feel through the darkness and make it to the kitchen where her phone was charging. She was calling the police, or at least getting another light besides her laptop. "What is this, what is this, come ooooooon..."

As Ran's hands probed around herself, seeking out her phone, her questing fingers were met with the familiar hard casing of her phone. Giving a shuddering sigh of relief, she flipped it open and started to hit the keys to dial, when suddenly the door shuddered with an loud BOOM that made her jump, the phone leaping from her nervous fingers and skittering across the floor...and right under the fridge, it's little light disappearing beneath the looming appliance. The door shivered in its frame twice more, each in time to another rolling bang of thunder, and then fell still once more. But there was still a presence outside the door, the subtle creak of the floor betraying it's presence.

"Little Ran, little Ran, let me in," a voice crooned, cruel and mocking, and it was a voice Ran remembered all too well as it chuckled to itself, "You and I have something to talk about..."

A cool chill came down Ran's spine as she heard the voice. She recognized it instantly. How couldn't she? She'd been editing that shrill Irish voice all night long, she would know it anywhere. Jackie. Ran thought she might have to deal with her again, she just didn't think it would be so soon. And she surely didn't think I would be at her own apartment. How did she even know where she lived?

That question had a few plausible answers, but they weren't important. No, now she had to focus on dealing with the crazy Irish psycho. Jackie was on the other side of the door, but Ran wasn't silly enough to think that would last for any real amount of time.

"You...you need to leave! Go!" Ran dropped to her knees and tried to reach under the fridge, but her skinny hand just wasn't quite skinny enough to squeeze through. "I called the police, they're on their way here, right now!"

She tried to make that sound solid, but her voice wavered and warbled. Her father always said she was a bad liar...

The voice behind the door chuckled, seeming somehow distorted, more sinister than it had even in Ran's harrowing recollections of it. "Never try to kid a kidder," it growled with predatory amusement, the sound a cat might make when it had the mouse cornered, "You'd be lucky to get any kind of signal with a storm like this going on. No, I think it's just you and me right now..."

The door didn't shake this time, but a high-pitched whine was suddenly heard from outside, before being replaced with a juddering, metallic sound. The handle twitched, the casing around it rattling against the wooden structure of the rest of the door, and with a sudden pop the grip came off, revealing the screw-bit that had drilled its way through the keyhole. With the lock busted and the tumblers released, the door began to swing open...[/color]