Hey, my name is Levi, I've never done this before, but people need to know what's out there.

It's likely that you've heard of such monsters as skinwalkers, wendigo, bigfoot, but you choose to believe that creatures of that kind could never roam the earth, that humans are the top of the food chain, that we rule this planet. 

Though comforting, this mindset will not save you when you come face to face with a nightmare, when you realize how weak and helpless you truly are, it will be too late. 

My long distance girlfriend Tay, who is studying on the other side of the country, was visiting her parents in my town, it was my first time meeting them, and it went the way everyone wants it to go, I don't mean to brag but they loved me, and they were really nice, when it got late and I was getting ready to go home, Tays mom offered for me to stay while Tay was in town so that we could spend as much time as possible together until she has to go back to school

Tay looked at me excitedly, and I asked

"Are you sure? I don't want to be a burden"

"Nonsense Levi", Tays mom says "we think you and Tay are perfect together and we know how much she misses you when she's gone, make the most of each other"

Tay hugs her mom and then pulls me and her dad into the hug. It was a beautiful moment, but I can't look at it now without it being tainted by the events that followed. 

The next few days were perfect, I spent more time with Tay than I ever had before, it was hard with her being so far away most of the time. FaceTime can only do so much to quench the emptiness I felt without her. 

But for these few days life felt complete, I hung out with her family, we played card games for hours, I helped her dad fix his motorbike, well, I say helped, I mostly just held the flashlight and handed him tools, but I think I won him over that day, he probably would've gave me his blessing in marriage if i had asked. 

That night we were all sat around the TV watching the new lightyear movie, which was surprisingly good, I'd be lying if i said i didn't shed a few tears, around 11:18pm when the movie finished, Tays parents said goodnight and headed off to bed and a couple of Tays friends who had been visiting said goodbye and drove home, I got up to get some water from the kitchen, and as I walked back I stood in the doorway that separated the kitchen from the living room, which was dark, only lit by the TV, allowing me to see Tay frozen, staring towards the window which was out of my direct line of sight. 

confused, I peaked my head out of the doorway and looked toward the window.

I froze and dropped my glass, luckily it landed on the carpet and didn't make much of a noise, and the giant pale creature standing an inch from the window didn't notice. 

The creature was fowl, a gaunt lanky humanoid, well at least the head and torso was humanoid, it had no legs, the torso ended in a stump, the body was being held up by four arms, each one probably 2 meters long, the creature's whole body was covered in gray skin stretched tightly over its abnormally long bones, the thing had no hair, anywhere, it's mouth was strangely wide, stretching around to where it's ears would be if it had them, and it's eyes were just sunken inky black pits in its head, but I could tell it was just staring at Tay, who had tears rolling down her face, she slowly turned her head to look at me, she was shaking and breathing quickly. 

“...Levi…” she whimpered “help…”

I had never felt so powerless, I'm a 6’2, lean but muscular 20 year old guy. I was supposed to protect her, I always thought I could, and I would die to protect her but I had no idea how to protect her from whatever this thing was. 

Then I had an idea, I looked to the light switch panel to my left, I knew one of them was the porch light, but there were three others, the living room light, the kitchen light and the hall light, if I press the wrong light, I don't know what the thing will do, but I had to try, I had to remember, which light did I see Tays dad use to turn the porch light on when he went out last night. 

I reached for the light second from the bottom, and flicked the switch. 

The hall light turned on, luckily, the hall is on the opposite side of the kitchen to where the living room is, and it is out of view for the creature at the window. 

But I can't mess up again, if the kitchen light turns on, the creature will see me, and if the living room light turns on, it might cause it to attack Tay. 

I looked back to the creature, which was reaching using one of its hands to scratch the window, I had to do something. 

I reached for the bottom light switch and flicked it, the porch light turned on, the creature spun around to face it and let out a screech that will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life, I ran to Tay and grabbed her, dragging her off the side of the couch where there was about a meter gap between the armrest of the couch and the wall, and i held her, what else could i do? I can’t fight the thing, we can’t outrun it, does tay know how scared i am? Can she feel my heart running laps in my chest? I want her to feel safe, like nothing can hurt her when I'm there, but that’s clearly not true.

The sound of the window smashing fills the house and Tay cries into my shoulder, I hold her tightly, I kiss the top of her head and I wait quietly. I can't see anything, it's pitch darkness besides the slight blue glare from the TV on the wall above us, but I can hear raspy breathing and bones cracking as the thing searches the living room, I hear it sniffing the couch where Tay was sitting. and I hear it make its way closer to the end of the couch, one of its hands pressed on the wall above us, the closer it gets, the less scared i become, all that fear is replaced by anger, this thing wants to hurt the person i love with all of my heart, it wants to take the one thing that makes me happy, i would die for this girl, and i will die for this girl. I kiss her one more time and get myself into a defensive position so that i can easily tackle it before it reaches Tay, and as I see the silhouette of its head begin to peak over the side of the couch, suddenly the light turns on and Tays dad yells as he sees us from the kitchen while he's holding a shotgun, the creature runs at him but falls to the ground as one of its arms is obliterated at the shoulder after Tays dad fires a shot, the creature shakes around on the ground like a fly without wings, before it grabs the TV in one of its hands and flings it effortlessly at Tays dad sending him flying into the kitchen counter behind him, the creature quickly sprints out of the window and unleashes a final screech as it disappears into the tree-line behind the house. 

And here we are, I'm sitting at the hospital with Tay and her family, her dad has a broken jaw, two a broken collar bones, 6 cracked ribs, two broken vertebrae in his back and a broken pelvis, he's sleeping right now due to the meds he's on, but he's supposed to recover, though he likely won't be able to walk for a while, if ever again. 

This whole thing happened around 5 hours ago, it's 4:38am as I'm writing this, the police left a while ago after telling us we can't go back to the house for a while, I don't know what that thing was, but it's safe to say, we are not the dominant species in this world, there are things bigger than us, stronger than us, things you couldn't dream of, you think you can protect yourself? You're family? The only difference between you and a rabbit being hunted by a wolf, is that the rabbit knows that it's in danger...

And the rabbit is running for its life.