Writing exercise/fun - feel free to join...

"BOO!" I leaped what felt like five feet into the air and started to hit my attacker with one of my bears.

"Ricky, you asshole!" I said, trying to not let the giggles sneak into my angered yell. "I thought you had the midnight shift tonight."

"Hospital got a new batch of scrubs, figured they can handle it while I get some well-deserved shut-eye." Ricky closed the door, slipped out of his clothes, and climbed into bed, snuggling next to me. He placed his hand on my hip and lightly danced a finger around it as he leaned into my ear. "Or I could get something else well-deserved..."

"Tempting, but can't. Unlike someone else I will not name, I have work in the morning."

"C'mon, baby," he whispered, "let's play Doctor." He started to lightly blow on my neck and sang, "I'll get the stethoscope--"

I heard a loud crash and saw the oak door broken into splinters. I screamd as a looming black figure, snarling, leapt toward the bed...

I saw Ricky fly across the room, his face white, frozen with the horror of what he was seeing before him. I wanted to go to him, to protect from the beast that was stalking towards him but I knew it was too late even before I saw the beast reach out a skeletal hand towards him. Bony fingers wrapped around Ricky's neck and lifted him effortlessly off the ground towards the beast's shadowed face. Green eyes glowed out of the darkness as he drew Ricky's soul from his body, sucking the life force from him, draining him of everything that I had known and loved about him.

I lay frozen in the bed, pinned there by the terror of the images that raced through my mind like a film played at high speed. The pain was intense, a branding iron burning through my consciousness, holding me there, powerless to resist him.

The beast flung the lifeless body of Ricky away from him, an evil laughter rolling from his lipless mouth. "I hope that your soul gives more pleasure than his did." His voice was a rumbling echo that grated upon the senses. I watched him approach the bed, wanting to move but powerless beneath the glow of his eyes. I knew that he was going to kill me and that there was nothing that I could do to prevent it.

Suddenly, the pendant around my neck, a blue sapphire given to me by my grandmother before she died, started to glow and grow warm. Heat spread from my chest where the pendant lay against my chest throughout my body like liquid fire flowing through my veins. The blue glow radiated out from the pendant until my whole body was encased in the ethereal glow.

The beast growled and tried to reach for me, his growl turning to a howl of pain and anger as the blue light seemed to burn his bony hand. I shrank back against the headboard, watching as his eyes glowed even brighter. His mouth moved slowly, uttering words in a strange language that I had never heard before.

Despite the heat from the pendant, the room temperature seemed to be falling rapidly. My skin felt icy on the outside yet my body was warm inside. I wondered what was happening to me as the light from the pendant became brighter and brighter, hurting my eyes with the pureness of its lights. A crack of thunder sounded loudly in my ears, as though the storm was directly over me, then everything went black and I faded into the unknown but welcoming darkness.