There was no real warning. No earthquakes or hurricanes– or even the sound of the world cracking apart to be put back together.

But there was screaming. Though, I thought I was just hearing a bunch of people partying nearby, at first. It'd started so suddenly and without warning, I thought they were kids running around, screaming their heads off just for fun, after school. It didn't happen a lot, but it did happen.

… the clock said 2:14. Maybe they got out early?

"Blissy!" my sister was sitting in the window. On the little desk I'd pulled over and converted into a seat with a cushion. "There's monsters! She shrieked and came running to me in the kitchen. It was only a few steps but she took them at a speed that meant business.

So I picked her up and patted her on the back as I quickly made my way to the window, thinking... I didn't know what. Escaped Zoo animals she didn't recognize? Maybe a pack of coyotes? She was shaking.

What I saw was neither of my best guesses.

Part of me wondered for a moment if I needed to find someone to adopt Sophia immediately so I could commit myself to an asylum.

Giant, Hyena-like things. Brown coat, spots and they appeared to be attacking people on the street.

"Sophia, what did you see?" I asked her.

She tried to move. "It's a-"

"Sh, don't look, just tell me what it looked like," I said-- it was too ridiculous to be real, but she'd seen something. And then I saw something. CO poisoning? Gas?

I walked back toward the bedroom, intent on opening the windows and putting us in one to get a good deep breath of fresh air.

"You don't believe me!" she cried and began to wail.

This was very bad. Upset children made a lot of noise. And I wasn't entirely sure those Hyena-looking things were fake. It could very well be that someone had been raising them and feeding them steroids or something? It could be a hallucination, but... what if it wasn't? Dog-like creatures had good hearing and Hyena's went after weaklings like babies all the time.

"Of course I believe you," I said and slowly soothed her with a hand rubbing up and down her back. "But I didn't see them except a little, so I need to know what they were so we can protect ourselves."

"It's- It's a doggie!" she said, hiccuping and sniffling now. "Big doggy– but it doesn't look nice!"

That about cinches it. She and I had the same hallucination? Not likely. Not without some kind of catalyst, like a herd of dogs running down the road and she saw dogs while I saw... Hyena-things. They were too big to be real hyenas, though... and we're in an apartment building, on the eighth floor. If they looked that big from this high up, then they were BIG.

"Alright, we've got to prepare ourselves and protect the house," I said. It's what I usually do when she's afraid of something. The dark, the monster under the bed, in the closet... "You need to sit here and look for news."

I placed her gently on my bed and put my laptop in her lap. I kept it plugged in and on, so it was just a matter of clicking the thing awake and entering the password. I entered the url of a news service. "Open up all the articles I should see, okay? Blissy is going to get some food and make sure the doors and windows are locked."

She sniffled again. "Okay..."

Sophia has had to deal with crises on her own before, when she lived with our parents. Which is the biggest reason she lives with me now. So she's quite used to self-soothing. It's a great skill to have, but she should've learned it through loving admonishments and soft spoken voices…

The door was locked, as it always was. But I got out the door-bar to be safe and set it up on the knob. Locks could be picked. These bars couldn't be thwarted unless you kicked the door down. So the door was secure and all that was left were the windows.

When I turned to attend to those... there was a strange floating light, in my living room. I just stood and stared at it for a long moment. It was inexplicable. A will-o-the-wisp in my living room. The bizarreness of the entire circumstance really hit me then.

It glowed brighter and began drifting toward me. My first thought was to get to Sophie before… whatever the weird light was, could get near the bedroom. Slam the door shut.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

But it swerved to meet me as if it could sense my plans and slammed into my sternum with the force of a freight train.

It wasn't pain, exactly. It was just immense pressure. Like a force holding me–

I was bent in half backwards and not falling over, I could still perceive the world around me– but it was foggy, hazy.

"BLISSY!"

My world shook and I realized I was clawing at my chest, after the ball of light. Like I could dig it out if I just scratched hard enough.

Get out of me! Get away from me! Sophia. SOPHIA. SOPHIA!

The light flared one last time and I was left to fall to the floor. Gasping for breath, scrambling to get to my feet and rush into the bedroom.

My body was so weak and shaky. It was like I'd just spent all day gardening on my knees. But... I could shove myself up. Onto my feet.

The wall was cool to the touch as I smacked my palms to it and used it as support to walk the first few steps. My body was quivering less and less as I approached the doorway, but it was still difficult just to stand. I could see her through it, but only the tip of her shoe on the bed.

When I finally got through, she was lying there, shaking and crying in such a small way, it made me angry. Whatever the fuck that light thing was, I was going to fucking kill it. Sophia hadn't cried like that since I brought her home, except once when she had a nightmare that she'd be forced to go back.

I collapsed on the bed next to her and wrapped her up in my arms, humming brokenly as my body slowly began to recover. But my heart still throbbed.

And then... well. That appeared.

You must find a vessel for your Familiar.

WHAT?

It didn't make any sense. Not only the words, but how they appeared there. I could barely see them. The letters were like an after-image and I could only see them when I blinked. Like they were just seared into my corneas for a second.

Sophia hiccuped. "What's a famlier?"

"What?" I reel for a moment. "Sophie, can you see the words, too?"

She sniffed and rubbed her eyes. "No... s'a voice saying... find a vessel... What's a Vessel?"

It's giving information dependent upon whether the person can read or not.

Sophia could read her alphabet and numbers, but she was barely six. She wasn't reading whole sentences with complex words, yet. Just small words and short sentences.

"Well, let's ask it," I said. "Hey... whatever you are. What's a Vessel for a Familiar?"

I might be having some kind of hallucination and Sophia never really saw anything and I made that all up in my head... but I have no idea how to react except as if it were real.

Anything meaningful to you, is sufficient.

Meaningful... like a memento?

My heart throbbed again and Sophia gasped, clutching at her chest.

There was a period of time after shoving myself upright that I had to sit there and just blink. I have no idea how long it took me to get my bearings, but I stumbled onto the ground and crawled for the toy chest in the corner of the room.

I bought Sophia all her toys. Including the first one that she'd kept since she was two.

Valykree. It was how Sophia pronounced 'Valkyrie' which is what she named it after I told her what the character was. I had no idea what she liked back then, as she wasn't really watching tv shows appropriate to her age and basically just stared at a tv screen for the moving colors more than anything while dad watched tv and refused to play with her.

So I got her something I liked. A little doll made of crinkle satin. Commissioned to look just like her, but with a Valkyrie headpiece with wings on it, a pair of pauldrons on the shoulders of her purple dress and a gold belt and shoes. No fingers or even a good foot shape, but it was more of a chibi style, so I hadn't expected it to be detailed or anything.

She'd had it for four years. If anything was going to mean something to her, it was Valykree.

Even though this whole situation was fucking weird, I tried to bring Valykree to her with urgency– like it really mattered, because what if it DID?

But my heart throbbed again and I had to throw Valykree to her on the bed and drop to the floor gasping for air and clutching at my chest.

"Blissy!" she shrieked for me, but I was sure, it had to be just that I'd fallen. Because I had no energy to get up. I couldn't believe anything was happening to her and I couldn't get up.

Something chimed in-between Sophia's gasping sobs and I felt... like someone else... was there...

Darkness was closing in on me...

Who the FUCK is in my house!?