[better] | Wddm

When Darkness Dares, Move. Not because you aren't afraid. But because fear, when it freezes you, hands you over. And you belong to yourself.

Silence. Then the smallest sound: a creak on the stairs that did not belong to the house. When Darkness Dares, Move

Not wildly. Not loudly. But deliberately. I reached left, found the iron poker by the hearth. I stood, not crouched. I took three steps toward the hallway — not away from the stairs, but across the bottom of them, to the back door I had bolted at sunset. When Darkness Dares