WHY I’M AFRAID OF RATS (A SHORT SCARY STORY)

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I’ve always held rats, put them in my mini cage when they aren’t feeling too well, allow them play freely in my room without scaring them with footsteps. I’ve moved closer to scarier and disgusting animals. Being a veterinarian has made me appreciate and love them. You wouldn’t blame me for the sudden fear I have for rats after reading my story.

I’m Sarah, a twenty-nine years old single mum. My age and profession might disqualify me from being scared, but I’m still human after all. It all started that Friday night, Junior’s father had called to take his son out. I was happy and didn’t hesitate to tell him Junior’s favorite dish and toys when he asked for it. Finally, I had the opportunity to bring Daniel home. He has always wanted to spend the night with me, but my two years old boy doesn’t sleep alone, inviting a third party to our room would be uncalled for.

Daniel had promised to buy food from KFC, so I didn’t bother cooking. He was happy when I told him he could finally come see me, he left what he was doing in his office and hit the road. I wore my best night dress and made my apartment neater than ever before. Daniel would spend approximately one hour to get to my place, his office is quite far. I switched on the TV and was welcomed with football news and matches. That was the last thing I would watch so I switched it off and entered my room to watch movies on my laptop.

Diana had sent two movies to me the previous day. Perhaps, if I had stick to watching football I would still be friends with rats. Instead, I played “slender man”, one of the movies my crazy friend gave me. Daniel was slim, he made me chose the movie, I never knew it was horror, all I wanted to see was another slim guy and picture him as Daniel.

I didn’t click the stop button when I found out it was horror, I was determined to know what happened to Katie and so I got glued to it. Twenty minutes into the movie, my phone rang. Daniel couldn’t make it, it was raining heavily. The earpiece I had in my ears didn’t made me notice the sound the rainfall made in my place. The road leading to my place gets extremely bad when there’s rainfall, his excuse was perfect, and I knew it would be difficult driving down to my apartment.

The worms in my stomach alerted me, I remembered I haven’t eating, Daniel stopped me from cooking something earlier. I settled for cornflakes since it was late. With the bowl in my hands, I entered my room and continued the movie. At a point, I couldn’t return the bowl to the kitchen again, the movie was getting scarier and I had to switch it off. The slender man’s image kept appearing to me, not the Daniel’s image I wanted to see but a dangerous image. I started hearing images in my head, then I called Daniel to gain confidence. His network was terrible, I couldn’t hear anything. After several minutes of trying his line, I gave up. I resulted to sleeping but I couldn’t. The image kept appearing anytime I close my eyes. There had been constant electricity supply throughout that week, but we were disappointed that night. The lights suddenly went off and everywhere became dark. I couldn’t hide my fear, I almost screamed. I started thinking of my baby and what he would be doing with his dad, but it didn’t stop the image from appearing. The slender man took away my baby and killed my ex-husband, that’s all I could see instead.

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Then I started praying, the slender man seemed real, I started slowly, later I increased my tempo. I was shouting at the top of my voice and that seemed to work. I found my boldness back and all the fears were gone. After saying amen to my prayers and shouting three wonderful hallelujahs, the bowl I kept on my table fell down.

I screamed and held on to my pillow, I remembered placing the bowl at the center of the table, there was no way it could have fell down as there was no heavy breeze flowing in the room. I wanted to pray again but I was afraid the slender man might bring another thing down after the prayer. Perhaps, my laptop would be the next thing he drops on the floor. The next five minutes was silent, I was gradually falling asleep but another sound brought me back to live. The bowl was moving.

I could hear the sound coming from the floor, it was like that of a plastic being rolled on the ground. My bowl is made of plastic and that was the only thing that came to my head, my bowl was moving, it was coming to meet me on the bed. I was sweating profusely. I gathered all the courage and put on my phone, the light from it shone brightly and I could see my ceiling fan rolling. The constant electricity was still available after all, my bulbs had went off. Thinking of what led to that scared the hell out of me, then I focused the light from the screen on the bowl on the floor.

The bowl was turned upside down and there was a very large shadow surrounding it, the shadow was moving at intervals making funny noise. I stood up from the bed and ran to my sitting room out of fear, I sat down on the chair facing my Kitchen. My phone’s light was still shining brightly and I held on to the screen to prevent it from turning off. Then, another plastic bowl fell down from my Kitchen sink.

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I was dumbfounded, I lost all the voice I had, I would have shouted. I saw the bowl fell, the light from my phone shone brightly even to the kitchen entrance. Just as I had expected, the bowl started moving too, it turned upside down and I could see same shadow I saw in my room. I started crying and whispering please to no one. The slender man wants to use my bowls to get to me I thought.

The shadow kept moving at intervals causing the bowl to shift. The bowl was shifting towards my direction in my head. There was nowhere else to run to, so I chose the other chair in the sitting room. It wasn’t facing the kitchen, at least I wouldn’t see the horrible scene. I was afraid to stand up to put on the lights in my sitting room. That would have confirmed my fears. I sat down on my little chair grimacing.

It started raining heavily again and a loud thunder ensured. Heavy breeze like a hurricane was blowing that time and I could hear voices. My phone light had went off, I switched it on again and looked around me, and then I saw the bowl that was in the kitchen. It had moved to the sitting room. Just then, I passed out.

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I woke up the next morning feeling tired, then the night escapades played in my head. The bowl was still in the sitting room, I picked it up and went to the kitchen, everything was still intact except my cornflakes. It was scattered on the floor, I forgot to cover it after taking some for dinner. That explained why the bowl fell, the cornflakes was beside the bowl, and the rats in my kitchen were obviously trying to eat the flakes hence falling the bowl. I was about picking the cornflakes’ pack when a rat sprung out. I practically shouted.

I went to my room and saw the bowl I had eaten with, it was still upside down. I opened it up to meet a dead rat. The creature I saw irritated me.

That morning, I got rat killers and deleted the movie that destroyed my night.

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Thanks for reading.

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@afolwalex writes

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