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You ran pretty fast for a kid your age. Your little legs and bare feet pushing you to move faster across the cold pavement. It was late. You didn’t get a chance to check a clock before running out but you knew it had to be past ten. You weren’t dressed for a late night run but here you were. Light green night gown and all.

Your father had gotten violently drunk again. You managed to run out of the house while he was arguing with your mother. You didn’t want to be caught in the middle or hear the screaming again. Not another sleepless night. You would go back in the morning, but for tonight you ran, hoping to find someplace safe to rest within the shabby neighborhood.

It didn’t take too long before you stumbled across an old abandon house. Fenced off with a falling apart ‘For Sale’ sign in the front. The house had been there and abandoned longer than you had been alive. It would do for tonight. There had been stories about people being killed in this house, or so you thought. You weren’t quite old enough to care about things like that. All you cared about right now was sleep.

Carefully you crawled under a gap in the chain fencing, sneaking your way through to the front door. The place looked empty from the outside, the old wood rotting from obvious years of being uncared for and abused. It had been a few months ago that the rumors of the house began to stir up again. Your mother had been quite over protective in those months, saying something about a killer being in town. Again these were things that didn’t really matter to you. You had second grade to work on, and at eight years old that was the biggest thing in your life.

You managed to push open the front door, seeming like it was barley on its hinges, giving a whining creak as it was forced open slightly and shut again. The place was dark and musky. Wreaking of a stench you knew not where it came from or what it was.

But oddly it felt nicer to be in than your actual home. Once you were in the house, you felt a chill run down your spine. Your eyes traced the battered room for something, you knew not what. On finding nothing you began to walk, hoping to find a room with anything more comfortable than a rotting floor to sleep on.

Going from room to room didn’t quite ease your tension of the place. Each room feeling like it was only getting darker and more run down. Some parts of the house looked like a warzone, not like it had fallen apart by the tell of time. But like someone was actively breaking things, the ceiling falling apart in some rooms, while in others entire walls had been forcibly pushed down most of the way.

But you continued your quest for a comfortable place to sleep despite all the warning signs and debris. Soon coming across a set of stairs you did your best to climb them. You climbed the stairs on all fours, finding it difficult to do at your height and the tallness of the steps. You were very small for your age, not quite having hit any major growth spurt in a while. It didn’t help that your father barley worked, there was little to no food ever in your house, making you as fail and skinny as any child could be.

Your height disadvantage still didn’t hinder you from getting to the top of the stairwell, hugging to one of the rotting posts at the top of the stairs you looked from door to door, hoping to judge with door was a bedroom before going into one.

Your foot had moved forward, ready to take a step towards a room before you froze. You had heard something from down stairs. A creak. Very faint but still a definite sound of the floor boards bellow. Your nerves melted, suddenly everything you didn’t care about came to you. Everything you had ignored about this house dawned in fear.

Another creak, this time of a stair. Daring to look back you were met with a pair of black holes in a molding white Halloween mask staring back at you. The mask adorning the face of a giant figure beginning to loom up the stairs towards you. Your blood went cold. One of the figures massive hands held to the railing of the stairs, the other holding the hilt of a large kitchen knife.

Little to no hesitation you bolted towards one of the rooms, hoping he didn’t see which one, being as quite as you could as you sealed yourself behind a closet door. You curled up in the corner of the closet, hugging your knees to your chest as you held your breath.

The world was quiet again in the old house, dim moonlight shining through the silted door of the closed closet. You could feel your heart racing in your chest, almost wishing you were back home with your abusive father.

It felt like an eternity before you heard the footsteps again. The sound growing larger once they got to the top of the stairs. Now you only wait, listening as each booming step of the giant’s boots hit the wood floor. Going from room to room in a search for you. Your heart stopped as the light from the moon was suddenly shadowed out of your hiding spot. You didn’t dare look out through the slits, sealing yourself in your corner in terror. You didn’t want to die.

You heard the person shuffle outside your hiding spot. He knew you were there… what was he doing? A moment passed before you heard another shuffle and the soft cling of metal on the floor. Opening your eyes you watched at the blade you saw him holding was scooted under the small gap under the door…

Hesitantly you moved, trying your best to not make a noise, once you got a good look through the slits you managed to make out the person sitting a bit of a ways away from your hiding spot. His hands in his lap. His eyes were on the door but not on you. The masked face staring blankly as it waited.

You looked back down to the blade. The damn thing was almost as long as your arm, the slick blade was well used it seemed. Both dented one on the blade and covered in smeared dried blood. You took hold of the handle, heaving it up it seemed more like a sword in your arms, but you did well to hold it. Was this a sign of trust? Him giving you his knife? Not like you could use it, so you assume it was more of a gesture from him to show he didn’t want to hurt you.

You took the sign and went with it. Hesitantly pushing open the door just enough for it to creak, this caught his attention, his head instantly moving to look at you. The sudden gaze made you hesitate in your movement, pausing before pausing the door open enough to peek your head through. Your eyes met, well, you assumed they did. You couldn’t very well see his through the blackness of the slits in the mask. But you could very well feel his gaze on you.

Slipping your way out of the closet you felt exposed and vulnerable. The knife was in your possession but this man was very much at least three times your height. Even sitting and slouched over he was a hulking figure over you. He could very well kill you here and now…. What was stopping him?

Was it that you were a child?

You didn’t think killers had standards. Not after seeing what your father could do to you and your mother. Your father wasn’t a murderer by any means, but he did bad things quite often. So to see someone before you that was capable of taking another life so easily, made you feel strange that he wasn’t chasing after you with his knife in hand wanting to kill you.

You wondered if he did, and he was just holding back from doing so for some reason. Why were you special?

“Here.” You said softly, holding the knife out to him with strained arms. “It’s really heavy...” you said softly, your voice shook when you spoke.

He didn’t make any motion to move, simply watching you for a moment. Slowly, as to not frighten you he reached out a hand to take the knife from you. Once it was out of your grasp you felt frightened, wondering why you gave it back so willingly. He didn’t seem to think too much on it, rolling it across the floor away from you both. Seeming to keep to his route of wanting trust from you, and you suppose that keeping the knife away was a good start.

There was a long drawn out silence between you both. All the while feeling his chilling gaze bare into you. You did take this moment to study him a bit more. He wore a strange jumper, a muddied and dirtied one, but you could tell at one point it use to be a navy blue. He was huge, not just in the sense he was tall but he was a massive figure. Wide shoulders blocking your view from almost anything else in the room.

You were pulled from your gaze of his figure when he snapped his fingers in front of your face catching your attention quite easily. He gave a deep throaty grunt before pointing towards an empty twin bed. You blinked, looking around you could see the décor of the old room. Old posters with faded ink adorned the walls. It looked to be a boy’s room, from someone that was probably only a little older than you at the time of living here.

“Is this your bedroom?” You ask hesitantly. You were met with another curious gaze before he gave another grunt and nod.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Another grunt followed your question before he pointed to the bed again.

“You… you want me to get in the bed?”

He nodded with a deep growly grunt, pointing once more for emphasis.

You didn’t think it wise to argue with a tall killer. So you did as he said, slowly making your way to the dusty twin bed before attempting to climb atop it. At home your bed was also a twin, but it lacked a bed frame. You found it quite hard to pull yourself up.

Behind you, you swore you heard a chuckle come from him before the familiar shuffle. A few thuds of boots on wood before you felt two large hands take hold of you from under your arms. You did well not to say or move in protest. Allowing him to move you atop the bed with ease. Once you were seated down, you could tell that the mattress over the years was no better than a hard wood floor. But again you did nothing in protest. You watched as he stood, looking down at you waiting. You did what you assumed he wanted and moved to lie down on the bed. Pulling the molded sheets over yourself as you lay your head on a rather odd smelling pillow.

He seemed satisfied by this, nodding as he moved to leave the room.

Was that it? He wanted you to sleep?

You noted how he left the knife on the floor of the room as he left. The question now was, did you dare to sleep. While you were very tired, and even though the bed was uncomfortable you had slept on worst.

Soon you couldn’t stop the will of sleep, demanding your eyes close while you nearly passed out on the bed. Weather you trusted him or not really didn’t seem to matter with how incredibly tired you were. Somehow you did feel safer than when you were at your actual home with your father.

He had gotten her to sleep, and it felt strangely nice. Michael didn’t know why he didn’t hurt her. He did break into his home after all.

Seeing her come up to the house from the front window of the house, he watched when she struggled her way under the fence and in the door. He had quietly followed her in her search through the house, curious to why a child so small had come into his home. He would have thought children would be frightened of the old Myer house. But she seemed fine with come in.

Whenever he caught sight of her face through the house he could see how incredibly tired the child looked, only causing him to question more why she was there. He didn’t feel the desire to outright harm the child, she hadn’t wronged him in any way other than breaking into his house, and she didn’t seem like a threat.

He was tempted to just let her stay the night like he assume she planned, leaving her alone without her knowing he was there. But she had heard him. He watched as she turned back in her climb up the stairs. Her eyes widening in horror to meet his gaze. Within moment she bolted off, running off to a room he knew not where.

Michael had waited a few moments to collect his thoughts before continuing up the stairs. Curious to where she had run off to he began to go room to room in his search, glancing around for clues. He soon noticed tiny bare foot prints in the dust of the floor board leading to his old bedroom.

He followed them, stopping in the door way of the room, seeing how the prints disappeared into the closet. Quietly, despite his thudding footsteps he sat outside the closet door and waited. When nothing happened he thought up a plan. He had no intention of harming the small girl, he didn’t need to. He had no ill will towards her, and as through before, she had done nothing to wrong him.

Wanting her to come out from the closet without need of force, he decided to try and gain her trust. Looking to his blade for a moment before slipping it under the door of the closet, hoping the gesture was enough to get the tiny thing to come out from hiding.

He was a patient man, at least for the moment. Knowing full well the child was scared of him, possibly hearing stories adults told about the killer Michael that had recently come back to town. Thought he assumed most thought he was dead or gone from town by now.

It wasn’t long before he heard the door creak slightly, his eyes moving down to look at her. He saw her hesitate, but he kept watching as she came out from her hiding spot, holding his weapon best she could. He hadn’t thought of how large it really was until she held it out to him, commenting on how heavy it was. He was surprised to have her handing it back to him, but didn’t question it, only taking it and tossing it aside. He didn’t need it right now, and knew the child couldn’t use it against him even if she wanted to.

Michael watched the girl’s eyes curiously looking about him, and he did the same to her. Watching her small pale form tremble slightly, though unknowing if it was due to cold or fear. Possibly both. Her nightgown was sleeveless but long. Her feet were bare and dirtied. Her skin covered in small bruises, most of which looked to be about healed up. It did only caused his curiosity to bubble more of why this child was here. She wasn’t dressed to be out so late, nor did she look old enough to be out so late.

He pushed those questions aside of why she was beat up a bit and out so late. He was more concerned with the bloodshot tired eyes she was looking him over with. She looked exhausted. Sleep. She needed sleep.

He snapped his fingers in front of her to get her attention, she blinked back to him. Shaken for a moment before calming some.

“Is this your bedroom?”

He nodded.

“Do you want me to leave?”

He frowned under the mask, before giving a grunt and pointing towards his old bed.

“You… you want me to get in the bed?”

Another nod and grunt, pointing to the bed for emphasis. Surprisingly she complied, slowly walking over to the bed he followed her with his eyes. Unable to hold back the deep chuckle of amusement when he saw she was too small to even pull herself onto his old bed.

He moved to stand, walking over and slowly bent down. Gently as he could manage he slung fingers under her arms and lifted her up to the bed. She seemed a bit jarred about being lifted by Michael, but made no noise or complaint about.

Michael found himself liking this child a lot more. She let him do what he wanted, he had control of the situation and she listen to him. She didn’t scream or cry, though she did run once she hasn’t tried it again. He liked being in control like this. He gave a nod and started to leave after watching her lie down and cover up.

A few minutes past and he lurked by, watching you through the open doorway as you fell asleep. For a few hours he was like that. Standing. Watching you sleep from afar.

You were his now. He had made up his mind already, and no one was going to have you but him.