Start writing your epic... the words on the screen said. Emily sighed as her fingers hovered above the keyboard. She only wanted to win an Amazon gift card, but discovered that she needed to write a chapter first. Emily pondered about what to write...

An idea came to her mind. Everyone loves a good horror story. Why not write about that?

Her fingers started moving , she typed out the words...

"There was a sharp cracking sound, she watched, horrified. As his mouth split open and stretched grotesquely wide into a grin..."

All of a sudden, she felt a chill behind her back, but dismissed it as the slight breeze blowing through the window. She continued...

"She was trapped in the room, ropes binding her down, rubbing into her already raw skin. Causing blood to trickle down her arms, dripping against the floor, causing crimson spots to bloom on the carpet."

Her arms started to feel itchy and raw. But she continued to focus on her story, thinking that it was just pins and needles...

Emily felt something against her neck again.

This time, it wasn't just a slight chill...

It was cold, cold like dry ice, the kind of cold that makes you want to curl up and hide inside a warm blanket.

The cold almost felt alive...Emily raised her hands shakily to wipe away the sweat on her forehead, when she discovered that she couldn't...

And that her hands where covered in blood.

Slowly, she turned around...

And screamed.

That is, she would have screamed, only a small, croaking sound came out. She moved her tongue, trying to feel her teeth, and realized in horror that they were sticking out of a lump of bloody flesh.

The lump of flesh was her tongue. What remained of her tongue.

Her mouth had been turned into a jagged hole.

She looked at the figure again.

It looked exactly the same as the figure she had described.

Slowly, the figure grinned wider and reached out a smooth, white hand, and clawed at her face.

A chunk of flesh fell off...

She gargled pathetically in place of screaming. Tears leaked steadily from her eyes, sliding over her cheeks and ending at the newly formed maw in the dent in her face. Her mouth and chin had been completely clawed out, the creature before her licking its' fingers. They could hardly be called fingers, though. More like long, thin nails that tapered into lethal points capable of scratching out her organs within milliseconds, cutting through flesh, muscle and bone like a knife through butter. As it had just demonstrated.

Emily tried to close her eyes, to stop this nightmare from imprinting into her mind, but the beast screeched at a volume so high that her eyes immediately snapped back open. It wanted her to watch. To watch it clean its hands of her lifeblood. To witness and feel firsthand how flimsy, how utterly in-substantiable she was. It made her sick.

But suddenly, she remembered. She had created this entire narrative herself, on the floor of her bedroom on a lazy Sunday afternoon, on a dingy laptop that had to be smacked to work right. Emily was blinded by the realisation that she could get herself out of this; she just needed to try.

And so, she thought as hard as she could without risking passing out. She thought of where she had left the story off at...

"She was trapped in the room, ropes binding her down, rubbing into her already raw skin. Causing blood to trickle down her arms, dripping against the floor, causing crimson spots to bloom on the carpet."

Emily continued the tale in her head...

"She sprung free from her bonds all of a sudden, jumping up into the air with unadulterated joy, the pain disappearing momentarily. But it was soon tainted with fear as the monster stalked closer, speaking in foreign tongues no one but itself could understand. The girl felt a warm presence at her shoulder, and turned to see the spirits of the past victims of the figure before her. They urged her to run, as far and fast as she could, while they handled their tormentor. It was high time they got their revenge."

Immediately, Emily felt the ropes holding her back slacken and drop to the floor. She stood and faced the entity, and instead of being fearful, she felt brave. Emily knew what was coming next.

The spirits arrived just in time before the creature could strike her again. They surrounded her with a comforting glow, whispers overlapping as they pushed her towards the exit. Though she couldn't hear each individual voice, she understood the message: Run.

Tired, with blood still escaping from the gap in her face, and her heartbeat pulsating angrily in her ears, she pumped her legs and ran through the abandoned warehouse. There was a door leading to the outside world at the end of a long hallway. She thrust herself into the door and squeezed her eyes shut, and it fell forward with her weight.

Emily opened her eyes, and found herself lying spread eagled on her belly on the soft, carpeted floor of her bedroom. Her eyes immediately welled up and stung. How she missed her normal life!

And right then and there, she made an oath never to write another horror story again.