It was near one in the morning, there was an incredible and violent noise that shook the earth and jostled me from rest. I rose to find myself soaked in a cold sweat, and a warm feeling pulsing through my ears. A shudder ran through me as a current of cold electricity up the spine. I didn't even realize I was moving when I noticed that I had already opened my safe and now held my pistol. The instinct that propelled me was urging me to the back door, there I saw something that I never imagined, a great vortex hovering over the neighbor's back yard. A shadowy figure lingering beneath, there was standing the personification of death. He lingered, summoning an apparition from within the home he waited outside of. The soul of the inhabitant wandered fourth, then was drawn up into the vortex. As the event left me speechless, the next unforseen shock would have me on my knees. The reaper pushed back his dark hood, revealing a face I had seen a million times... in my own mirror.