I lie, half awake, in my bed, at four thirty in the morning. I'm in twilight between sleep and wake, and everything seems unreal.

I hear the wind outside, it sounds like a thousand waterfalls; I see some light through the blind, it looks likes a hundred fires; I smell the morning air, it smells like ten acres of forest in early summer.

Suddenly, there's a noise: a small scratching noise, almost as quiet as if it never was, but in my mind as loud as thunder. Shortly thereafter the darkness around me seems heavy, seeping, almost like barely liquid oil, slowly engulfing the room.

I stare panicky at the ceiling, its white texture, normally of some grey shade, now almost black and fluctuating in a weird way.

Something moves in the corner of my eye -- I look at it, but it's gone. Then suddenly again, in another place, but when I look, once more I see nothing. And again, I notice something moving, crawling in the ceiling, towards me, but when I look directly at it, it's not there.

My eyes, darting all over the ceiling, noticing but never seeing, almost as by coincidence ends in a spot where I see: A large rat, big as a cat, in the ceiling, moving towards me -- then, movement again, and my eyes move, and I see a second rat. And again: a third one. And then a fourth. All slowly approaching the corner of the ceiling that's right above my head.

As they close in, I want to pull the bed quilt over my face, or get up and run out of the room, but I'm petrified with terror and can't as much as to scream. I can only watch, and wait, and possibly, if I'm lucky, die of fright.

They're right above me now, all four, and as one they turn and drop, claws first. I see it as if slow-motion: their fall seems to take forever, they don't seem to come closer. But the smell, the reek of them increase steadily all the time, until their stench is the only smell I think I ever smelled. And then, they scream: a high-pitched scream, hurting my ears, making me want to cover my ears and violently shake my head. But I can't. And now the slow-motion ends, and they fall fast. With claws aimed at my head, they hiii--