3:00 A.M **FINISHED**

3:39 A.M

Clarity climbed out from the cupboard to see what was causing that strange expression from her mother. She couldn't see its face, but she knew it was smiling.
"Hello Clarity..." it hissed.
Its voice was low and raspy, like nails on a blackboard. Clarity could only blink at the creature with her mouth hanging slightly open.
"I see you have broken one of our rules, child." It said, its grin growing even wider.
"You must now be punished." It shouted loud enough for her father to come storming into the room, holding an old baseball bat.
But before he could say or do anything, the creature had removed its hood and looked at him in they eye. A heart-piercing scream filled the room as Clarity's father fell to the ground and lay still, his skin greyish-blue and flaking off but his lip still slightly quivering. The creature whipped it's head around and looked at Clarity's mother. The same thing happened with her as it did with the woman's husband. Clarity was sure that it was now her turn. But before she could say anything, it pulled its hood back over its head.
"W-why d-did you do that?" Clarity shouted.
Tears were now pouring down her face in a long stream of agony as she looked at her mother laying on the ground with a pleading expression on her face.
"Don't you worry child, their souls were weak." Without waiting for Clarity to protest against the statement, it continued "don't worry about them. We have much more important things to worry about."
Clarity continued sobbing as the creature told its story.
"It was almost 5 decades ago... I was a small boy then, just a year older than you and my name was Theodore Hillton. My family and I had just moved into this house. My brother Felix and I explored the house together all except for the basement. Our parents had warned us not to go inside. I obeyed them and stayed away. Until the night before my 14th birthday. I heard someone... they were calling me... telling me to come inside the basement. I was so foolish! When they opened that door, I set out an ancient evil into world. A greedy, thirsty evil. An evil that had been starving for so, so long." He stopped for a moment before continuing, "he stole my soul and used it to restore himself. I died that night. I died but I lived. It turned me into...something else. It become whole again and was able to die normally. Die normally as me. Everyone thought I had died and so they all left me here, alone. I was trapped here as a hollow being. A being with no emotions, thoughts or wishes. I become nothing. But every year, on the day that day that my soul was taken, I could escape from the basement to try and take a soul to restore myself. Your parents' souls were too weak. Your soul was too strong. I had to weaken it before I could take it. After I take your soul, I will put your parents' souls back in and you will become one of me."
Clarity only stared at Theodore  (or what was left of him) as he hissed the last sound she would ever hear,
"Goodnight... Clarity."
Before Clarity could even do as little as scream, he removed his hood to reveal what can only be described as the face of death itself. There was only a black pit we're eyes belonged. It's skin was rotted and falling off and it's head was completely bald. He looked as if someone had simply pulled a thin piece of skin over a few bones and decided to call it a living being.