"I just need a more authentic way to kill her," Jean whined, ruffling his already messy hair as he tried to get his mind to work.

Sitting alone in the middle of an abandoned cemetery at past three in the morning, journals, laptop and stationary all around him, Jean was experiencing the accursed writer's block.

"Okay. Okay, so she walks into the woods after hearing the screams of what she thinks is her friend, Amy, trying to pull a birthday prank on het but is actually a...leshy? No no no. They're Slavic, not something that'd be in America. Or could they?" he mumbled to himself, chewing on his pencil before dropping it on his lap and furiously running his hands through his hair again.

He was so close to losing it. Two days and nights of no sleep, barely any food and too much water was taking a toll on him but he had a deadline and he needed to finish the episode script by next week Monday or he would've missed his chance to win a contest held by his favorite show, Scare Night. He only had the weekend left to get it done or he was gonna miss his big chance.

"C'mon, Jean. Use that beautiful brain your mama gave you. Work it, boy. Work it," he mumbled to himself, barely feeling the cold of the dark autumn night as his mind was too focused on his task.

A howl was heard in the distance, the songs of the crickets and frogs coming to a dramatic standstill, and Jean's full lips pulled up in a small smile, thinking about how the howls always indicated something was going to happen in his favorite movies.

He could picture it so clearly. Like it was a movie playing right in front of him.

A howl in the distance as the foolish teen blonde walked through the woods, the nocturnal creatures coming to silence, and the full moon is the only source of light as she looked for the friends who were throwing her a sweet sixteen to end all sweet sixteens. She called out to them, arms wrapped around her as her blue eyes swiftly, nervously, surveyed her surroundings.

She felt it, eyes all around her, piercing her with their malicious, bloodthirsty stares. From the trees, from those bushes, even from the ground, the stares were as heavy as weights, but like all humans that came too close to things they couldn't explain, she ignored it and went on, though her uneven breathing indicated the rising panic she tried to force away.

It's nothing, it's all in your head, she would say, trying to reason with herself but that primal part of her, the quiet one telling her to turn around and run, knew the truth.

And before she knew it, the poor, unsuspecting girl was face to face with one of the night's most beloved children. The...

"Then what?" Jean asked himself in a whisper, trying to think of something unique that'd add a certain impact.

He wanted to be remembered, not for turning an idea into his own but for creating something completely new. Something that'd completely change the game while being similar to the classics, a homage to them, and as his own light blue eyes scanned his written words over and over again, he tried to think of what that something could have been.

What can I come up with that hasn't been done?

Maybe I could create my own monster? Yeah! Something original, new and hasn't been ruined by sparkles or turned into an enlarged animal, he thought to himself, still cringing about that insult to the monster lore his mum had been obsessed with for months.

But what kind of monster could he have created? What kind of story could he weave them into? How could he come up with a creature of horror that hadn't already been done? A unique monster that no one had ever seen before.

Is there even something original left out there? Is there nothing left out there to turn into the new horror classic? He asked himself and wondered why his internal monologues tended to sound so dramatic.

Jean frowned and sighed, closing his journal, and breaking the spell his writing put him in which brought on the realization that it was freezing.

Dropping his journal, he wrapped his arms around himself as he shivered from the top of his head to the tip of his boot covered toes.

"Fuck," he muttered, voice shaking.

He began to quickly toss his things in his Dracula themed satchel, trying to hurry up so that he could get to his warm and toasty apartment and sink under his cozy comforter with some hot chocolate in hand.

The thought of that alone was already making him warm as he stood off the slightly damp ground and stretched his arms upwards.

"Well guys," he said to the tombstones around him, each of them broken down with moss and vines growing around them, "till next time." And with a two-fingered salute, he began to walk down the path out of the abandoned cemetery.

Humming a random tune, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he looked up to the night sky and his tired smile widened at the sight of the full moon, some tree branches obstructing the view slightly.

If monsters were real, this would've been the perfect scene, he thought before facing forward, continuing down the trail out of the forest. He groaned, dreading the walk down the highway and back to town.

"What I get for wanting the right mood," he mumbled, ignoring the rustling of leaves and harsh thumping of feet on the ground.

Probably just some rabbit or deer or something else. Maybe even a lost dog.

That was what he thought--at the very least--until he heard a loud roar from behind him.

Jean stopped in his tracks, hands grasping the strap of his bag as his eyes widened, fear slowly creeping on him as his breathing all but stopped, and for a moment, all he was able to hear was his own heartbeat before the sound of heavy panting and monstrous growls reached his small ears.

The thumping footsteps changed as it got closer. It got slower and Jean could've sworn that it was matching each pump of blood passing through his body.

The steps only stopping when Jean felt warm puffs of air hitting the back of his neck, a deep exhale making Jean's hair whip into his face like a sudden wind had appeared.

With his hand slowly moving to his hoodie's front pocket, fingers grasping the handle of his stun gun as Jean dared do the thing he yelled at the actors in the movies never to do.

He turned around, and there was nothing.

"Huh," he said before laughing softly.

He began to turn around as he said, "Maybe this stuff is finally getting to...me."

And then he peed a little as he came face to face with a torso covered in black fur, slowly looking up to see what he immediately thought to be the worst of nightmares come to life.

Its large form blocked the moonlight as it straightened up, glowing red eyes remaining on Jean, and with the way its head was shaped, it would've been mistaken for a dog if not a wolf. A bear, perhaps.

The thing was that neither dogs nor wolves or any canine, not even bears for that matter stood up on its hind legs with the muscles of a bodybuilder, standing like a human. They didn't have hands with five fingers that looked like they could hold Jean's head like it was a marble or thick tails that looked to be the length of Jean's four foot mother.

Jean's hand cautiously moved back to his hoodie's front pockets, stiff and numb fingers grasping the handle of his stun gun.

He didn't know when he started crying but when the thing inclined its head to the right like an actual dog, Jean let out a shaky sob. That didn't really help much because the sound made the thing's black fur stand on end as its lips opened to reveal teeth longer than Jean's middle fingers and glowed a bright white.

He was hoping, praying, that it was all a bad dream, his first ever monster related dream telling him to take a break from horror. He wanted it to be a dream because that made sense. A dream made more sense than what he was fucking looking at.

When one of its hands began to stretch towards him, Jean acted without thinking and charged forward, making contact between his stun gun and the furry chest of whatever the fuck it was.

It let out a whine, and Jean stood there with his tear stained face as it groaned and shook uncontrollably, falling on the ground and convulsing.

To be honest, thinking back on it, Jean didn't expect something so big to react so strongly to his simple stun gun.

And he wanted to run, really he did, but he was frozen in place. He couldn't move despite giving himself a chance to escape. His mind kept screaming at him to run but his hyperventilating stopped him from thinking properly, and he continued to stare as the thing slowly stopped convulsing and stayed on the ground, body unmoving.

Jean began to wheeze, feeling like there was something blocking his throat or like something was sitting on his chest.

I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die.

His eyes continued to fill with tears as his shaky hands dropped the stun gun and began to empty his pockets, looking for his inhaler. He felt like he was drowning.

He went on his knees, legs weak and the world spinning, finally finding the blasted thing in his hoodie.

Jean sat back on the ground, opening the inhaler and taking in two puffs of air before he could breathe again. Well, breathe better.

He hadn't had an asthma attack, not one that bad, in over two years but he was lucky that the habit of carrying it around hadn't left him.

He slumped on the ground and closed his eyes, regulating his breathing and letting out a sigh of exhaustion when he heart began to calm down, and he had nearly forgotten about what had brought on the attack in the first place but a loud groan that didn't come from him quickly reminded him.

Slowly looking up, ignoring his wet pants, he thought the last things he was going to see were red eyes and glowing fangs but saw only a naked, mud-covered man, unconscious on top of a pile twigs and leaves, the moonlight gleaming off his ass cheeks.

Jean wasn't sure how to process all of it or even what was going on, so all he had to say was, "What the fuck?"