Drip, drip, creak.
Drip, drip, creak.

Triston was jolted from her restless sleep by a symphony of graceless noises. She stopped breathing, and perked her ears up like a rodent sensing some nearby hawk.

Drip, drip, creak.
Drip, drip, creak.

She couldn't move, her limbs had become stone. A weight was pressing upon her back, the heavy weight of fear. The sounds kept getting louder.

THUMP!
THUMP!
THUMP!

Triston buried her head under thin covers, as some unknown entity began to bang on the door. The sound of splintering wood announced its entrance.

She sensed more then saw the creature as it forced its way inside. It was thin and spidery, and the limbs came in first before the head. The face was all eyes, and saw through Triston's shoddy blanket. The hands were large and its fingers long. They stroked her hair and scratched her face.

She felt a cold dampness, and when her courage reached its peek Triston gazed up into the eyes of the terrible creature that held her so tightly and saw why.

Drip, drip, creak. Drip, drip, creak.

Triston opened her eyes and gazed dejectedly at the stone ceiling of her room. A bead of water upon it grew and grew, until finally falling and smacking her in the jaw. That was it, just some water seeping through the cracks in Brunnhold's foundation. Not tears of regret, or sadness. Just dirty water stained red by the university and its own past. In that case, maybe they were tears, and they were cried for her. And maybe they were cried for all who lived underneath the floor, the only place those tears would reach.

And maybe that's what Triston cried for, alone in the dark. Or maybe it was simply for herself.

Or maybe it was for the monster
that went bump in the night.