A rude awakening

In the dead of the night, when the clock was about to strike three, Ezra woke up with a start, feeling a searing pain in his right leg. As he parted his eyelids, in the dim glow of the night lamp he spotted something black and slimy squirming on his wooden door.

“What the hell!” Ezra sat up straight and tried to pull his leg free, but something pulled it back.

He quickly threw his quilt aside, and his eyes widened in horror as he discovered a writhing mass of tarry black tentacles wrapped around his leg like vines.

“Let go of me!” Ezra kicked the squirming tentacles with his free leg, but a second pair of tentacles grabbed his left leg as well, binding him in place.

The more Ezra struggled, the more the tentacles constricted. Soon, they cut off the blood flow to his thighs, and Ezra felt his legs going numb.

The squirming mass of slimy black tentacles covering the keyhole, spread all across the door, blocking Ezra’s only exit. It slowly spread to the surrounding walls, growing new