The bear is terrorizing. It comes every night and takes everything left outside of the cabin. We don’t know why it comes, or why it takes things. In fact, we don’t even know anything about it, besides the fact that it’s a bear.

     Katherine writes the words carefully and precisely in her journal, making sure to make every letter perfect. She’s always been like that - a perfectionist. She had to do everything right. It annoyed her friends and family - what’s remaining of them. Ever since they had come to live in this strange cabin when they got kicked out of their house. Ever since Katherine’s father died her mother and grandparents struggled to pay the bills. That’s when the bank decided to make things worse.

     But enough of that. Katherine thinks. She places her pencil in her journal and closes it carefully, placing it on her nightstand. As she drifted off into sleep she heard a rustling outside her door before it opened precariously. Then she was consumed by darkness.

     Katherine had many strange dreams that night. She dreamt that she was being carried higher and higher into the sky by an angel until the beautiful creature’s wings caught and they dropped her. She seemed to have been falling forever until she crashed back into her own body. When she explained this dream to her much older brother he only scoffed in her face and called her superstitious.

     “You’re being absurd, Katherine. There’s no such thing as angels.” her mother gave her a disapproving look. Katherine’s family is a group of atheists. She herself is what she calls a Christian Atheist - She believes the bible is just a book of metaphors.

     It was fairly silent for most of the day, for the whole family was off doing their own thing. When dinner finally came around the only noise to be heard was that of their utensils scraping their plates. “The bear is going to come again,” Katherine suddenly speaks up, not looking away from her plate. “Katherine, that’s enough. Go to your room.” Katherine did not move at her mother’s command. “NOW.” She pushes out of her chair roughly and stomps off to her room, wiping away the angry tears now streaming down her face. She felt so mistreated.

     Slamming the door shut, Katherine stares out the window in her bedroom, struggling to calm down. The sun had set long ago, and now a large shape was shuffling outside of her window. The bear. She knew immediately what it was even though she could not see it’s face. And it was stealing from her yard.

     She was right. The bear had come again. Her family finally believed her. And what did I do? I stripped off the bear costume and placed the items I had gathered that night in their appropriate places in my home.