The scratching and scurrying of that fucking mouse in my basement came about in the dead of night once again. I spent all morning setting traps and I had sworn if the thing didn’t get caught that night I was going down there with my shotgun and re-defining overkill.

I had managed to get back into a state of rest, an easy task, compliments of the empty whiskey bottle on my nightstand. But before the dizziness could subside and give way to sleep, something expensive sounding came crashing down in the basement.

“That son of a bitch!” I screamed, reaching for my weapon and kicking open the basement door. I cocked it and pointed in the dark, waiting to blast in the direction of the first squeak. The second it came, just at the bottom of the stairs, I pointed and fired!

Then… everything went black for a second.

I came to, looking up at the basement ceiling, light from the first floor flooding in and giving me some visibility. I lifted my head to see that I had completely obliterated my stairs. Which would have been the most concerning part, if not for the fragments of blood and bone scattered about the wreckage!

I fought through the pain and lifted my head to see the bloody, mangled stump where my right foot used to be. I instinctively screamed and reached for it! But I couldn’t! Then what had happened hit me. I blew my foot off, then broke my neck coming down with the wreckage! I was paralyzed and alone in the basement of my house!

The scurrying came back. It drew closer and closer until the largest mouse I’d ever seen hopped up on my stump, scurried all over my body, then took a peice of dangling flesh from my wound! I screamed! Not in pain, I couldn’t feel anything, but in fear!

Just as it scurried off into the blackness, another one rushed in to get its fill. Then another, then another, then another, then another…