Night Chills

Another late nighter... wonderful. I really need to work on getting to bed much earlier. Something came to my mind this evening as I was tidying up around the house. It may sound silly I know, but it's I guess one of my random quirks of the unknown... for some reason, strange no doubt I am afraid of basements at night. Not just any basement, ALL BASEMENTS!! It's been a fear that has lingered with me for as long as I can remember. It's as though my imagination gets the best of me. So while I was cleaning up, I remembered that I never opened all of the doors downstairs, to check and make sure I didn't leave on any lights. Funny that I even contemplated bringing a knife down with me, for why?? I do not know.

I have this memory from my childhood, of a hamster that my sister had who disappeared after my youngest sister left the cage door open by accident. We looked for days, leaving food out for it, but no luck. One night two of my sisters went down into the basement to get a school project when they found the poor little hamster dead on the floor. It turned out that it had fallen through a hole in the floor above to the basement below where it perished. I remember my sisters in tears describing in detail what they found... it's eyes wide, it's mouth open... and the trail of blood it left behind. It chilled me to the bone to hear this, especially being only six years old. But what really topped it all off was when my sister went down stairs to bring up a glass of water, and then came back up in tears. What could have upset her so bad? She explained through sobs that she was on her way to the kitchen, and as she was passing the door to the basement, the door creaked open a crack. She watched in horror as she saw the hamster coming towards her with glowing red eyes, and about ten times it's normal size. It was breathing heavily, and as it walked it's claws picked at the carpet. My sister tried closing her eyes in hopes that the image would go away, but she could still hear it's snarly breath and the claws pulling at the carpet getting closer and closer. It was then that she tore up the stairs in hysterics. At six years old, when I heard this... I had nightmares for ages. We were all so young, and at the age it is hard to tell the difference between what is real and what is in our imaginations. Maybe a small part of that experience is directly related to my fear of basements after hours?