It was a quiet night. I was just sitting and relaxing after a long day, admiring the family heirloom I had just required. My grandmother’s wedding necklace. It was a gorgeous, ornate, emerald necklace that I had always admired growing up. It was worth thousands upon thousands of dollars, but to me, it was priceless. The night grew later and I had admired my new possession long enough, so I headed to bed. I put the necklace back in its velvet box so I always knew where it was. After tossing and turning for about an hour, I got back up to make some tea to relax myself and try again later when I noticed that the box containing my new necklace had been moved. It wasn’t off by much, but I knew something wasn’t right. I went to look at the box when I caught something in the corner of my eye. I turned my head and I saw something so terrifying, I knew I would never sleep again. I saw a man in a mask. A clown mask of all things, and the craziest part was that he was very flexible and when he looked back at me, he turned his head completely around and I heard all of the bones in his neck crack. That was the first night I ever fainted.
That was my first experience with the man in the mask. I still wonder why he chose a clown mask, at least I think it’s a man anyway. Not being able to see their face makes it hard to know, however, the shape of their body and the sound of their voice as they slunk away into the night with my necklace makes me believe it is a man, so I will refer to them as such. When I came to, the man was gone as I peered around the room. I remembered that I was going to look at the box containing my grandmother’s necklace, pulled myself off the floor and headed to the dresser. The box was still closed, like I had left it, but something just seemed off. I opened the box just to be safe, and the necklace was gone. There was a necklace there, one that looked almost identical to my grandmother’s, but not quite as special. Did the masked man take my necklace and try to put a cheap replacement in its place?
To someone else that hadn’t spent years admiring the piece of jewelry, it would have passed as the real thing, but since I had such an admiration for it, I knew it wasn’t the same necklace, but how would I prove it? Nothing else in my house was missing and there was no sign of an intruder, though I clearly had seen one, would the cops believe me if I called? I went through all the pictures that I had with the necklace in it and tried to pinpoint exactly what was wrong, but it was near impossible to make the distinction. I chose to call the police anyway, if anything, maybe they could patrol the house to make sure no one else came around to take any other valuable items. I told them about my necklace, how that seemed to be the only thing missing and that the one in its place wasn’t the real thing. They took the fake jewelry and the pictures that I had as evidence. Maybe they would take it to a jeweler who could find the differences in the two pieces, but I didn’t have much hope.
A few days had passed and I had barely slept, on edge after seeing the masked man, wondering if he was going to come back. I kept my routine the same, and made sure to turn the lights off at the same time, making it seem as though I had gone to sleep, though I laid awake in my bed, watching the window where the man escaped from. On the fourth day after I had reported this strange occurrence to the police, I decided to call to see if they had found anything out. They told me that they did in fact go to a jeweler to see if the necklace was a fake, replacing the real one I had to throw any investigation off. The jeweler could not see any differences and the police posited that maybe I had just dreamt the whole thing since I was having a fitful sleep that night. I knew it wasn’t a dream, I knew the necklace wasn’t real, but no one believed me. The cops said I could come pick my necklace up at any time, so I went to the station after hanging up the phone to collect the piece of costume jewelry that didn’t belong in the velvet box.
Getting into the car, I threw the box onto the passenger seat, not caring about being gentle since the necklace inside was worthless to me. On the drive home, I was thinking about the night the masked man made his appearance and wondered just how he got into my house in the first place because, after he left through the window in my room after I had fainted, the window was closed and locked, the way I always kept it.
Anyone that I tried to talk to about the situation thought I was crazy because, how could a man turn his head all the way around like an owl? Who could possibly have stolen a necklace, replaced it with an exact replica and sneaked out of the house through a still locked window? I didn’t know how any of it was possible either, I just knew it happened, but I started to believe I was crazy too. Maybe it was just a bad dream, one that was so lucid that it felt real. I was exhausted and was having a hard time sleeping, so it made more sense that that was the case.
That night, I decided to take a sleeping aid since I hadn’t gotten any sleep in about 4 days, and maybe I would feel better after a good night’s sleep, feeling refreshed and then I would realize that I was just dreaming of the man in the mask. It was around eleven at night when I finally poured myself into bed, utterly exhausted and eyelids feeling heavy. I had just fallen asleep when I heard a noise coming from the window. I knew it was locked because I double checked every window and door before I went to bed, making sure there was no way anyone could get it. I laid still, staring at the window I heard the noise come from and waited. After a few minutes, there didn’t seem to be anything so I brushed it off as an animal or tree branch, then I closed my eyes to go back to sleep
I had slept for a while when I was startled awake by another noise at my window, but this time, the man in the mask was standing over me, staring at me with his ghoulish, painted on clown smile. I couldn’t move and couldn’t make a sound, all I could do was stare back up and the creepy masked man standing over me, hoping I was just having another bad dream, that’s when the lips of the smile opened, showing that what I thought was a mask was actually this creature’s face, and baring his pointed, bloody teeth. He started to lean into me, his smile growing wider, then his mouth opened and there was nothing but darkness.