They crawled up, up and out of the basement, behind the door in the laundry-room, the storage place, where there were chessboards and bicycles and collections of dirt in the corners and smells of motor-oil and lubricants and mildew. 

That moment of darkness, between ocular adjustment, whispering, whispering, where the mind searched desperately for a focal point, latching onto anything that might give it a marker point, some direction. And the voices, the voices, the were there, whispered by these apparitions, this legion.

And then they were gone?

The power, restored, the background noise, restored, all peace and quiet, once again.

They were outside, where electricity and civilization and the mechanisms of technology couldn't quite reach them, outside of the window, scratching at the screens, glowing, waiting. Watching. Whispering. And they could see through those thin curtains, those murals of lost in space, through the weak plastic of the blinds, through the condensation on the glass.

And the dog could see them, too, you could hear him move across the tall grass, the hunter, open to manipulation, easily confused as to the prey. You could hear them command him to draw blood, to taste the iron and salt and warmth of the flesh, to wait for opportunity and to attack, but to frighten, not to maim, to injure but not destroy. All the while, they whispered, and they laughed in echoes.
With fear, you cried out, you drew the covers tightly around you in a bundle, you hid beneath the pillows, desperate for distance, for manufactured and synthetic defenses, desperately telling yourself what you knew to be a lie, that they would leave.
And when the dog attacked, you knew it to be true, although you never told the truth and you never admitted to realizing how real they are, after all, you were just a child.

You carry a scar on the palm of your right hand to this day, to prove that it happened, that it was not all just imagined, and you know that it won't be long before they'll find a way to return again, as they so often have.