I wasn't expecting this, it just happened. 

Hang on, let me be more specific, it all happened on my 16th birthday. When I say "all" I mean it started, and it started with a dream.

     It was my 16th birthday (I'm Ant by the way, Antonia) anyway, it was my birthday and I had just got home from school. 

I never really liked school; everyone used to tease about my name and none of the teachers ever really liked me, but nevertheless I didn't complain (my parents had enough on they're plates ,what with us not having enough money to barely even keep the house upright, without my small school "issues"). But that day I was feeling happy, I mean, it was my birthday! So when I arrived back from school to my, old, falling to bits home, to find a beautifully homemade birthday cake lit up with 16 (I counted!) candles on it, it only rose my spirits more. And as I clambered into bed that night I had no idea of what was to come next...

In my dream, there was a man shrouded in a black cloak standing by a fire, muttering persistently. As I edged closer to him I could make out his words, 

"it's the crunch time sister, tonight we end it. It's the crunch time sister, we end it now". 

Then, just as I came close enough almost to touch him, his head snapped up. I know people say you don't remember faces from dreams but I swear that I will never forget this one; It was pale and his features appeared stretched, its nose was too wide and his lips full and long. Everything about him was repellent, nightmarishly horrible. But his eyes were what struck me most, because they were almost normal - blue, almond shaped eyes, except that they seemed to be drilling into my own, so much so that my own eyes started to ache and I cried out in pain. Nothing else on his face implied it but I could tell just from that stare that he loathed me, every bit of your me, and that scared me. Then he whispered one sentence,

"Here comes the crunch"

Then the dream ended, my parents had shaken me awake (I had been screaming) and were staring at me scaredly.

"What?" I asked. And when they didn't reply I jumped out of bed, my dream forgotten for the moment, and rushed to the mirror. Then I saw what had made them gasp with horror. Because my eyes were not their usual chestnut colour, they were blue and piercing, digging into my reflection, and across my face written in blood red were the words,

"The Crunch Is Now". 413 words

  My scream pierced the silence hanging over the neighbourhood, I was screaming and crying because everything I knew about science, about life, about truth was telling me this was impossible. Dreams are dreams; fantasies   that stay inside your head.

I was inconsolable, my parents tried to help but they did not fully understand, but then I told them about my dream,

"You said what happened in your dream?" My mother asked, she spoke through gritted teeth trying not to scream or cry. 

My dad said nothing, he merely looked dazed and like he might pass out.

I didn't reply to my mother, and she covered her mouth with a shaky hand and cried silently, her whole body shaking as she wept. 

It was such a pitiful sight that my dad and I were reduced to tears as well, and soon we were all lying in a hopeless heap on my bed, too dazed to feel or say anything. We could only cry.

Time passed, and soon I concluded,

"I suppose I should, um... go and wash my face then?" 

And without and answer i sighed deeply and walked down the corridor to the bathroom. I set to work, scrubbing my face ruthlessly. It turned out to be harder than it looked and I was concentrating so hard that I didn't notice "him" for about 10 minutes. 

I got the feeling "he" had been there all along and I shuddered at he thought. 

He was a small metal figure that was standing on the shelf next to the sink.

And as if it wasn't sinister enough to find a small plastic figure of the type you haven't played with in 10 years, he was a man shrouded in a black cloak with the same grotesquely stretched face and drilling eyes carefully etched onto its face. 

I reached out to pick it up, throw it in the bin, destroy it. But as I reached out for the thing, I drew my hand back sharply because it was red hot. 

Cursing I ran it under the tap, and that was when the ceiling gave way, and my world turned into darkness.