Round 1

1 paragraphs. Use the following text as a starting point:

Jeane rose from her chair, the lamp flickering beside her like a nervous pulse. She moved toward the kitchen where the knives waited in drawers near the back door's reach escape route clear. The house was too quiet holding its breath around her. That pulledout chair scraped against her nerves something shifted here while she wasn't looking.

The hallway stretched longer than it should shadows pooling at the base of the stairs where the basement door… She needed those knives between herself and whatever moved through this space now. The wood floor creaked under her weight, each step an accusation. The house remembered every sound made within its walls, every shift in air pressure, every heartbeat quickening.

She reached the kitchen, fingers brushing the drawer handle when she heard it the soft click of a door latch somewhere deeper inside. Not the back door—the front. Someone was coming in.