Type of software I used: I used Poser 7 for models and Adobe Photoshop CS2 for post work. What inspired me: It's a Halloween contest so the first thing I thought of was, "What fears are scary to me?" Spooky...things you dream about and also fear when awake. "The Dare" She was at the Halloween party having the time of her life mingling with all of her friends. Dressed in the cute lil Goth costume she picked up at the "Dreadful Scraps" boutique Lilly felt she could hold her own to Any Suicide Gurl who happened by. Everything was perfection tonight, that was until her friends decided to play "The Dare". She had somehow always avoided this game in the past but now here she was Stuck in the thick of it. "The Dare" was just as it says...a dare. Each person wrote one of their darkest fears ..(Fears because it is Halloween)...on a piece of paper and dropped them in a black velvet drawstring bag. There was no competition of any kind to win to keep anyone from having to enact to some degree that fear. Everyone had to face their fear in some way decided by majority rule. Of course it is understood they go by the first letter of their first name. This made Lilly more scared having to wait. Yes it was Lilly's turn for her Dare. All her life she had the intense fear of walking down wooden steps in a basement, not because they were wood...not because it was a basement but because she couldn't see or Know what Lurked beneath those steps in that dark basement. She couldn't know if what lurked beneath would reach out and grab her ankles in a unguarded moment. She couldn't know if it would be decrepit, horribly evil with the sharpest nails and teeth imagined. What she did know is that she was Scared...more scared than she had ever been. If she could only make it to that bottom step and turn around looking quickly her deepest hope was that it would always be Just a Dream and "The Dare" was conquered....this time at least. How long it took to create the image?: "The Dare" took me one day to create and a Lifetime to live.