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Sarah

Sarah walks into her dark apartment, turns on the front hall light, and walks down the hall directly to the bathroom. She just finished an intense kickboxing workout; she hadn't trained this hard all week and she could feel all her muscles shake in the shower. She is exhausted and relieved to have finished her shower so she can go to bed. She towels off, brushes her teeth, and heads to her bedroom to put on some clothes for bed. When she opens the bathroom door and shuts the light off, she notices the apartment is dark. The front hall light she had turned on when she came home is not on anymore.

Sarah stands there in the bathroom doorway, in the dark, her eyes adjusting to the lack of light. Beads of water drip from her hair to her shoulders and down her arms. Sarah thinks to herself all of the possible reasons why the hall light would be out. The light bulb could've blown or wires could have short-circuited. There are several logical causes for the hall light to have shut off but Sarah feels an unnerving paranoia that it is something else. So she waits.

Standing still, she listens for any unfamiliar noise, waiting to hear something, anything. After what seems like an hour, she starts for her bedroom, hearing her feet sink into the soft carpet. Sarah takes only four steps before she hears what she's been waiting for: the startling and rustling sound of something moving.

Sarah crouches lower and scuttles down the hall, away from her bedroom where the noises are coming from. Sarah unlocks the door to her apartment as fast as she can and flings herself into the hallway. She runs down the hall, into the stairwell, and down two flights of stairs, panting, scared and in a towel. She knocks on one of the doors: apartment 1B.

She looks down at each end of the hallway, watching for anyone. She anxiously knocks again. An older man answers; he has a gray mustache and looks in his mid-forties. Sarah recognizes him from the parking lot every week but doesn't know his name. He looks at her in her towel with her wet hair. Sarah frantically asks if she can use his phone because she thinks someone is in her apartment. The man lets her in and asks if she is alright. Sarah nods yes but her face looks distraught. He hands her a cordless phone and disappears into another room. Sarah holds the phone but she is clearly shaking. The man comes back with a robe and offers it to Sarah. She dials 911 and a woman operator answers.

"911 emergency, how can I help?"

"Yes, I think there's

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