A Real Scare

The floor in my combined living room/bed room creaks. Usually just when you walk on it, and mostly when I’ve been away for a few days.

Last night, in the early morning hours I woke up, from the floor in my room creaking. I had only just thought it strange when it happened again – and again and again, like someone walking slowly across the room, over by the door. My heart almost stopped, and I hardly dared breathe. Slowly, slowly I rose on one elbow, trying to see through the dark (not easy, since my bed is screened the cupboard I store my fabrics in) - nothing. Time is difficult to tell when you’re scared, but it might have been ten or fifteen minutes that I listened, thought hard of what to do, prayed, and gathered courage to do something. In the end I came to the conclusion that since I hadn’t heard anything for a while, there was most likely no one there, and if it was, it was probably a thief, surprised by my waking up, and might be possible to scare of.

So I switched on the light, and got out of bed. No one in that room. I walked into every room, and turned on the lights as I went. They where all empty, the front door was locked, and nothing was missing. I finally decided that it’d probably been the cool night air coming in from the open window that had made the floor set slightly.

Even after I had made sure I was alone, I was shaken enough not to be able to put out the light and go back to sleep for an hour and a half. When I finally did my dreams where affected by the fright, and didn’t give me much rest. Even now, more than eight hours later, I’m a bit skittish and feel like a wrung out cloth.

Being easily scared is very inconvenient.