Rustling over the rocks in the driveway, she parks the car, eager to leave behind the complexities of the workday. She fantasizes about a long hot bath after a longer day. Exiting her car, she turns back to ensure that she has taken everything she needed before she went inside. Assured and ready to be home, she walks up to her front door, unlocks it, and enters.
She turns on the lights to the first floor and places her handbag on a side table next to the stairs as she begins making her way to the second floor. A slow satisfied smile sweeps soundly across her face as she makes it to the bathroom and further visualizes her naked body bathing in a pool of warm bubbles, kissing and caressing every arch and curve from her breasts to her legs. She imagines slowly dipping into the smooth balmy water, smelling the sweet aromas of her scented candles, and watching the newborn flames dance – swaying back and forth to the rhythm of her erotic thoughts. Butterflies wildly flutter in her naval. She can not wait.
Reaching down for the faucet, she starts her bath. Before walking out of the bathroom, she dims the lights and turns on the bathroom radio, creating a sexy ambiance throughout the room. Smooth Jazz immediately strikes through the dull silence "Perfect" she whispers.
She enters her bedroom, flips up the light switch next to the doorway, and begins removing her clothes: her shoes, socks, work pants, watch and jewelry, placing them all on her bed. She starts removing her blouse, unbuttoning it from the bottom up. Just as she is about to free the last button keeping the two sides of her shirt connected, she catches a glimpse of the moon outside her bedroom window. She makes her way to the window, and peers through the slightly opened curtains at the moon and the slumbering lunar-kissed street. Opening the window, she shivers with excitement at the first night-time breeze that hits her bare skin. Considering how good the cool air feels flying up her still buttoned shirt, she imagined how much more pleasing a nice hot bath would be.
No sooner than she finishes this thought, does she notice a distinct change of sound in the distance. As she resolves that the running water of her bath had ceased, her minor skepticism quickly turns to unsettling anxiety as a chill drives up her spine, destroying the excitement she had built. Diverting her attention from the window, she sees what may be the most frightening thing that she's ever seen in her life: a dark arm reaching through the doorway, making its way to the light switch. Terror-stricken, she could do nothing but watch a dark hand kill the lights to her bedroom.
The loss of bedroom light, created a platform for a dim figure to fill the doorway. Recognizable only by a shadowy outline that the far-off lights of the first floor created, a rather tall man stood motionless in the doorway. Her heart pounds out of control and her body begins to shake, coupling her total lack of vocal ability. The shady figure slowly takes two steps into the room, closing the door behind it. Now she stands defenseless in a pitch-black room, save for fledging moon-light, with an unseen man threatening every stitch of the safety and comfort of being home.
She can not see his face, only his arm baring a large leather-bound hand in the pastel moon-light. His arm disappears behind him only to reappear accompanied by a long thick steel blade. Tears leak steadily from her eyes, warming her skin which had been made cold by either the cool air from outside or her own fear. Still, she remains speechless.
The man begins to walking toward her, swinging the blade like a pendulum at his side, reflecting pale light upon her. Thinking the worst, she closes her eyes, standing helplessly, listening to the encroaching menace. Each passing second is an eternity gripping and daunting her. She hears his breath piercing the wind-cooled air, feels the distance between them gradually dwindling, and submits to a sharp sense of anguish. Several times, she considers doing something, anything, to escape this darkness but she is utterly lost in it; her body would not move, the presence has shaken and locked her in place from head to toe. Never before has she felt such dread and despair as she has this night...
Seconds go by and nothing happens, the deafening silence knots her. Is he gone? Is this all just a hallucination? Slowly opening her eyes, she gets her answer. Though she still can not see his face, the moon has now fully illuminated the rest of him. Looking down, she sees him raising the blade toward her throat; panic washes over her mind and body like an ethereal tidal wave. In her first attempt to resist what's happening, she darted her hands to the defense of her neck. A low rumbling grunt comes from the overpowering figure in front her, followed by an even lower baritone voice, "Turn around..." it says. Shaking with fear, she reluctantly obeys the command as the words "please don't hurt me!" replay over and over again in her head.
At that moment she notices the man's reflection in the window, noting that his face is masked and his figure is significantly larger than her own. Though she can hardly see past the tears now gushing from her eyes, she sees the dagger-wielding hand reach around her right side. Her eyes follow the blade until it cuts away the remaining button holding her blouse together. The cloth of her blouse falls to her sides then rises in the stiff wind emerging from the window. The gentle breeze she once enjoyed now feels frigid, hardening her exposing skin. "Don't move, don't speak" says the stranger, in a slow dreadful whisper, "You anything, you say anything, and I'll Kill You..." Her well of tears has now run dry. She takes a breath, closes her eyes once more, and believes that whisper to have sealed her fate.