Home Alone

When I was a little girl I was fearless, carefree and completely oblivious to the evil in the world.  It was a happy, peaceful way of life.  Then one day everything changed...

I had returned home from a date late one night and decided to watch a recording of the BYU game I had missed earlier in the evening.  I went downstairs, put on some pjs, got comfy on the couch and quickly zonked.  In the darkness I woke up to a cool breeze on my face.  It felt so nice.   Half-awake I moved to another couch across the room so that I would be able to feel the breeze better.  Then it hit me...why was there a breeze inside the house?  That jolted me out of my sleepy state and I quickly looked toward the back door.  It was wide open.  My heart started to race.  I was certain that the back door had been shut while I was watching the game.  Who had opened the door, and why was it still open?  I watched and listened in the darkness as my mind was trying to make sense of everything.  Then the frame of the doorway filled and a person walked through.  He was inside the house.  I couldn't breath.  I didn't know what to do.  I lay on the couch paralyzed.  Could he see me?  Did he know I was there?  Should I scream?  Should I run?  It seemed like minutes passed as he just stood there looking and listening.  He walked back outside.  He must not have seen me.  I needed to get out of there.  I slowly began to stand up with the intention of escaping the room unnoticed, but just as I stood, he walked back inside.  I stood there, frozen in fear.  Certainly he could see me now, I thought.  A billiard table stood as a barricade between myself and the intruder.   He still did not see me.  What does he want?  What will he do to me?   What should I do?  Then without warning, the word..."Hello?" quietly escaped my lips.  What would he do?  His head turned toward the sound of my voice then he turned and ran from the house.  I sprinted out of the room and up the stairs to my parent's room.   We called the police, who responded quickly and searched for the man, but all they found that night was a black beanie hat that must have fallen from the man's head as he disappeared through the trees behind our house.  Who was this man?  Why was he in our house?  What did he want?  There were so many unanswered questions.  Although he didn't hurt me physically, he intruded upon and violated my peaceful, carefree world, and just like that, it was gone.  I could finally breath, but the fear didn't leave me for weeks, months, years.  Actually, at night, when I am home alone, the fear is still there.