THE GIRL AT THE DOOR

THE GIRL AT THE DOOR

The moon was high, the winds blew harsh and brash, as a storm raged on across the streets, but somewhere.. in a small apartment.. lived a man. This man… did not let the harsh and brash-ness of this storm frighten him, rather… he was the exact opposite of frightened… at peace. Laying into the soft, plush pillows of his couch, his headphones adjusted exactly on his ears as he listened to that peace-bringing piano he loved. Unbeknownst to him… a different kind of storm… would rage into his life very soon. Hours later into the night… around 10 o’clock... as this man lay into his couch… drifting off to sleep with the peace he felt… and without warning harsh loud knocks on his door were heard… so rushed… so loud, that even through the peace of his headphones he heard them, and they shook him awake. Who could that be at this hour?

As he gets up from the plush pillows of his couch.. his legs wobbled towards the door, as his body was already slowly falling asleep, he slowly and tiredly opened the door, and what he found was the most concerning of all… something he’d never anticipated. Something… that shook his entire body awake. A shivering… a shaking… young girl… about the age of ten…? Crying…? As she parted her lips to finally speak, as her body was completely drenched in the storm that’d raged outside. “Mister… please… help me…” as he heard her quiet, tiny voice speak… he felt a dreading feeling… a punch in his gut… this was the neighbours daughter? Why was she at his house at this time of the night? Why did she start begging for him to hide her from her father…? Her supposedly murderous father as she said? He quickly helped her inside, providing warmth from the storm, as he was in the kitchen.. as a sweet aroma filled the confines of the house, he provided her with tea. As the time flew by… midnight approached … and she still didn’t seem alright to sleep… as she was dreading something too… or had that terrified look upon her face. As midnight approached… a soft knock again was heard at his door, the first three knocks were soft… but they started getting rushed… as he didn’t answer. So eventually… the girl hides upstairs… and he decides to answer the door.

And there’s a man in his early-thirties… a man he knew very well. His neighbour, the daughter’s father talked fast, in a rushed panicking sense, as he himself panicked asking over and over if he knew… if he knew where his daughter was. “Please, please I must find her..” he feels… suspicious? Why was this father seeming so genuine? Too genuine. Even so… he notified that the man’s daughter was in fact hiding in his home. And the father… panicked again… quickly notifying him… “My daughter is severely mentally ill, and must return with me to the hospital.” The father explains to him. He is now at an impasse. On one hand… the daughter may die if he just hands her over… on another… he could be hurting another man’s mentally ill daughter, by keeping her in his home. What to do? Who to trust? How to know? So many questions… yet no answers to be found yet. He needed to decide… to decide who he would trust.. who to believe? What the outcome could be? There was no way to see the end of each path… each option. He had to make a choice, but why not let the police sort this out? So instead he shuts the father out, and proceeds to call the police, until out of nowhere…

Lights flickered off, technology powered down, the power had gone out? He had no way of contacting the police now… he’d already locked the father out… he’d chosen to believe in the young girl. First he would have to walk his way to the kitchen… cautiously walking as to not trip over anything. He scurries through the drawers… trying to find his lamp and some matches. Unbeknownst to him, the young girl was stepping slowly downstairs…walking towards the kitchen too. As he finally finds the lamp… he still hurriedly looks for the matches… he hears small footsteps… an eerie click-clack of heels trodding across the tiled floor towards the kitchen, where he currently was. He scurries through all the kitchen drawers, hurriedly searching for some matches. When he had finally found them, he quick lit the lamp… and what he saw shook something in him. The true gravity of his situation had hit him. The way her lips pursed into a strange looking smile… it gave him great discomfort. And then when that little noise… that sound of laughter erupted from her lips, his eyes glanced down towards what she held in her hands. A small knife… until he realised. Her hands painted crimson… as it drips from the very knife… that glistening red… that crimson colour… it couldn’t be, could it? He wanted to run… to hide… to leave… but somehow… he was stuck in place. Paralysed. She slowly… takes another step closer, and another. Her smile widening as his feeling of terror heightened. He was shaking… trembling… he wanted to run to stop her, to get away from this horrifying situation, something he could not believe at all. Why the hell had he trusted this insane young girl? His own lips parted as his voice cracked slightly.

“Where is.. where’s.. your father?” The young girl snickered… laughing slightly… as she gave him her reply.

“Daddy’s gone now. It’s just you and me.”

“Wait. We should talk about th—“

She steps even closer… but just when he tries to run… he simply can’t. She’s gotten too close now. As the small knife continuously stabs right below his chest, into his neck, into his stomach.. splashing that crimson red all over his floor he wonders… what if he had taken that other path? But he doubts he could ever go back to that path… he wished he could though… in his final moments he wonders if anything would have been different. His neighbour was a good man. And he tried for his kid. But in the end… it was all in vain… because it was his kid, his kid who wasn’t good. Now she… was pure evil.

As his blood, his crimson red liquid… stained the floor… as he started to gasp… as the knife sunk deep into his neck… as he wonders in his last moments… as his eyes flicker shut… he truly wonders about what could’ve happened.