Chapter 11: There Was Nothing There

Her eyes stung after long hours of staring at her laptop screen. Too tired. In baggy pajamas, she slumped face-down at the edge of the bed, not even crawling to the pillow. Her eyelids fluttered shut instantly.

These walls were thin. When everything went quiet, she would hear passing conversations and sometimes footsteps from the corridor. Her consciousness was drifting away before faint sounds wrestled into her sleep-addled brain.

There was somebody outside her door. Somebody was walking about, which itself would be typical.

Something about it, however, was strange. The footsteps were slow and steady; someone was taking a stroll right along the narrow corridor before her apartment as though it was a fun place. It had been quite some time since he or she was pacing.

Besides, they sounded intentional like they were meant for somebody to hear them: in this case, her.

Danica reached across her bed for the gun. Perhaps it was a harmless weirdo, like the ones who talked to themselves in