“Don’t toss those boxes around like that, asshole! You’re gonna break her shit!”
I peek my eye open and glance down over the side of the escape to see three moving guys walking towards the door of my building. Someone is moving in here? It’s been a while since I’ve witnessed anyone moving in or out. My floor has been so quiet lately that I was beginning to think I was the only one on it. Not that that would be a bad thing.
As the men pass beneath the escape and out of my line of sight, I turn to go back through the window, but I stop and glance back when I see her watching. Short cropped white-blonde hair sits atop her head and a pair of huge glasses sit on her face, along with a grimace to match the attitude she’s emanating. Her furrowed brows freeze in a stare one gives someone else when they are doing something unfathomably stupid. My eyes widen, and I slowly scoot from her line of sight and slip back through the window.
Once inside, I slam the window shut and press myself against the far wall; away from the world, away from chutes and ladders of death, and away from the woman who watched my bizarre high-wire act with disgusted boredom.
I slide to the floor and hug my legs to my chest as I lean my head against the wall. I’m going to wake-up in my bed and all of this will just be a nightmare.
“One. Two. Three.”
SLAM!
The wall rattles at my back jerking my eyes open. The pieces of the broken teacup greet me on my beaten and scratched up coffee table.
This is not a dream.
I am not asleep.
This is my worst nightmare.
“I have a new neighbor.”
