At The Door

The office she'd made her near permanent home was never quite as soul sucking as people always told her it was going to be. She'd upgraded from a cubicle to a room in her own home the moment she knew it was an option. The privacy and comfort were both beautiful aspects of the upgrade. There was never perfect silence due to the way her keyboard clacked and clicked as she worked but she was always able to find some sort of enjoyment in the sound of progress. She had the freedom to blast out whatever music she wanted to, not having to worry about complaints or interruptions. It was beautiful.

Still she liked the sound of her headphones better. A random playlist of the flavor of the day was always able to find her better if she could hear it right in the eardrums rather than floating to her all the way from the speakers... a couple feet away. Preferences like this aren't always based in a large amount of logic but that's alright. The headphones on her head have never been a problem when there's nothing to tell her what to do, after all. No roommates or girlfriend to tell her that she's odd for wanting privacy of noise in her own private chamber.

In this mental haven there was nothing to remove her from her world or interrupt anything she liked. This room and this headspace were for Sarah's eyes only and that was the way she liked it. There were days her workflow played out more like a meteor shower than a steady stream but she is not the type to ask for help until the situation has already resolved, albeit poorly.

Anyone who grew up in a city, or was raised by paranoid people like Sarah, knows that there's always some amount of anxiety with a knock on your door. Fear of the unknown and a general tendency to assume the worst of others mix poorly. It's become ingrained that surely no one with random intensions also has good intentions. It's bad enough when you're growing up and someone knocks on the front door. Did your little brother get locked out on accident when he went to his friends house? Or is there some spooky adult with sinister plans at the door? Maybe it's just the mailman with mom's new shoes for the week. Anything's possible and that is the most terrifying state one can live in, when the possibilities are endless and all you know is there is someone at the door.

Now she removes all the family from that hypothetical since Sarah has moved away from home already. She remembers she hasn't ordered anything online in months and remembers she lives alone. Now imagine someone knocks on her front door. Suddenly all that remains are the paranoia involving strangers with strange plans and even stranger origins. Sarah squeaks every time a knock comes to her door. Even when she was waiting for it, when she ordered pizza and didn't want to leave the house, still the sound of knocking on the front door shocks her to the core. There is no backstory. There was no one time a stranger came knocking and gave her reason to be afraid. She was simply raised that the door is the portal to the outside and that outside is unknown, unknowable, and awful.

The inside is bad enough. There is no need to go looking outside into the abyss for anything when she has enough problems to wade through inside.

The front door's bangs are bad enough when she's expecting people, but when her office door got a quick three knocks on it while she was trying to work Sarah nearly jumped to the floor. Unmistakably someone was trying to get her attention but what could possibly be there? The sound was too human and regular for an animal to make even if she had one yet too distinct to be nothing. Before she spoke a word Sarah scanned the room. Bookshelves, computer, monitors, there must be a weapon in here somewhere... the letter opener. She knew she liked its sharpness for a reason.

Taking her insurance in hand the young woman looked to the door with a shaking breath. Three more knocks, slower now. Thud, Thud, Thud.

"What?" Only one word soaked in a million different thoughts. She stared to the door as though it had personally slighted her. The handle didn't move and given it wasn't locked Sarah wanted to believe that whoever it was had left.

Knock.

"Who are you? What do you want?" she refused to entertain the idea that she hadn't locked her front door or that someone had wandered into her home with perfectly reasonable means. Rational thought simply wouldn't allow such a thing.

Knock.

"Answer me! Who the fuck are you?" the swearing came out, the aggression was out to play, and the paranoia crept into the room the moment the door was touched.

Knock.

Opening the door felt like a twister with how aggressively it swung and displaced air. Nothing but the hallway greeted Sarah. Still she moved out of the room, with her once letter opener now dagger in hand, wondering if she needed to upgrade to something from the kitchen. Had she scared off the home intruder by simply being home or was she still being prayed upon? "I know you're here! Get out! I'm not an idiot!"

Shouting into her own empty house had no drawbacks. If no one's here then who cares, she sounds crazy to an audience of none. If someone is here they may be fooled into thinking she knows more than she does. Sarah saw a perfect win-win situation here. Considering all the places that someone could be hiding in her house she sprinted for the kitchen, taking the least specialized knife from her knife block and going to check all her defenses were still up. Windows are intact, front door is locked, all entrances and exits perfectly functioning.

This ghost of a presence had seemingly left however it entered when it saw that this was not a woman willing to listen.

While her entire brain screamed and blared alarms a small and proportionally insignificant voice whispered into the chaos "Maybe they weren't so bad?"