Gracie Abrams is eking out a solitary existence, fighting day-in, day-out against the drain of working customer service and nursing two newborn kittens in her off time. Out on her own ever since her sister moved in with her boyfriend, the burden of...
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Two weeks after living with Kakashi Hatake, I encountered his first night terror.
I burst awake, my senses immediately more alert than I usually was when I first opened my eyes. I looked around, knowing something loud had woken me up, but not remembering what kind of noise it was.
Sitting up in my bed, I observed my surroundings, straining my hearing to detect the slightest noise.
Where did it come from?
Where would it come from next?
It was still dark, so I could only see the barest of shadows lit through my thick curtains by the streetlamp sitting at one end of the driveway.
Another thud—the cadence of something moving close by—sent shivers skittering down my arms. The noise came from behind me, the sound barricaded by the walls.
My eyes widened as I realized.
Kakashi.
Anxiety gripped me in its clutches, making me question what to do next. Did I get up and see what's going on out there? What if I saw something I'm not supposed to?
Would I be more bothersome if I went out there to see what had happened?
Embarrassingly, there was one deciding factor that finally pushed me out of my sleep-warmed sheets, and that was the fact I didn't have to get up for work later. It was one of my blessed two days off in the week, so it didn't matter if I lost out on some sleep.
I slid my legs from the covers first, the sound breaking a deep creak from the old mattress.
Padding to my room's door with quiet socks, I held the door knob tight, spinning it slow enough that it hardly spun at all. If I didn't, I knew the loose thing might rattle its old, burnished metal straight into the night.
I didn't want whatever had made that sudden thumping noise to know I was awake.
Luckily, my door was the old kind with the burnished gold metal, thick enough to turn only slightly and move the door's inner mechanisms.
Or, however doors worked.
The oven's faint light that illuminated the peeling, flowery wallpaper stretched across only this one wall glowed an eerie orange. It was the kind of dim orange that was similar to the streetlamp outside—the one source of light for the complex's entire driveway.
I walked down my tiny hall fitted with the other bedroom and the tiny bathroom at the very end. The noise had come from behind my headboard, which could only mean one thing.
It came from Kakashi's room.
I hesitated outside of his closed door, wondering what to do next. I didn't want to wake the man if he was sleeping deeply, but I knew that no ordinary movement could have made a noise that intense.
