She Woke

    She woke, shivering, in the dark of the night. Tears streaming down her soft, round cheeks. She touched a finger to her wet face, not remembering what she had dreamed that made her cry in her sleep. She shrugged, kicked her white cotton sheets off, and walked toward the open window. Her silk and lace peignoir flowed behind her, a romantic look for such a lonely woman. She put her head out the window, searching the night for any signs of life. She'd grown moderately paranoid since she began living alone. Having seen nothing of interest in darkness outside her window, she eased the double-paned glass down and locked it. She could not for the life of her remember opening it, but she must have. 

    Crawling back into bed, she pulled her top sheet and down comforter up around her neck, found her remote in the top drawer of the wooden nightstand next to her bed, and switched on the 47" flat screen that sat directly across from her on a table. Even if she wasn't watching it, the background noise and soft light comforted her when she woke in the night. She couldn't help but to feel anxious on new moon nights such as this one, no moonlight coming in her window, and pitch black darkness everywhere she looked. But the television comforted her, even if it was only redundant infomercials playing. 

     "Natalie." she heard her name as a whisper and her heart jumped, but she focused on the man selling microfiber dust mops on the television, and pretended to have heard nothing. Just the wind, she told herself, even though she wasn't convinced. 

   "Natalie." a little louder this time, and she couldn't ignore that every syllable was perfectly enunciated. A shiver crept down her spine and she couldn't shake off the chill from the wind outside even since she'd shut that window. The hair stood up on the backs of her arms and she lay there, motionless, as if an intruder would walk right past just because she lay there still as the dead. As if an intruder would know her name. 

    "Natalie." spoken now, not as a whisper, but at full volume. Natalie squealed, but had nothing to reach for, nothing to protect herself with. In the flickering light of the television, she saw a shadow. There were no features she could make out, just the black silhouette of a man. Broad-shouldered, roughly 6' 2", she couldn't tell about a body type other than that, but a sudden sense of calm rushed over her. She realized she recognized the voice that had spoken her name.  

    "Samuel?" her frightened voice sounded small to her own ears, and weak. She mentally scolded herself for sounding this way. A gust of wind hit her face, blowing her auburn waves off of her pale face, and she shot a look to the window, but it was still firmly shut and locked. She quickly brought her attention back to the figure in front of her television, he was moving closer to the end of her bed. Natalie pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, it was all the protection she could give herself. She still had an eerie feeling built up in her chest, no matter the thought that she may know this shadowy man. "Is it you, Samuel? I thought I had lost you...please tell me it's you." her voice was still small and tinny, but she had mustered up just enough courage to ask the dark figure once more if he was her Samuel. 

    "I...I am...Samuel." the familiar voice sputtered. He sounded different than he used to, but Natalie paid no attention to silly details. To anyone else watching, she would have been a blur in moving from her curled up position to sitting up on her knees, a tremendous smile plastered on her face, dimples appearing out of nowhere in those plump cheeks.  

    "Samuel! I have longed for you! I wished for your return! I dreamed of it!" she exclaimed joyously, but her joy dampened, and her smile began to slowly fade into a frown, then, "but...how can you be here? I thought..." she couldn't finish the sentence. 

    Samuel's still shadowy figure sat slowly, his features were still completely hidden to Natalie. She could see the outline of his face moving as he opened and shut his mouth, unsure of how to answer her. Something about him was different, but she could not figure out what it was.