Deep Breaths

Unlocked

"I'm sorry, what?" I muttered as I reached to pull my headphones down. He was staring at me with huge bloodshot eyes and his eyes never left mine for even a second. I wasn't scared or anything, mostly because it was daylight and the parlour's door was just a feet away and everybody inside could hear me if I screamed. Which I definitely planned to do if he continued to block my path. I was just a bit startled especially because of what he had said. Why was he waiting for me.
"You... you're her, right? That girl?" He stuttered.
"Which girl?" I asked, trying not to show my impatience.
"He... he was looking... for you. He's coming... he's gonna come back." He was dead on shivering now for some reason and I suspected he didn't speak English very fluently. But that's not what surprised me. What surprised me was the sentences he was trying to make. Somebody's looking for me? And they're gonna come back? Is he talking about a customer of mine?
Before I could reply, the parlour's door opened and Trish, one of the girls I work with, stepped out with the trash bag. The man turned around to look at Trish, turned back and zoomed past me faster than a tornado. I thought of calling after him to try and find out more of what he was going on about, but decided against it and hurried inside after Trish.
      
                                               ***

     The rest of the day was relatively normal and boring. But my mind kept going back to that encounter with the man, every now and again.
I kept wondering what he meant by that someone's looking for me. I genuinely don't know anybody in this city, aside from the people at the parlour, my landlord and my neighbour. My next door neighbour is a tiny Asian woman, who's a single mother and lives there with her 3 year old little girl. Lovely people. The only people I genuinely don't mind running into in this town. I love kids, so little Yuki is always a pleasure to run into. And my landlord's a scrawny old man whose rent I pay religiously, so there's no way that the weird homeless looking man was talking about anybody that I might know of.
By the time I closed up the parlour, I had decided that he was just mentally unstable and to forget about it and move the fuck on. I was still a bit hesitant that he might be lingering around outside but there were no signs of him and I couldn't have been happier.
I stopped by to buy something to eat, and made it to my building within a half hour. I made my way up the elevator in a great mood because I was very excited to kick back and eat the Chinese food that I had bought. I was famished.
I put the keys in my lock and turned and the sound of the click never came. I instantly realised that something was wrong. I NEVER leave the door unlocked. Sure, I was in a hurry this morning but I distinctly remember double checking if I had locked the door.
Somebody had broken in to my apartment.

I stayed there with the keys inside the lock for about a minute thinking to myself, should I go in? Could they still be inside? Should I call the cops?
I took the keys out, and slowly pushed the door back and opened it ajar. I stood there without entering, looking at the side view of my couch and kitchen counter. Nothing seems to be out of place from the little I could see.
Having experienced enough freaky shit for a day and having seen enough horror movies to know how this works, I pulled my phone out and dialled 911.


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