Chapter Text
You were unlocking the side door that led up a flight of stairs to the locked landing door of your apartment. Just as you were closing the door behind you and turning toward the first step up, something abruptly caught in the door, wedging it open. Horribly, it was a black leather boot, one of those ass-kicking steel-toed types that the local town hicks always wore.
Fuck! Fuck!
Heart immediately going into overdrive, you froze in mid fight-or-flight reaction. Breath completely eluding you, you clumsily stumbled backward, landing painfully on your ass onto the first few carpeted steps, as a menacingly tall, broad, black shadow of a man was briefly illuminated in the open door frame, before vanishing almost entirely as he swiftly pulled the door shut behind him. You moaned in complete and utter primal fear, blind in the now pitch-black, windowless stairwell with your intruder upon you.
And upon you, he was. As if whoever it was could see you effortlessly in the heavy darkness, he somehow managed to fluidly arrange himself on top of you with purpose, straddling your legs on the stairs and blocking off your upper body with his dense arms and wide shoulders. The inability to see the attacker’s face was with no uncertainty, petrifying. Before you had time to collect your wits and attempt a defensive strike--possibly a headbutt or a vicious bite to whatever soft flesh you could reach first in the blackness--he spoke, deeply and calmly.
“Get up.”
You couldn’t move. He was pinning you down, yes--but to make matters worse, you physically couldn’t bring yourself to snap out of your state of shock. You were breathing so shallowly that you were becoming lightheaded, drawing nearer with each gasp to a state of hyperventilation. God, you hoped you wouldn’t pass out.
Not here.
Not like this.
Suddenly he moved, causing you to jolt violently in fear. He swiftly hoisted you over his wide shoulder, and you barely were aware of it, in your shell-shocked mode. He was opening the door to your apartment when an adrenaline rush caused you to suddenly snap to attention.
NO!
He was taking you! You needed to fight now or never, for your life. You began thrashing wildly, willfully punching at what parts of his body you could reach while upside down and with both feet still draped over his chest. Your fists slammed the small of his back with all your might. Even for a small-framed, untrained (and, if you were being honest, admittedly weak) woman, the blows still should have caused him to grunt in pain or at least elicit an annoyed response, if he were a normal human who was in the midst of being pummeled. Unflinchingly, however, he continued to carry you forth into the front foyer, not staggering even once, as he agilely turned and shut the door behind him.
Seeming to know instinctively where the living room was, he commenced to walk directly into it and firmly peeled you off of his shoulder to toss you unceremoniously on the small couch. You writhed in the swell of unhelpfully deep and engulfing cushions in a hopeless bid to escape. The stranger chuckled, seemingly at his own private joke as he simply watched down at you struggling to gain the necessary momentum to fend him off.
“I don’t think so, sweetheart” he said condescendingly.
His words stiffened you, as you froze. Forgetting yourself, your thoughts were briefly distracted as you tried to focus in on his face for the first time. Your eyes were at last beginning to adjust to the dim, but in the lack of light, you could barely make out his face. Just as you were taking in the general shape, he abruptly clapped his hands together--simultaneously making you jump nervously, and at the same time, somehow making all of the lights in the living room turn on.
What the hell??
This man was obviously not just a home invader. No. He was something...worse. Something surreal, or, inhuman, or...You grasped at straws, mind reeling in shock.
Is it a trick? Is it all a nightmare? Will I have woken up passed out on the steps, or in bed?
He could make the lights turn on with his hands, or maybe it was even his mind. He seemed to have a disturbingly heightened sense of spatial awareness, uncannily like nocturnal vision. He seemed too strong, with complete non-acknowledgment of your previous attempts at attacking him while he carried you inside (as easily as if you weighed no more than a small child, you noted).
His features came into focus distinctly, now.
For the hundredth time that night, you lost your breath in a rush that this time, nearly knocked you out for real.