9:42 pm - ANASTASIA BYNES
The fight or flight response is a physiological reaction in response to stress. These changes are caused by the activation of the sympathetic nervous system by adrenaline, which prepares the body to either challenge or flee from a perceived threat.
There is an additional response that is common but is not currently included in the human body's response.
Freeze
I freeze like I'm caught doing something explicitly forbidden in my lease agreement. The voice to my side, standing at the entrance of the stairwell, is loud enough to scare off any living thing within a ten-mile radius of us.
"What the fuck are you doing up here?"
I jump back quickly, toppling over the box of lights behind me with a thud. My hands feel cramped as I try to shield myself from the person storming towards me until the silhouette stops and stands right above me for what feels like an eternity. When my eyes adjust, all I can see is the amber glow of a cigarette, the hue bright enough just to barely illuminate the person's face.
"I-um, I'm decorating up here," My voice is as quiet as the wind surrounding us. I can't breathe, nor can I bring myself to make eye contact.
"I-um-um, I asked what the fuck you think you're doing up here? This is private property." His voice is hoarse, almost as if my presence has just woken him up minutes prior.
"I'm the new tenant. Apartment 716?" Rising up, I move my hand around to my jeans pocket to slip out the pair of keys with a jingle. His demeanor seems to stay the same: posture stiff but coming off as nonchalant as he can manage as he twirls around a cigarette.
The silence is almost deafening as I await his next words. Instead of a grumble in return, he takes one last drag before dropping his cigarette butt on the floor to meet it with a stomp of his boot. I haven't been able to make out what he looks like, but based on this first encounter, he doesn't seem the warmest.
"Don't let the door hit you on your way down," he bids.
I scoff in annoyance, raising my middle finger at his back as the steel access door shuts with a slam. I pull my phone out of my pocket to check the time, only to be met with an abundance of text messages from Connie wondering where I am and if I'm coming home for dinner.
Can't a lady get some peace?
I kick the empty boxes of lights before giving in and pulling at the bottom of them, stacking them flat as I mentally curse the very rude library staff until the roof is free of the cardboard in my hands. I trudge my way to the steel doors the mysterious man had just departed from moments prior before I halt in place once more. With a quick turn, I slowly walk towards the cigarette he had dropped and give it one last stomp for good measure before walking back towards the apartment.
"Well, aren't you a bucket full of sunshine," Connie teases as I toss my keys on the table and drop the flattened boxes with an equally depressed sigh.
"Very funny." I trudge the jacket from my figure and look over at her standing above the sink with a strainer in hand. "Spaghetti?" I attempt to mock her teasing tone earlier, just for her to snap her head at me with a smile. "I think I've met our very friendly library staff?"
"Very friendly, huh?" She smiles one last time, not picking up on my monotone sarcasm, and walks her way to the makeshift dinner table of larger cardboard boxes. She places a small bowl of spaghetti in front of me and shuffles her way to her side of the apartment.
I love Connie, I do. But this spaghetti isn't al dente.
"No, he was far from it," I mumble with a mouth full of burning hot, uncooked pasta. I'm too hungry to complain. We hadn't really eaten anything since our early lunch, and that was a quick grab-and-go from some New York fast-food place before we started unpacking. "He?" She questions with a quirked eyebrow, leaning down to toss a few noodles at Lilo who lay between us.
"Yeah, he. He was an asshole. Told me this was private property like I don't pay to live here."
Connie scrunches her thin blonde eyebrows, "Weird. The library is closed on Sunday, so unless Janice recently hired security, I can't see what library staff would be doing here."
"He did come off as security, not that I asked with him scolding me. Gruff guy, didn't get a good look at him, though."
She shrugs, taking a few more bites of her spaghetti, directing her thinking face to it. "I guess I could've cooked it longer, hm? At least the pasta tastes good."
"Yeah, the pasta tastes good," I agree, twirling the spaghetti around a fork.
Quietly shutting my door behind me, I walk towards my lonely mattress that floods the room. From what I was told, the bedroom I had was originally an office space. Miss Janice, the librarian and our landlord, pulled the office furniture from it when she heard Connie would be sharing the apartment. Miss Janice was Connie's godmother, though they hardly got to speak in recent years due to Connie's family situation, but it was clear to me that she was a sweet lady even without hearing all the stories Connie could remember from her early childhood.
While my room isn't unpacked yet, I had attempted to start earlier before I switched my focus to the rooftop view. I had left piles of clothes on my bed, and while it's a good trick to stop me from procrastinating so much before bed, it keeps me from getting any sleep as I have to find a place for them.
From there, I might as well put more clothes away. With how I packed, not everything was organized so neatly, though, so I had to find a place for this and that, and all the small little items I couldn't just leave in boxes forever!
I find myself unpacking box after box. At some point, I hear a tiny little knock on my door.
"Ana, you up?" Connie whispers from the other side of the door.
"Well, I wish I wasn't," I admit as I admire the progress I've made. The stack of folded boxes I've managed to empty is as tall as Lilo was.
It's when Connie moves her hand that I realize she held her digital camera.
"It's our first day, so I was thinking we should take some pictures of the city that'll be our new home for hopefully many years to come."
I look between her, the camera in her delicate hands, and the numerous piles of stuff that litter my floors before ultimately deciding. "Sure, why not?"
Locking the door behind me, I make sure to twist the handle a few times just to be sure it's genuinely closed. It's something I built out of habit - you can never be too sure about anything.
I look back at the rooftop access to the right of me, wondering if the man from before was up there. Averting my gaze to the storage room, I catch a glimpse of the tan blinds shuffling just a bit.
The dog park was a few blocks away, close enough that I could barely make out the top of the apartment. It was a lush, vibrant green landscape and smelled of freshly watered plants, but that didn't mean it was the safest place.
Connie was like this, even in Oregon. Photography was a hobby of hers long before she decided to pursue it as a career. Once we were close friends, she'd ask if I could walk around with her as she took pictures of everything. She particularly liked taking pictures of places at different spots through time and seeing how not just the area has changed, but how her skills have improved. She was a good photographer. A great photographer.
One, however, who never knows when to stop. At some point, it grew dark enough that walking around a dog park became hazardous, and I had to drag her out before she found something new she wanted to experiment with photographing.
"Do it when it's lighter out," I'd tell her again and again. "Let's come back later."
Eventually, finally, we found ourselves walking up the stairs of the library in hushed giggles, as I kept my arm wrapped around Connie as we attempted to be as quiet as we could. We were in a library after all.
I watched the other door in the hallway, the valuables closet with the mystery of the rare moving blinds as Connie struggled to unlock our own janky door, my eyes focusing on the blinds that I noticed shifted once again.
I know I'm not crazy.
"You coming?" She asks with a stifled laugh as she shoved the door open with her shoulder.
I put my hand up in response, "I'll be right up, kay?"
I leaned against the hallway now, attempting to be as nonchalant as possible. I wasn't quite sure what I was trying to do, but when the valuables door opened, instead of intrigue, I felt my heart drop.
That was the moment I first saw him—well, until I realized he was the same rude smoker on the rooftop. I could see him clearly this time. He was tall, his blue eyes bloodshot with bags under them and a duffel bag thrown lazily over one shoulder—I had questions. Now, and then, I knew there was something strange with how he moved.
There was an anger about him.
He passed by me without having glanced my way. His determined eyes were set on something down the hall, and he mindlessly held a lit cigarette. Taking a huff of the glowing tobacco before he headed down into the no-smoking library, the strange thing happened.
He broke from the thoughts plaguing his mind, and he looked back at me.