"Help"- Scary Flash Fiction

Help.

I liked to think of my flat as cosy, silent, but cosy. It was me, myself and I. There were times when I wished I had some company; but I had to get used to it, I had no choice. To be quite honest I didn’t actually know any different, my parents had died back when I was a youngster; just like the rest of the world.

I’d never known the meaning of the word scared; I just knew it was an emotion. What was I to be scared of? It was me against the world: always had been, always will be. That’s what I had believed anyway, until that one day.

It was like any other day for me; I rolled out of bed around half past ten, picked up yet another rusty tin of baked beans from the cupboard and cut the can open with a knife. I slowly poured them into a glass bowl and lit the fire I had built in the centre of the living room floor only the night before.  The flames rose high and the gentle sounds of wood cracking automatically made the world feel louder. I left my food sitting next to it as I got changed out of my timeworn, withered tracksuit and into my rancid leggings and vest top. I sat down and began to consume a spoonful of the tasteless, mouldy looking beans and swallowed.

I wasn’t even half way through breakfast when it happened. The sound that changed my life forever: knock. My bewildered oak stained door began to make noises, not from the inside, but from the out. The door that hadn’t been opened in nearly 6 weeks began to rumble, I dropped the bowl. Boiling hot beans scuttled across the floor and the steam surrounded my body, I was shaking from head to toe, you know that sick feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you know something could go really well or really badly? Yes, that’s how I felt.

“It’s just the wind,” I told myself. I cupped my hands over my ears and bent over.
“It’s just the wind. It’s just the wind.” I kept repeating over and over again. I needed to reassure my thoughts that nothing was going to hurt me, I took one deep breathe and looked up. There it was again: knock. I jumped. This couldn’t be happening, not again. I knew the only way to resolve this problem would be to open the door and see what the fuss was about; but something’s are easier said than done.

I stood up trying to dodge the beans below me; I put my left foot in front of the right and began to step in the direction of the door. I had reached my destination. This was what being scared felt like. I slowly turned the door handle down and pulled it against me. I gasped.

Help.