I turn the lights on.
“Who’s down there?” I yell from the top floor of my house.
I hear movement, but nobody says anything back, so I move quickly down the stairs to the middle floor. My heart is beating fast, at least twice its normal speed. I frantically start turning the lights on, one after another. I see nothing, nobody. A light shines up from the basement. I slowly walk down the stairs look around and see nobody. The door to the storage area is slightly open. A short figure stands before me, wearing a ski mask, very baggy clothes, and a pair of work gloves.
“Who are you? What do you want?” I ask
No response, the masked figure motions at me with the gun.
“I don’t know what the motion means. I don’t know what you want.”
Still no response, only a continued motion with the gun.
A yell from upstairs: “Ryan? Is everything all right?”
“That’s my girlfriend Jessica,” I say.
I take a moment, pause and say: “I’ve got to say goodbye to her. If this is the end, I should tell her this is the end.”
A more frantic sounding scream comes down the stairs: “Ryan. Ryan! Ryan? Please tell me you’re ok.”
I look at the masked figure and query: “well, what should I say?”
Still no words are spoken. The masked figure walks over to me closely, holds the gun to my head and moves towards my ear. I’m expecting something, some sort of whisper, word, gesture, anything, but there is only more silence.
I protest: “I have to say something. I have to tell her something. I might hate my girlfriend. She might have cheated on me a bunch of times with a bunch of different guys, but it’s not right to keep her upset like this. It’s not right to keep her waiting. If this is the end, I should tell her.”
The masked figure motions at me with the gun again, but this time I yell up the stairs: “Jessica, stay upstairs. Don’t come down. Call the police, right away.”
The masked figure throws hands in the air, in a what the hell did you do that for sort of motion.
I explain that “we can do whatever we want now, while she’s in the house. She’ll never come down, but we have to be quick, before the police get here.”
The masked figure drops the gun, removes mask, gloves, and shirt, revealing her large chest and beautiful long brown hair. She says: “you are a dirty dirty boy. You know you’re going to hell for this, right Ryan?”
“That’s cool Samantha, as long as you’re right there with me.”
We kiss and fight to see who can strip the other person first.