Glenda

Ding, ding, ding, ding.

— I'm running!

Joyful, wrapping her robe around her, she rushed downstairs to quickly open the door to her beloved.

Going down the stairs through the windows curtained with transparent tulle, she did not see anyone on the porch. “Has he really left? I've been running for so long." But before she could begin to reproach herself, the doorbell rang again. She glanced at the porch again.

Right there on the stairs, goosebumps ran across her skin.

There's no one at the door.

“Maybe these are the tricks of the neighbor’s kids? Is there a twig glued to the button or is someone short hiding behind the wall?”

Glenda overcame her fear and continued to descend.

— Darling, call the police. It seems that some prankster is asking for a serious fine. — she shouted to someone in the bedroom.

“Let them think that I’m not alone. At school, this is exactly what we were taught to do to scare criminals.”

Ring. Ring.

— Well, it's not funny anymore.

Glenda furiously unlocked all the locks and swung the door open. There is no one behind her. She looked out onto the porch and looked around. There is no one below, nor above, nor along the edges of the porch, nor on the entire street. Deserted like a village.

She looked at the doorbell button. There was no twig or other devices on it. And there was such a deep silence that she couldn’t believe it was a metropolis. Cars, bicycles, even homeless people should have created noise, even if it was far away. But here it’s as if everyone has died out.

"Strange. This only happens in the creepiest movies."

Glenda entered the house again, trembling with unpleasant excitement.

And as soon as she slammed it, she became numb with horror.

A scream as if from fiery hell itself, the cry of a person or people dying a hellish death was heard right in the middle of the hall, one might say, a meter from her face.

But there is no one in the house.

The light from the windows perfectly illuminated the space of her new home. There's no one in it. It's just her screaming.

Horror shook Glenda's entire being, she suddenly realized that she needed to run, that she hated this damned house. That Mr. Holstein is an old scoundrel who should not have sold his property, but burned it.

Whoever it is, a ghost or someone else, she doesn't want to share four walls with him. It's time to get out of here and quickly.

The scream stopped, and like a hare, escaping a predator in one leap, she ran away along Helgolandsgade.

My legs carried my body, wet with fear, and before my eyes stood an empty but alive room.

Suddenly, out of breath, Glenda noticed that the lights behind her were slowly going out one by one.

She turned around and saw blackness. The street became dark without artificial light, and the stars and the moon were not visible because of the bright lamps directly above it.

“These don’t go out. Strange".

Was it possible to surprise her with something else now? It turned out that yes.

Barefoot, she took another step forward. Nothing. A couple more steps, again nothing, then another, until she was halfway to the lamppost in front.

Well, this one went out too.

Aware that the darkness was pursuing her, but somehow wildly and feignedly softly, a cold, all-pervading fear again took over her. She ran, accelerating more and more, until she was exhausted after four blocks, and was about to give in to the face of death or the horror that was chasing her so frantically, when suddenly she saw people, and again the noise of cars, the lights behind her turned on, as if in no way what never happened. Life said: “everything is fine, everything seemed to you,” ironically and even mockingly.

“What the hell was that! Is it really all a dream, and this is my sick fantasy?”

She rested her palms on her knees and tried to keep her breathing even. After catching her breath for a couple of minutes, Glenda noticed someone’s legs sticking out from under the bushes on the evenly trimmed lawn. She looked closely and saw they were wearing boots exactly like Jornas.

“Someone probably got drunk and didn’t make it to his apartment.”

Curiosity still got the better of her and the girl came closer. The pants turned out to be the same as her boyfriend's. She parted the branches of the bushes and screamed out loud.

Jornas lay dead with a small hole in his forehead, along which small splashes of blood were scattered, lifeless and with a sad expression on his face.

The wild cry of horror turned into silent sobs, she covered her mouth with her palm so as not to attract much attention to herself. One of the passers-by called an ambulance and the police.

Glenda stood in only a cotton robe and with bare legs on the wet asphalt, not understanding what to do next.

The sounds of sirens, the roar of people crowding around were heard only in the background, the hearing was still there, in the house where the scream was heard.