Soo, I'm a cleaner; and I work at night.  And.... sometimes.... it's pretty scary for no reasonable reason AT ALL! it just is.  So.... I've given it all to Dara to take care of for me.  re-reading this, I don't think it's very relatable but maybe, someone knows it's like to stand in front of an open window at night, paralysed with fear because they KNOW, whatever or whoever out there, can see them perfectly well through only a sheet of glass. 

Slowly Dara walked into the dark apartment and listened to her footsteps echoing coolly against the tiles.  Walls seemed to glimmer in the night, reflecting eerie light from the streetlights outside.  There was silence until an ordinary night sound was amplified to her straining ears.  Something sounded inside the apartment and Dara felt her whole body settle into hypersensitive alertness.  A single sound, but every fibre in Dara’s body was straining and tense, waiting for anything she was too frightened to imagine.  As long as she could remember Dara had been afraid of the dark.  Against all her own common sense and scorn from other people it persisted to haunt her mind.  Another sound met her ears and again Dara froze although she had not moved since the last one.  She could feel her heartbeat shaking her entire body as her eyes searched the darkness for a hostile presence.  Every second she held, only pulled her nerves tauter with fear.  Feeling as though the entire apartment, with her in it, would explode if something didn’t move Dara forced herself to step forward.  Again she forced herself to move, looking for a light switch.  Every movement held the resigned delicacy of a soldier stepping obediently over an active minefield.  Her fingers found the switch and Dara gratefully began breathing without terrible bands of trepidation around her chest.  Light was in the main room of her new apartment and with light the horrors of Dara’s imagination and memory shrank away from her.  Dragging in several more deep breaths and trying to believe that there was nothing stalking her, slinking still in the shadows; Dara looked around and once again felt the freezing fist of fear clench around her senses.  There were no curtains at the windows.  It was silly, it was irrational, it was completely without reason, but Dara could see the shapeless horrors at those windows.  The eyes, the murderous beings, preying hungrily on her through the flimsy flyscreen.  All the stories of monsters she had not wanted to hear or see or read flooded through her brain.  With no definite shape they slunk up to the gaping windows, gulping in Dara’s vulnerability as she stood in the light while they ravished her from the skulking darkness.  A breeze poked inquiringly in the window, teasing around Dara’s face and whispering threats from the invisible fiends lurking outside the light.  She had to close the windows.

Forcing herself to step closer to that first window was torture for Dara.  If anything had moved she would have screamed or fainted.  Her nerves had been strung high and to breaking point.  Each step closer to the window was like a step further over a gaping cavern of flames and vipers.  Shaking so much she found it hard to place her foot straight ahead of her, Dara went closer still to the window.  She couldn’t see out of it, only confused outlines.  If anything was out there, she wouldn’t know until it was on her.  The thought sent her forwards faster, slamming the window then springing away from it to the middle of the room.  Breathing hard, fists clenched Dara drew her body rigid and stared defiantly at the window.  She felt pitiful but the terror was so real.  Even still, the glass looked so frail, ineffectual.  She could be watched.  She could be seen through that window, by anything or one that wanted to.  There was too may windows.  Too many ways she could be surprised.  Too many points of vulnerability.  She couldn’t stop shaking and the tiny noises still unfamiliar to her ears sounded far too loudly.  Another sound and Dara went dizzy as she stood there in the middle of the room, afraid to move, terrified to stay where she was.  Moving jerkily, feeling thousands of eyes watching every move she made, Dara managed to get into the kitchen.  Forgetting that she was a reasonable adult –and not a recent one either – she cowered on the floor, hugging close to the solid timber of her cupboards.  It took her several heart wringing moments to locate her phone from her bag.  Desperate to dial the number but unable to hit the right numbers, Dara finally had the number ringing.  She could feel the cool metal dancing against her ear and reached the other hand up to grasp her wrist.  She had to pull herself together.  The dial tone sounded and Dara silently prayed for a speedy answer.  What if someone did get into the apartment? Would she be able to call for help?  Or would she simply collapse from sheer terror?  The thought was so real Dara could feel someone near her.  Someone or something.  Breathing hard but silently, eyes wide in her terror Dara almost fell off her heels when Seunghyun answered his phone.  Pulling more air in and feeling it thump with her rapid heartbeat Dara brushed hair off her forehead as she tried to concentrate.  Speaking called for phenomenal effort through the sense of something behind her.

“When you drop my microwave over could you please get Bom to send over a couple of spare blankets too?  I have no curtains yet.”

Her voice was calm but Dara had to command herself to speak normally.  She wanted to whisper so the other beings wouldn’t be able to follow the sound of her voice.  If she saw anything around the corner of her bench she would scream, she would be killed, mauled, shredded…

“Sure.  Oh, is it alright if I come tonight?  I’ve got the microwave now so I was thinking…”

Some frozen coil of fear in Dara’s stomach uncoiled a little.  “Yes, that’ll be fine.”

Her phone lay silent in her hand, then went black while Dara slowly bowed her head over folded arms and let tears press through her eyelids.  Seunghyun was coming.  He would bring blankets and the Fear could not get to her. 

Dara felt her whole being crystallise into petrified fear when the door knock came.  As soon as she discerned the noise her heart thumped once, held then began thumping again.  Great shaking beats that could be seen easily between her collar bones.  She had to tell him to come in but she couldn’t.  Her door wasn’t even locked, if it wasn’t Seunghyun they could do anything to her and she would be completely defenceless.  Breathing shallow, Dara curled her fingers around the handle of a cupboard and bit down on her lower lip.  All her fear from the night was culminating in this one moment.  Dara felt like she was blacking out and dragged in a huge breath of air as she flung her head back.  She would not faint.

Seunghyun shoved the front door open and peered inquiringly around it.  “Any-one home?”

A moment late he hastily put the microwave on the floor and straightened to catch Dara in his arms as she sprang from the kitchen floor and across the tiles to him.  Sobbing jerkily, Dara curled tighter and tighter against him.  Her hands were almost kneading his shirt front in her desperation to be as close to his physical presence as possible.  Seunghyun wrapped both arms securely around her, bending over slightly to rest his cheek on her chin.  He didn’t understand what was wrong but terror was emanating from her and he instantly became completely concerned with dispelling it.  For long minutes he simply held her, letting the fear sob out of her system until she gradually stopped shaking.

“Dara Jagiya, if anyone or anything ever tried to harm you, they’d have to get through me first.  Ok?”  He felt Dara nod against his chest and her fist clenched into his shirt loosened slightly while she snuggled more comfortably than in panic against him.  He rocked her gently, smiling into the night that had suddenly melted into harmlessness again.

Thanks, for reading, hope it wasn't tooooo unrelatable :)  also if you happen to be extremely bored I have other tabisan fics, or one... two I think, I can't remember. but if you're bored, they're there as well :)