…The quietness of the residential street enhances the echo of her heels clicking against the sidewalk. It is late. Families sleep peacefully in their beds. The only other sound heard is the occasional barking dog, while the night April air succumbs to the soft scent of honeysuckle. 

Up ahead, the street light marks her apartment only one block away, but her legs feel like rubber. Can she get there fast enough? Shadows of trees pulsate in her peripheral vision changing form briefly and she wonders if there stood a human, but she is afraid to look, and the tingles creep upward on her neck.

Her quick steps break into a run. She enters her home quickly, out of breath, and abruptly slams the door behind her, and locks it.

Exhausted, shaky, and weak in strength, she fumbles for the crumpled note that lay at the bottom of her purse. Typewritten, there is no way to identify the handwriting and decipher who the culprit might be. The words are eerie. She reads them once more.

 Dearest Rachelle:

Fear can grip the imagination and run it wild beyond relief. It does have a voice: A voice of mockery. It creeps in quietly, dimly revealing itself in minuscule shadows or in gentle intermittent knocks. It lives in a little box with limited space, and only ignorance can give it life.

“What is this suppose to mean?,” she questions. The words are certainly half-true, she thought. However, Rachelle does not consider herself ignorant for she works a twenty-hour week in the business office at the local university and attends there as a full-time student. Furthermore, she concludes, she does not lend her mind to the devil’s playground.

At that, Rachelle begins to reflect upon every face of every person she associates with on a daily basis since her arrival on campus. On the one hand, she considers the weirdo boy always smiling at her in algebra class, and on the other hand, the girl that accused her of trying to steal her ugly boyfriend. No, that could not be she concludes. Rachelle tucks away the note and promises herself to have her car repaired regardless of the cost, especially now, for she can no longer take the chance of walking home after dark.

She breathes a sigh of relief that she is off work the next two days, and not due for class attendance until the next three. She considers the possibility of spending her time off searching for work elsewhere, but she refuses to quit her schooling no matter what. The degree in which she is working on is now less than one year away, and she cannot allow this unusual thread of circumstance that came out of nowhere, change her course, and stop her dreams.