At first, the crash sounded like part of my dream. I slowly sat up in my bed and pushed the heavy covers away. It was a cold night in the dead of January and my body shivered without the warmth of my blankets. As I moved towards the door to my room, a loose floorboard underneath my foot let out a loud creak. My pulse quickened and I winced in the darkness. I waited until the fear subsided and pushed myself farther down the hallway. The lights from the house across the street were helpful, but my eyes still struggled to make out the stairs. Although the smooth surface of the railing was reassuring, the stairs presented a dangerous obstacle. I held my breath and tried to imagine that my feet were gliding on water, but even the smallest creak seemed like a nuclear explosion. Each minute felt like an hour until my foot finally hit the bottom of the stairs. Anxious to reach the backdoor, I walked as fast as I could across the cold tiled floor of the kitchen and almost tripped over the mass of shoes by the door. My heart thumped wildly in my chest as I fumbled with the door handle and grasped a tiny latch on the side. As I heard the sharp sounds of the lock clicking into place, relief washed over me and I sank slowly to the floor.
That was the fourth time I had woken up in the middle of the night that week. Each time it was exactly the same and just as frightening. It happened so frequently that I even started to dread going to sleep. Back then, I didn’t know what exactly it was that frightened me so much. Whether it was after watching a scary movie or staying home alone, that same feeling of fear continued to haunt me for the longest time. It wasn't until later in my life when I started to discover and confront this fear.
I had always loved the intensity of crime shows and the way they kept me guessing, but something changed as I grew older. I still found them exciting, but an uneasy feeling would always creep in towards the end of each episode. Even though the main characters would always catch the bad guy, the crimes they committed started to bother me. They seemed too realistic and it started to sink in that what happened in the shows could happen to me. They made me wonder if I could survive what some of the characters went through. My mom would always say, “Katherine, try to think about something else.” But after an episode of TV and telling myself everything was fine, I was scared and I didn’t know why.
The night I realized my biggest fear was a windy night in the middle of October of last year. My mom was gone on a business trip to North Carolina and my sister was at a friend's house. I was very excited because my Dad and I had planned for a movie night. We hadn’t decided what to watch, but I was in the mood for a horror movie. Although it took endless amounts of persuasion on my part, I finally got him to agree on the scariest horror film I could think of: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
Now you're probably wondering why I wanted to watch the Shining if I couldn't watch crime shows without being terrified. And your right, it was a stupid choice on my part. After the film, I laid awake picturing the scariest scenes in the movie and what I would have done in those situations. It was at that moment that I realized my biggest fear. I was afraid that I would be too weak in the face of danger. Those nights where I would wake up and lock the door suddenly made sense. I needed to avoid danger because I was too afraid I wouldn't be able to face it. After understanding my fear, I still didn’t know what to do about it. I have always believed that people are bigger than their fears, but it seemed impossible to get over mine. Deep down I knew the only way things could go. Like any fear in life, the only way to truly overcome it is to face it.
The chance to face my biggest fear came on a hot night in the middle of August of this year. Freezing cold air blasted from the air conditioner and the warm light from my lamp barely illuminated a copy of my favorite book: A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. Struggling to keep my eyes open, I placed the book on my dresser and slid under the covers. I turned the switch of my lamp until it clicked. The moments while lying in my dark and cool room were peaceful and silent, until they were brutally interrupted. The blaring sound of the alarm scared the living daylights out of me. It continued to penetrate the silence until I couldn’t take it anymore. I threw the covers away and yanked the door open into the brightly lit hallway. My mom was squinting and hovering over the alarm panel, attempting to turn it off. When the sound finally stopped, I announced with annoyance, “Great, now I won’t be able to go back to sleep. Was that Dad?”
My mom glanced over at me. “No, he’s upstairs.”
Assuming it had to be my sister, I sighed and shouted, “Margaret, did you open the door with the alarm on again?”
Instead of hearing a yes from downstairs, I heard my sister’s faint voice back in the hallway. “No, I’m in my room.”
It was at that moment that everything slowed down. I stood there in shock as my worst nightmare came true; a stranger was in my house. When I heard the creaking of floorboards coming from downstairs, waves of panic and fear washed over me. I looked to my mom for help, but she mirrored the same look of fear. She shouted, “Chris, I think there's someone in our house!”. I was already afraid, but something about hearing those words from someone else's mouth made it ten times worse. Then something I never expected happened. A feeling of determination almost possessed me as I moved towards the stairs. All those late nights won’t be for nothing. Descending the stairs was always nerve racking, but not like this. Each step farther down was a step closer to my biggest fear, but there was no turning back now. Rounding the corner of the stairs, I saw them. The outline of their silhouette stood out against the darkness. I started to panic, but then something strange happened. I searched for that feeling of fear, but it seemed far away. For some reason, finally being face to face with the stranger wasn't as scary as I’d thought. It felt as though what happened next wasn’t just up to fate. For the first time in a long time, I felt in control. I felt... powerful.
After the incident, we learned that the stranger was the nurse for the elderly man across the street. She had wandered into our house by accident. During that whole time, her intentions had not been bad at all. It turned out that while I confronted my fear in the darkness, she was just as afraid as I was.