#FridayFlash - Footsteps

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Image by HBrinkman

I'm reading in bed when I hear footsteps on the stairs. I freeze, book in hand, listening hard. I hope it's just the house settling, floorboards getting used to the night time air, but no, I hear them again. Footsteps, but I'm the only one home. I wriggle further under the covers, as though a duvet will somehow protect me.

The footsteps stop on the landing, and head for the bathroom. Whoever it is hasn't made any effort to be quiet. I can hear the tap running, and what sounds like someone scrubbing their teeth. What? What intruder brushes their teeth?

I throw back the covers and get out of bed. I reach the door just as the tap stops in the bathroom. I look onto the landing in time to see the intruder open the door.

I watch myself leave the bathroom dressed in the clothes I was wearing before I got changed for bed. The other me crosses the landing and walks straight through me, as if I'm not standing here. I feel nothing but a breeze but the other me shivers. I remember shivering before I went to bed, making a mental note to turn up the heating.

The other me, the me that was, gets changed and slips into bed. I watch her start reading, engrossed in her book until she hears what I hear - footsteps on the stairs.