Email to Mr. Nightmare

## Synopsis

An 18 year old kid named Colin recounts the time that a homeless man snuck into his and his single mother's townhouse simply because she left the door open while checking the mailbox. When hid [plot skips] . Later that night, the homeless man snuck around the house, grabbing expensive valuables and food, along with their money and wallets. Colin, who was in bed at the time scrolling through his phone, heard the noises and initially shrugged it off until his bedroom door creaked open to reveal the homeless man entering the room. Colin hid in the closet with his baseball bat and call. The homeless man leaves the house just as the police arrive, but he managed to flee the scene with an abundance of household valuables, along with the safe and all the money laying around inside the house. However, he was later identified when the homeless man robbed his grandmother's house, where he was arrested. However, neither the mother nor the grandmother had the emergency funds needed to press charges against him, and the valuables that the homeless man had confiscated from Colin and his mother were never retrieved from him, making it unknown how they were lost.

## Email

Up until I moved out for college a month after this happened, I was living with my single mom in a two-story townhouse. It was on a typical overcast Saturday morning during the summertime when both of us had little to do throughout the weekends. I was in the kitchen, cutting up some fruit to make a smoothie for myself, while my mom was outside to grab the mail. In our complex, we had these cluster mailboxes for each unit, meaning that either one of us would have to walk outside a fair distance from our front door to grab our mail from our respective box. My mom would usually leave the front door open while she grabbed the mail, given that it would only take half a minute to do so. Plus, we lived in a relatively safe and quiet townhouse complex, so it shouldn't have ever been a problem. I heard footsteps enter through the house. They almost sounded a bit rushed and stagnant, as if they stopped every five seconds or so, but then again, I couldn't see the front door from the kitchen, so I assumed it was my mom coming back in, yet I didn't hear the front door shut. I heard those footsteps move past the kitchen, then I heard them stop again, possibly by the counter. Instinctively, I turned my head towards my mom, but she wasn't there. "Mom?" I asked, confused, but after a quick glance, I shrugged it off and started up the blender. I could swear, even as I had the blender on full blast, I could hear some slight shuffling coming from behind me that seemed to fade after a few seconds, but when I looked again, nobody was there. Again, I assumed it was my mom coming back inside. 30 seconds later, however, I heard my mom shut the front door and enter through the house. I stopped the blender and asked, "Mom, was that you coming inside a minute ago?" "I just came in with the mail," she replied. "I thought I heard you coming inside and walking past the kitchen," I said. [SLIGHT PLOT SKIP] I grabbed a large kitchen knife and started searching the main floor, then moving on to the upstairs—checking every closet, every corner, and any other potential hiding places.

## Trivia

* Colin, while not particularly observant or aware of danger, is cautious of danger and will take it seriously whenever it arises.
* The homeless man sneaks in through the front door while the mom is outside grabbing the mail, and when she and Colin search the house, he