Silent steps on creaking floors
It should have been a pleasant night.
After a tiring day of work, it had been pure heaven to just sit down and relax, watching random movies with the love of your life huddled together under a big, fuzzy blanket.
However, apparently fate couldn't leave Minx have that one calm and serene night that she had looked forward to for the entirety of the week. No, it had to cross her and Krism's plans.
The evening had been fine. No, scratch that, it had been great. One might even say fantastic. Things only started to turn sour in the night. Like really in the middle of the night. The "honestly, I wouldn't even get out of my bet to go to the toilet because the night is so nighty" kind of middle of the night.
To put it simply: sometime in the early morning, around 3am if she remembered correctly, something happened to stir up the peaceful sleep the two of them were sharing.
That something just so happened to be a ringing phone. Minx' phone to be exact.
Said phone owner woke up to drowsily stumble over to the table this pure conception of the devil was currently being noisy on while cursing it with everything her sleepy mind could muster at the moment, which wasn't all that much.
Her annoyance only grew when she looked at the caller ID: "David fucking Brown 3". As much as she liked her friend, he knew not to call her at night, they had talked about this subject enough for him to remember this tiny little detail about her.
She took the call, ready to give him a piece of her mind: "Hey there, annoyance in a band, I don't know if you-" she was interrupted by a hasty, but still relieved: "Thanks God, I reached you Minx."
Her desire to scream in his face until it flew of, surrounded the globe then came back to slap him evaporated at once, turning into worry at her friends panicked tone. "Dave? Are you alright?" Maybe there was no reason to worry, she shouldn't just assume the worst and jump to conclusions.
The answer came immediately: "There's someone in my apartment, I can hear them rummaging through the kitchen drawers."
Yeah, she definitely had a reason to worry now. "Have you called the police yet?"
"No, I wasn't really thinking straight. I just panicked and called the first person I could think of"
Minx took a deep breath. Her panicking right now wouldn't help anyone, especially not Dave, who sounded like he could collapse at any moment judging by his fast and shallow breaths.
"Ok, I want you to stay on the phone with me, whatever happens, don't hang up now. I'm gonna call the police now. Can you lock your bedroom door?"
"No, the only door in the apartment that I can look is the bathroom door, and I can't get there without passing next to the kitchen."
"Then stay in your room and try to make as little noise as possible. Can you try to slow down your breathing a little bit?"
"Well I can try."
During the short conversation they had, she had moved across her apartment toward their fixed line, typing in the right number to contact the police, she was – again – interrupted by a hand touching her shoulder.
With how tense and nervous she was right now, it took all she had not to start screaming right now.
"A bit jumpy tonight, aren't we?"
She turned around to see Krism, smiling gently albeit slightly sleepy. However, concern took over her face as soon as she saw her wife's nervous posture and worried look.
Her gaze turned to the cell phone that she had in one hand and the houses phone that she held in the other. "Is everything alright?"
Minx shook her head: "I have Dave on the line, there's someone in his apartment."
"Do you want me to call the police so that you can continue talking to him?"
Oh, how she loved that woman. She knew that Minx would rather continue to talk to her friend and support him over the phone than to have to call the police, where she would be unable to continue to help him.
"Thank you, sweetheart, you're awesome."
She shoved the phone into Krism's hands and, with a last grateful glance directed to her beloved, she put her cell phone back to her ear.
"Dave, are you still there?"
"Yeah" his breaths had considerably slowed, but now she could hear his voice trembling. She needed to think of something to take his mind away from the current situation.
"So, how was your day?", maybe not the best tactic, but it was better than nothing, and besides, it's really hard to think of things to say when one of your closest friend's safety might be at risk.
"Do you really think this is the right moment? I have a stranger in my home."
"Yes, and we're calling the police right now because of that, so you might as well tell me what you did today."
She heard a soft chuckle coming from the other side of the phone. Yep, she absolutely counted that as a small victory. "You're incorrigible, do you know that?"
"Yeah, so I've been told countless times by various people, including you"
"Yeah well, it's the truth."
She was about to answer when her wife joined her.
"They just send a patrol, they should be there soon.", she smiled at Minx.
The Let's player felt instant relief. The only thing they had to do now was to wait, her friend would be safe soon. Everything was going to be alright.
She had to tell him at once: "Hey Dave, great news, the police is on its way"
"Really? Great, now all I have to do is -shit."
"Hey! Are you okay, is everything alright?"
The answer was whispered this time: "Whoever it is just left the kitchen and is heading towards the bedroom!"
Even with his hushed tone I could hear the urgency in his voice. I could also hear his panic beginning to crawl into his voice again.
"Okay, stay calm. Is there somewhere in your room where you can hide? Under the bed or in a wardrobe or something?", I could not help but feel nervous again. Of course, something like that had to happen, everything had been going way too smoothly.
"No, there's nothing", I could hear his breaths getting rushed again with his voice audibly rising in volume. This really wasn't good, they couldn't afford for the stranger to hear him, that would blow their last chance of Dave's presence going by unnoticed.
"Dave, everything is going to be alright, you need to calm down right now if you don't want them to discover you"
This really hadn't been the right to say apparently, since she heard his breath pick up in speed a lot. If this continued he was going to hyperventilate sooner of later. However, her tactic seemed to have worked in one regard. His voice was much lower the next time he spoke. What he said however, chilled her to her core: "The stranger is right in front of my door, he's coming in right now."
The tension in the air was so thick you could go search for Excalibur, pull the legendary sword from it's stone and then put all of your strength into one stroke and you still would only scratch it at most.
She didn't know what to say.
"Minx are you still there?"
"Yeah, I'm there."
"What should I do?"
"Honestly, I have no idea."
"Minx?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For everything."
"Dave?"
She didn't get an answer as in exactly this moment, a loud bang was heard from the other end of the line. It was followed by loud voices and a clattering, presumably as the phone was dropped to the floor. Then a scream, unmistakably Dave's. A few more loud noises, a thump, like when something heavy and soft fell over – this better not be what she thinks it is – and a pained whine that confirms her earlier suspicion of the thump being produced by Dave's body hitting the floor.
"Dave? DAVE?" The response to that was a loud crack, then the line went dead.
Did they just step on the phone?
Suddenly the gravity of the situation sank in, and now, there was no holding her.
In complete disregard of the fact that she was still only wearing her pyjamas, she stormed out of the door and ran down the stairs. Once she reached the ground floor, she stormed out of the front door of the apartment complex and ran outside. She realized that it might not have been a good idea to go out in the middle of the winter in nothing but thin pyjamas without car keys that would be necessary to reach her friends home.
Just when Minx was about to go back the door opened and Krism appeared with a coat and said car keys.
"You're a real live saver, do you know that?"
The only response she got was a smile that was probably meant to be calming, however she could see the worry that was practically written all over her wife's face.
Krism drove them, since she was the only one of the to who wouldn't cause a giant car crash right now. During the entirety of the drive Minx felt like she was in some sort trance, everything seemed blurry.
When they arrived at Dave's house the police were already on place. Minx' terrified self somehow found a way to squeeze her way through the policemen into her friend's apartment, ignoring the multitude of "STOP"'s that she was getting from all sides.
The sight that greeted her in Dave's bedroom was horrifying. The whole place was trashed, and a small pool of blood was located not to far away from a broken cell phone, that was lying smashed on the ground.
She froze up while she took it all in, and once she was done, she could not find it in herself to start moving again. A police officer gently took her by the arm and softly coaxed her into leaving.
Once she was outside, the fresh air seemed to slap some sense into her. Not to far off, Krism was talking to some police officers, probably detailing the situation and telling them that the crazy woman who just stormed right into a crime scene in her pyjamas was her wife, in search of her friends.
But Dave wasn't here, all that was left was a small pool of blood and a broken phone.
Right here, right now, probably wasn't the best moment to let her emotions go, but she didn't really care.
To her, asphalt never looked so soft like right now.
She broke down and cried.
AN: Okay, so first, thank you to everyone who read this until now. I know that this is a pretty open end but if the demand is big enough (aka. If one or two people ask for this) I might write two more chapters. One which would detail boyinaband's side of the story and another one that would bring an end.
Something that I should probably add is that I'm quite unexperienced when it comes to writing and that English isn't my native language. So if made any mistakes let me know and I will correct them.