You are alone in the house. It is 10 o'clock at night. You turned off the television set in your bedroom twenty minutes ago and are tossing and turning as you try to fall asleep. As is typical, your mind is wandering and you are imagining the scary thoughts that come to you in the darkness when you are alone. What happens when we die? Am I really alone in the house? What was that noise? All of this keeps you from sleeping.

There is a creak downstairs. You strain to hear more, but nothing comes. You roll, then close your eyes and turn to your side. There is another creak. Your mind begins to race at thoughts of an intruder in the house, but you calm yourself.

Then the stairs begin to groan. Someone is coming up. Your eyes shoot open and dart around the room to find a weapon. The sounds have quickly become unmistakable, there's someone on the stairs. They are still hard to make out over the sounds of your heartbeat.

You frantically try to remember how you'd deal with this situation. You've played this scenario over and over in your head a hundred times while trying to go to sleep. You'll stay in bed, pretend to be asleep, and hope that he doesn't enter the bedroom. Since burglars are naturally cowardly, he'll avoid that room so as not to risk a confrontation.

The footsteps have reached the top of the stairs and paused. They go across the hallway into the office where the computer is. You see the shadow of the intruder pass in front of your doorway. This has bought you some time.

The only thing in the room that you've thought of as a reasonable weapon is the fire extinguisher next to your bed, but you don't know how you can grab it while still maintaining your appearance of being asleep. If you can hear him this easily, surely he can hear you as well.

You hear things rustling in the other room. It sounds like he's disconnecting the computer. He's distracted. You take the opportunity to gingerly slide out of bed onto the floor. There's an almost silent noise as you hit the floor and you freeze, but there is no response from the other room. It feels like you haven't breathed since this began.

Carefully, you slide yourself under the bed and grab the extinguisher from the far corner. And you remain there. He'll only see you if he stoops down to look under the bed for some reason, and hopefully he won't. But if he does, you'll smack him in the face. That should give you the advantage and throw him off guard.

Black boots enter your room and your heart squeezes in your chest. He pauses, then heads towards your dresser. There are light clinks as he rummages through your wallet and grabs your watch. Then, swiftly he leaves. You don't come out until the next afternoon.