Lia didn't know what she hated more. The over abundance of stairs in front of her, the cat that always seemed to get into the public access stairway for jump scares, or the creepy next door neighbor that was always watching her enter while smoking outside their apartment door.

'Come on, Lia. You knew that starting over wouldn't be easy,' she thought to herself as she tried to use her hip to balance the bag in her hands as she continued making her way upstairs.

Lia's entire life she had grown up in the same small town with the same old faces. Everyone knew her since the day she was born it felt like, and it felt like she was walking under a microscope wherever she went. Lia knew that she was at the point in her life where her life was just beginning - and instead of settling down where she had been all along - she decided to take her new beginnings somewhere else. That somewhere else was a city eight hours away from her small hometown. Here there were too many people for her to be picked out. She could be invisible and find herself like she always wanted to instead of having people determine who she was going to be for her.

The only downside to it was that she was completely alone. The few friends she had and her family were all back home. Her family worried about her being in a big city on her own. She was warned that people weren't kind; that the world was filled with people with ulterior motives.

The only one with an ulterior motive in Lia's opinion was this stupid cat she was still looking for.

Lia stepped up a few more of the rickety steps, keeping her eyes trained on the circular holes in the walls of the stairwell that the cat liked to hide in. As she picked her way upstairs, she heard the creepy next door neighbor laugh; choking on his exhale of smoke as he did.

Never mind. The apartment neighbor probably had an ulterior motive too. If she was honest with herself, she really hated living where she was. However, Lia knew she couldn't be picky with her accommodations. She didn't have much money, and this was the only place that was within her budget.

In the whole of her apartment building, there were only four residents. There was her and the creepy smoker on the right side of the landing and an elderly cat lady and a recluse on the left. She had met the cat lady once when she tried to welcome Lia to the building with a plate of homemade cookies that were infested with cat hair. The only resident Lia hadn't met was the recluse. Lia had to say that she did watch the door across from hers from time to time to see if it would open, but it would never budge. She wondered sometimes if the resident was dead.

Just as Lia was about to step up the second to last step, the dreaded jump scare cat leaped out from hiding with a screechy MEOW, startling Lia so much that she almost stumbled backwards down the stairs.

"Scared of a little cat are we?"

Lia ignored her creepy neighbor, righting herself to walk up the last couple of stairs to her apartment. She felt the man staring over at her the whole time she tried to fumble with her lock. As she hip checked the door open, Lia forced herself to look over at the man who was looking at her feet before slowly allowing his gaze to go up to her head; a smirk forming around the cigarette dangling from his mouth. Lia fought the feeling of revulsion that rolled over as she quickly stepped across the threshold to her apartment; locking the door behind her.

"You asked for this kind of life..." muttered Lia to herself as she made her way to the kitchen with her bag of groceries. "Just take a nice shower before your interview to wash off the ick."

Lia unloaded the non-perishables she had bought from the bag, opening the bare cupboards and beginning to carefully stack them inside. The sounds of the honking traffic from outside drifted through her open living room windows as she finished putting everything away. Her eyes drifted to the digital time displayed on her microwave. She had approximately an hour until her online interview. She felt a different sort of nausea roll through her as she made her way towards her bedroom. The closet was still open from her perusing earlier that morning before her shopping; evidence of her panic strewn about the room. Her clothes were everywhere but on the hangers where they were supposed to be.

"They can only see me from the top up technically," said Lia out loud to herself as she looked among the splayed clothing for something presentable. After several minutes of debating, she finally decided upon a simple purple blouse that had light pink flowers on it and a slight scoop neck to it.

Lia took the blouse and a pair of blue jeans into the bathroom to freshen up and take a shower. She wanted to try to make herself look nice before going back out to the living room with her laptop. She set it down on the desk in front of the window, booting it up as she took her seat. Lia felt her hands become sweaty as she rubbed them against the jeans she was wearing. There was a lot riding on this.

Needless to say, Lia's nerves got the better of her during the interview to the point where she would forget how to properly answer the questions they asked of her. By the time the half hour interview was over, Lia felt like a failure. She knew that the only thing that could distract her at that moment was getting out. She thought that maybe some fresh air might help her feel better.

She grabbed her purse before moving to go out the front door. When she left her apartment - turning to lock it - she noticed that her creepy neighbor was still there smoking. She didn't understand how his lungs could take such filth. She could feel his eyes looking over at her again, letting out a whistle her way.

"Will you look at the well dressed woman..."

Lia felt a flush come to her cheeks, keeping her head ducked as she tried to move past him to get to the stairwell. The man had other plans though as he pushed off the wall, sticking out an arm to stop her.

"Where are you going so fast?..."

"Out..."

"Where?"

"Doesn't matter."

The whole time the man was talking to her, Lia kept her eyes trained on the stained green hallway carpet.

"Such a shame that you'd leave so soon. Pretty things are rare."

She heard a door opening across the landing, figuring that it was the elderly lady looking for her escaped cat in the hallway. Lia wasn't really concerned about it though since she was more occupied with her creep of a neighbor. He was so close to her at this point that Lia could smell the sweat on his clothes. Gripping her purse tightly in her hand, she tried to move an arm to hit him upside the head with it, but he quickly grabbed her wrist.

"What are you doing, pretty lady?"

"LET GO OF ME!"

His grip tightened on her wrist as she tried to twist her body away from him, hitting her lower back on the banister in the process. Lia was panicking internally, figuring that her day couldn't get much worse. It was then that someone clad entirely in black stepped forward. They laid their hand on the creep's shoulder, yanking him violently backwards. The creep was yanked backwards so hard that his back hit the wall opposite them.

"You heard the lady. Hands off."

Lia looked up at her black dressed rescuer. She wanted to see some part of their face, but she couldn't see anything. All she could make out was the outline of their body. She knew they were male from the voice and the outline, but that was all she knew of this stranger. Who were they? Was it possible they were the recluse? The creep tried to come towards her again, forcing her rescuer to put their hand on the creep's shoulder to press him against the wall.

"What did I just say?" growled her rescuer.

The creep turned his head to sneer at the man pinning him to the wall with one hand, reaching up a hand to slap at the tinted sunglasses on the other's face. Lia watched as they skittered across the landing, causing her rescuer to grab the man by both shoulders to effectively pin him to the wall. That lasted for about half a second though as the creep managed to somehow wriggle free and throw a punch at the other. The other was quicker though, tackling him to the floor where he punched him back to knock him out. Lia stood there in shock as her rescuer stayed still for a moment. They reached up a hand to fix the black hat on their head before keeping their head down to look for their sunglasses. Lia saw where the sunglasses were, moving to pick them up and hold them out to him.

"Here," she said softly.

As she looked up, she saw the gentlest and deepest brown eyes she had ever seen looking back at her. His eyes seemed to widen in surprise at making eye contact with her, quickly taking the sunglasses and shoving them back on his face as he stumbled to his feet.

"Thank you for saving me," Lia tried to say, but she figured it fell on deaf ears as the man quickly raced back across the landing, slamming the door shut behind him.

So this man was the recluse. Of course he had to be just as odd as the rest of the residents. Lia dug out her cell phone to call the police to call in the assault, answering their questions to the best of her ability as they hauled the miserable man off the floor and out to the cruiser outside. The whole time though, her mind kept thinking about the man who had saved her. The police tried knocking on the apartment door to get the man's side of the story, so the recluse opened it again. He was still covered head to toe in black. As soon as the officers were done, the door was shut again.

Lia tried knocking on the door a few times after that, but an answer didn't come.

"Thank you for what you did to protect me," said Lia out loud. "You helped this Thursday to not be the worst day of my life."

No answer came still, leaving Lia to go back across the hall. She decided to stick around her apartment instead of going out. She had, had enough excitement for one day.