Hunter in the Hallway

I awoke to soft light in the hallway outside my room. Soft greenness pulsed faintly about chest high, far below where the hallway light was mounted. The ebb and flow of it's intensity gave it a kind of bobbing motion.

There was no sign of the sun outside my window. I had no interest in being awake until the sun was well and truly over the treeline. I just wanted to go back to sleep and resented whatever this was that woke me up in the first place. But it was odd. And I resented that too.

Forcing myself from the warm safety of my blankets and out into the wild darkness of my room, I gingerly stepped into a spot clear of dirty clothes and stacked fitness magazines that had never been read.

The floor creaked in response.

Was it my imagination or did the light seem to stiffen?

Holding onto me bedroom's door frame, I peeked out into the hallway and found a murky reflection of my naked self staring back from the other side of green light that hung in the air. With it came the noisome rancidity of spoiled eggs.