There’s nothing quite as terrifying as thinking that you’re alone, only to find out you were mistaken.
This happened to me often as a child when my brothers would come home early and scared the crap out of me on purpose.
They would hide somewhere in the house and come popping out of the closet as I walked through the hallway. As such, I probably developed a bit of shell-shocked in adulthood. Loud sounds and sudden movements really freaked me out. That’s why I nearly wet myself the other day when I walked into the office at work and someone emerged from the shadows unexpectedly. A tall, looming figure entered my peripheral vision and I nearly hit the floor. I instinctively grab for my pepper spray, and almost maced my coworker straight in the face. When I realized it was him, I screamed in his face for scaring me so badly. He was extremely apologetic, and begin telling me what had happened. Apparently he had been stuck at the office extremely late the night before. When he was getting ready to leave, he started getting strange notifications from his smart thermostat. The temperature control device was freaking out, telling him that the heater had gone offline. He immediately called his landlord to come check out the heating system, but the landlord wouldn’t answer to make this ventilation check up. Instead, my co-worker had to drive all the way to his place only to find out it was freezing cold. The furnace was not working. It was too late at night to call out Heating and Cooling service, so he turned back around and drove to work. He made a bed and used the heat in the office to make it through the chilly night. It was quite an ordeal – for us both.