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This is a story I wrote a little over a year ago. I found it not too long ago and began to try and polish it up, but it is definitely not in its final stages yet

The women awoke with a start, when she thought she had heard rushed footsteps outside of the door to her apartment. Her paranoia only grew when she directed all her attention to listening for even the slightest sound, but she had heard nothing, it was absolute silence. It was almost like something out of a horror movie, pitch black, and there was no sound. She sat in her bed trying to working up the courage to get up and check to see what was going on, and every second she had just sat there her paranoia grew worse, the little voice in the back of her head, telling her that danger was near. This paranoia began to manifest itself in her heart beginning to race. Finally she managed to overcome her paranoia and got up out of bed, and while doing so she flipped the light switch on, illuminating her entire apartment. This did nothing to ease her though, like it normally would, if anything, she felt worse. Her brain was now telling herself that she was just being paranoid, and that nothing was outside, and yet in her heart, and her instincts were telling her that danger was lurking around tonight. She begins to walk slowly to the door, wanting nothing more than to prove her instincts wrong. Soon she was at the door, behind it would determine whether she was just being paranoid or if she was to die.
            She realized that she had been holding her breath, ever since she had reached the door, which must have been a while ago, as her head was beginning to feel very light. Now her nerves were beginning to kick in as she reach slowly for the door knob, her hand trembling with fear, even now her brain was telling her that opening the door may not be a good idea. She had to fight with her instincts, but eventually her hand finally made contact with the ice cold door knob, it was so cold she almost let go, but somehow she overcame the fear and instead she slowly turned it.
            Before she opened the door entirely she started to run over every scenario that could possibly play out, ranging from nothing behind the door all the way to the extreme that lurking behind her door was a masked psychopath just waiting to rape and kill her. Maybe the psychopath would eat her body too? She took another deep breath to ease her fear away, not that it really did much. Come one, what are the odds of any of that happening? She told herself as slowly let the door open, while it opened she was praying that it did not creak like it would in all the horror movies she had seen, often indicating that death was approaching. Alas, the door did not make a single sound, which helped ease her mind. Then she began to realize, there wasn’t any noise in the hallway, even the heater, that would often wake her from her sleep, was quite. She looked down the hallway, trying to assure no one was around.
            When she was satisfied that no one was in the hall she had heard a slight hiss come from the heating vent within her room. She let out a scream, as the noise had seemingly come from nowhere. She soon realized that it was only the heater in her room that made that sound. She smiled at her own paranoia and began closing the door, but just as she was about to close the door, she looked down at her welcome mat that had been with her since she graduated from High School a good thirteen years ago. She noticed that there was an intricately carved basket, possibly even hand carved as well. The basket had carvings of things like a snake, trees, and even an apple. These suggested that it was made for someone who was religious, making an obvious reference to Genesis, when the serpent tricked Eve into eating the forbidden Apple. She then picked the basket up and brought it back into her apartment, and turned the light on to the table beside her door. As she set the basket down she looked at the basket even more, but the contents of it were protected by a black silk cloth, and on top of it there was a card. She slowly reached for the card, and opened it: “I know how much you love apples, care to try these, I got them special for you.” There was no signature.

This was very true, ever since she was a little girl she would always consider apples her favorite fruit, and often she would never go a day without one. She lifted the cloth, and was not at all surprised that the contents of the basket was a bushel of red apples. The woman smiled looking at the apples, and began trying to figure out who would leave apples at her front door step in the middle of the night. This was such a romantic gesture in her opinion, and Valentine’s Day was only a few short days away. Maybe I have a secret admirer?
            She now reaches for one of the apples and gets her fingers wrapped around one of the beautiful red apples and begins lifting it to her mouth. Just before she takes a bite she notices a sharp pain in her fingers. She looks and sees two red spots, almost like a bite.
            She looks into the basket and is now able to see movement in the basket, almost like a slithering motion, and that’s when she sees it. The black head of a snake comes from between two apples, and shortly followed by at least four others, and all of them begin to look at her. Now she began to panic, as she recognized these snakes as Black Mambas, one of the most venomous snakes in the world. Its venom was capable of killing a man in under twenty-minutes, unless treated with anti-venom. She grabbed at the phone beside her, trying to call for help, but suddenly her legs, just seemed to stop working, and could no longer even support her weight, and the phone fell inches from her hand. But inches might as well have been worlds apart, with the way her muscles were contracting.
            As she fell to the floor she had heard a light chuckle come from the doorway, which she realizes is still open. She sees a man clad in black enter the room with a big smile on his face. He walks right up to the basket that hold the snakes and he whispers: “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to accept apples from strangers" he says, his voice so oddly calm. There was an odd tone to his calm voice, perhaps, excitement, or joy? The women had never seen this man before, the man who appeared to have never felt the sun against his cold pale skin. His eyes were his most distinguishing feature, they were red, not blood shot, he still had whites in his eye, but the area that normally held color in a human eye was just…red, blood red.

“The Black Mamba, it was quite an interesting snake, if I do say so myself” his voice, it was still so calm, how can his voice remain so utterly calm “but see, they aren’t normally, what you would call the most aggressive snake. At least, not as aggressive for the purposes I require. It was most fun attempting to get these wondrous creatures to attack at the slightest movement, like say for example, the movement of an apple. Then their venom, oh it is so much like something out of a horror story. The venom had to be faster acting, so it had to be modified to mutate on such a constant basis so that no anti-venom can treat it. Of course, there is the side effect of its venom speeding up, so it can actually kill in under 10 minutes.”

The Woman’s breath begins to slow down, she tries to draw in air, but her lungs don’t seem to even want to work. Again she gasps, trying to get air into her system, but to no avail. The venom had already paralyzed her lungs, she had maybe another minute of consciousness, then another two minutes before she died of oxygen deprivation. She looks up to her killer, trying to figure out, why he would do this to her. She had never seen him before in her life, she would recognize those blood red eyes.
            As she searched for an answer in her final moments of consciousness the man reaches to the basket without any fear and grabs one of the snakes. Somehow managing to avoid being bitten, but that wasn’t really it either. It seemed almost as if the snakes themselves feared him, that they feared biting into his flesh. He whispers to the snake: “Almost perfect”

Then the woman lost consciousness, never receiving her answer.