The wind keeps howling. Except it gets louder and louder with every passing second, almost peeling the skin off of my face - the only body part I value on myself.

As I finally see the familiar building, I revise the only information I'm going to be needing as of now. Ninth floor, apartment number... apartment... Great, I already forgot. It's okay; they'll let me know if I enter the wrong house.

I get distracted blowing hot air and watching it turn into a fog and accidentally pass the building. Then I make a turn trying not to make it too obvious that I'm an idiot, and sneakily go back to my destination.

Twiddling the set of keys in my bag with my frozen fingers, I finally find the new ones. Inside the elevator, it smells pretty foul. I can't say that I had high expectations from the price I paid for this, but the fact that I have the house all to myself for six months keeps providing me the stamina I need to drag my two suitcases out of the elevator.

And now for the hardest part of this whole thing - finding my apartment when I've only been there twice with the landlord. He's not here to guide me now. God knows where he is. Why am I even thinking of him?

A faint memory surfaces and I make my way towards that one door that looks familiar. I remember that pink "welcome" doormat. It has to be the correct house.

Before I can double-check the folder of my memories, my feet take me there. I take out the keys, push them in, and unlock the door. Then I hesitantly push the handle down, opening the door carefully for no reason at all, and finally, go in.

I take a look around. The place looks.. different from what I saw the last time I was here. There is a lot more stuff around the house... The owners must have left little gifts for me.

Firstly, I lean the suitcases against the wall and check my reflection in the hallway mirror. The only difference I can see in my appearance is my red nose. The cold weather converted me into my true identity - a clown.

I look down from the mirror and see a bottle of hairspray on the shelf. It's a brand that I recognize, the one I used to worship back in the days when my hair was so long that my only go-to hairstyle was a slicked-back ponytail.

I grab the bottle, try to read what's on it, and then remember that I hate reading and proceed to put it back. But as I try to do so, I see a shadow in the mirror. A shadow behind the door that is behind me.

Now my first instinct is to turn around and look, cause the lack of my brain cells tells me that mirrors are cursed and they can sometimes make stuff up. Forgetting about the hairspray still in my hands, I turn around and take small steps towards the door. The strips of frosted glass don't show much, but they surely show enough for me to figure that the thing I saw in the mirror was probably a hallucination.

I sigh, longing my hand towards the silver handle. I hate myself for being paranoid about living alone. And the only way I can conquer my fear is by opening the bedroom door and proving to myself that what I saw was not real.

Yet as I'm about to push the handle, someone does it quicker than me.

Before I could see who was standing in front of me the said person couldn't see anymore. I sprayed their face with the product in my hands.

"What the fuck!?"

The voice paired with the scene of the person stumbling back and hitting their head against the doorframe makes my extremities tingle. I let go of the hairspray and it falls with a metallic click.

I stand there frozen, both hands covering my mouth. A part of me wants to approach the man in front of me and help with the burning eyes, a part of me is confused by the presence of the said man, while the most dominant section of my brain, which explains why there are so many things wrong with me, tells me that I entered the wrong house.

"I'm so sorry! Oh my god, I'm sorry!" I shake my head in disbelief at how directed the stream of hairspray was to his eyes.

All I could see was a blonde man with a scrunched-up nose and two red sweaty circles in the place where his eyes should've been. And all he could see was probably.. nothing.

"Who the fuck are you?" He asks, voice breaking from how strained it is because of the combination of stress and pain.

"I'm so sorry, I must've confused-" as I'm about to apologize again, it finally gets to me, "wait.."

My frozen fingertips sneak into my pocket. It doesn't take long for me to take out the dangling keys - the ones, that unlocked the door to this apartment. I surely wouldn't be able to open the door to the wrong house, right?

"Motherfucker.." he hums, rubbing his eyes which were extremely teary and still closed as of this moment. And that made me realize that his remark wasn't even directed at my keys. He was trying to regain his vision and that's all.

"Hey, um, I know it hurts, and uh it must be hard for you right now, but like, erm, could you please explain who you are and why you're here?" I chew on my lip nervously and watch him take hurried steps towards the kitchen faucet. He spends a good chunk of time washing his eyes while I stand there, ignored.

After more than a minute in complete silence accompanied by water splashes, I still don't dare to go closer to the guy and offer help. He is a stranger that I discovered in my house for some reason after all. Could be anyone. But I also don't want to seem rude, so I come up with the most genius thing to say.

"I'm Anastasia by the way," I smile at his back and hear more splashes of water in return.

My mom was right about flushing me down the toilet.

He finally turns around, and I finally see his eyes. I still can't recall the color though, they look like swollen red olives. He looks at me up and down, at least that's what I think he does, and finally parts his mouth.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he chuckles ignorantly, "turn around and get the fuck out of our house before I call the cops on you."