Fear

A woman was riding a bus, some unpresentable man was hanging around next to her, radiating a nervous, shaking energy, either lust, or hunting for prey, or profit. He was either drunk, or stoned, or on drugs, or it was an exacerbation of schizophrenia.

She gets off the bus, he gets off at the same stop. She had never seen him before, the woman thought fleetingly. It was dark outside, chilly and damp. Either because of the weather, or because of the nervous cold, she wrapped herself in a scarf, walked a few steps, turned around - no one.
She sighed with relief and walked with a floating gait to the music of Chopin.
She approached the entrance, began to look for the keys in her purse to enter the entrance, as someone's shadow jumped out from around the corner, it was that inadequate, in the darkness resembling an African with bulging eyes with red spots on the white space around the pupil.

Something inside her sank and slowly grew cold.
She was afraid that she would enter the entrance, he would follow her and thus find out which of the small number of apartments was hers. There was no one in her who could protect her from such a layer of the population. She stood at a loss, not understanding what to do, while he, aggressively leaning over, insisted under the guise of politeness that she go ahead.

The woman was still hesitating in choosing a plausible pretext, his aggression under a false, flawed smile was growing. He began to ask questions of a clarifying personal nature. In confusion, a thought flashed through her mind: who are you to even talk to me in such a tone, much less to find out anything.
She was almost crying, her hands were shaking, and at home, only a defenseless child like herself was waiting for her. There was only one thought in her head: she had to protect them at all costs.
Suddenly, everything changed. This creature suddenly, with lightning speed, seemed to shrink in height, changed its tone of communication to a softer one, and magically entered the entrance itself.

At first, the woman did not see anything because of the emotions she had experienced that could have influenced his behavior, and only watched his back retreating into the depths of the entrance with a sigh of relief.

The solution was on the surface, another man was walking there, more adequate, self-confident, his appearance in such a magical way influenced this cowardly misunderstanding.

She lingered a little on the ground floor, so that the coward would move away far enough so that her door would not be detected, and with the grace of a panther, she disappeared into her doorway.
She leaned her back against the wall, still listening warily to the sounds outside, putting her index finger to her lips, letting the child who met her know not to say anything.
And with her chest heaving, her eyes closed, she slowly slid down the wall.