See, here’s the thing. I don’t like people. Never liked them, and never will like them. That probably explains why I live in a quiet place, almost fifteen kilometres away from civilisation. A place where people are hardly around, and Nature dominates the area, much to my satisfaction. A place where no one expects me to socialise, where the only conversations I need to have are with my parents, or maybe with myself at times, where I can peacefully reside in my solitary world of comfort and total bliss. I had what one would call an ideal life for a budding introvert like me.

And then, on what I thought was a fine winter’s day, ‘neighbours’ happened. It was a new concept to me of having another family of people living unnaturally and disturbingly close to my own home. I peeped out of the window, something that I don’t usually do, to catch a glimpse of the new ones. Just because I’m asocial doesn’t mean I can’t be curious about this new and undoubtedly unwanted addition of people to my life! Not that it would make a significant difference to me as a person, but my state of living would alter thanks to the ‘good neighbour status’ that my parents would expect me to create and maintain. I saw them unload from the car. Surely a troublesome lot I would say based on first impressions. Over-friendly mother (a perfect match for mine), drunk father, a son of about my age who had more metal on him than skin, a daughter who still sucked onto her thumb, and a senseless rodent pet trapped in a cage. How typical!

I yawned and stumbled downstairs lazily and walked right into my mother who was standing at the foot of the staircase waiting for me eagerly. Experience tells me that this never ends well. The wicked shine in her eyes revealed the evil plan she had in mind.

“Not happening mum. No way! Don’t even think about it” I muttered. She ignored me conveniently and pulled me into the kitchen to give me one of her talks. Here I realised the advantage of actually speaking out loud and throwing tantrums at times. Just because I never said much, I wasn’t taken seriously. On the other hand, my three younger siblings who yelled excitedly most of the time, were excused from such inhuman tasks. My mother’s command pierced my heart instantly, each word striking me hard. She wanted me to go meet the new ones living across. She wanted me to go and initiate a conversation which was no doubt intended on starting a new relation. Seriously? Out of all of the six people living here, she thought of me? And that too for socialising? Simply ridiculous!

An encounter with humans, let alone humans that I don’t even know, was certainly not something that I, as a cynical soul, would take pleasure in. My mother was basically shoving me into a deep pit of awkward moments. Actually, let me put it this way, she was shoving the new people across into a deep pit of awkward moments. Her pure intentions of making this new lot of strange people feel comfortable was being led to booming failure by the medium she chose to implement her intentions – me.

‘Why do they have to exist?’ I thought as I reluctantly went over to their place and knocked lightly on the door. The metallic son answered. I quickly recalled how to give a warm smile, and gave it my best shot. And somewhere in between all the piercings on his face, peeked an equally enthusiastic smile. The usual introduction took place, and I offered my mum’s help in case they needed it. Glad that I could get through that much, I looked at him, waiting for him to take the conversation further.

“What do you want?” he asked.

Shocked, I chose to overlook his outrageous head of arrogance and fumbled around, trying to find something else to say.

“Nice garden” I remarked, looking at the barren piece of thirst-driven land surrounding their pathetic excuse for a house, bearing not even a single weed.

He raised an eyebrow, frowned at me questioningly and breathed sharply. I stared straight into his mean eyes, dwelling deep into perhaps what was his soul or the void absence of it, and walked away pouting to myself. So much for being a good neighbour.

I reached home to find exactly what I was expecting. There was my mother, with her laptop firmly in her prying grasp, her nose almost touching the screen and her eyes darting about from line to line eagerly. She raised a finger when she realised my presence, which was a signal for me to remain hushed for a while.

“She’s such a…” and she trailed off, not saying more. I knew at once what she was doing. She had begun her thesis on our new neighbours. She had their entire family history googled and registered in her mind, and following that was a chain of judgemental thoughts.

“I want to have nothing more than a general polite relationship with them” she declared. I smiled, pleased with my mother’s decision, went back to my room, and continued with my perfect life.

It was after me.

I had no idea about who or what it was, but it was chasing me. And from its frequent snarling, I narrowed down my guesses to it being an extremely hungry animal. I tried speeding but ended up tripping over a fallen branch and went rolling down. I made a hard landing at the foot of the hill, brushed up the mud and looked up to discover the mystery of my predator. There it was, standing under an old Oak tree at the cliff. Its roots clutched onto the hill like a fist with its fingers sunk deep into the soil. There under the wise ancient Oak stood my predator with its head held high before the beautiful golden setting sun. Initially I could see a blurry outline, and as it moved forward right up to the edge, a clear image formed. Never had I seen such a ferocious looking animal before. A loud piercing howl echoed through the vast emptiness that lay ahead of me. A slight shudder ran down my spine and my legs went numb.

It was a huge intimidating wolf with shabby gray fur and sharp blood covered canines which were highlighted by the magnificent rays of the sun. His strong thick tail added to the fearsome appearance, and his evil green eyes shook me to the core. He leaped down and charged towards me with great force. I had no intention of ending up on his dinner plate and so I ran. Gathering all the energy that surprisingly remained in me, I ran from him as fast as I could, occasionally looking back to see if he was still after me. From the tremendously determined look in his eyes, I could tell that he wasn’t giving up on this chase soon.

I ran for what seemed like hours, and then I just couldn’t take it anymore. I could hardly feel my hind limbs and my hands were badly bruised with deep cuts from the thorny bushes that I encountered on the way. I collapsed on to the soft grass in the meadow. I looked behind me, ready to face death, and I was confused to find the wolf coming to a sudden stop. He crouched down with a strange frightened look on his face. I got up, very proud that he was scared of me and had finally given up. I turned around to take a look, and apparently it wasn’t me that he was scared of. There right behind me stood a lion. Judging by his huge mane and conceited posture it must have been an Alpha male. It pounced on the wolf and before my brain could register much of what was taking place, it ran away dragging the yelping wolf along with it.

I was safe, at least for the time being. I sighed in relief as I got up to find where exactly I was. There was no one around. Not a single human or house was in sight of my exhausted watery eyes. I walked on without a clue about where I was headed for. I walked on and on until I found myself face to face with a dark forest. The thought of having to spend my night there didn’t exactly comfort me, as God knows how many dangerous creatures there were lurching in that immense density of trees. But the chances of finding a nice comfortable bed here were quite low and so I settled for the moist forest floor.

The sun’s morning rays hit my tightly shut eyelids and woke me up from my deep sleep. After a few lazy minutes passed and I had woken up completely, I looked around to get a better view of my temporary shelter. All that I could see were trees, and I was definitely not going to go in there to explore further. After a few hours of tireless wandering for breakfast, I gave up and settled for some juicy red mango-like fruit which seemed to grow on creepers everywhere. I was still healthy and alive after 3 hours which meant that it didn’t kill, and it also meant that I had found my lunch and dinner for the meanwhile too.

After a week or so, I was assured that the place was uninhabited. Luckily I found my way back to the open meadows. Unluckily when I reached there, a pride of lions was resting close to 10 feet away from me and judging from their salivating mouths and desperate focused eyes, I must have looked like a delicious chunk of meat roaming around and teasing their senses. The male lion got up, smacked his lips and stretched his limbs as I clenched my fists in defense and took gradual steps back as silently as anyone possibly could. His eyes met mine as he took position for pouncing on his target – me.

That was when suddenly 2 people caught me and pulled me back as another person tackled the starving cat by distracting it with pieces of meat. The others dragged me into their jeep and we escaped. Once we were at a safe distance from the lions, they explained to me who they were and how they found me. I had completely forgotten about the tracking device which was in my bag which I probably lost during the wolf hunt. They had searched the nearby area and fortunately they found me at the right time. My partner, Colin Hunt, had sent them to look for me when he didn’t receive any signals from me for quite some time. Colin and I were working on a wildlife project in this area and just like always curiosity had got the better of me and I ended up in big trouble by getting lost.

After a short journey of an hour, I was back at the camp in one complete piece. Glad to be sleeping on a bed rather than the itchy forest floor, I cuddled up in a warm blanket and dozed off to sleep at once, preparing myself for another day of adventure.

One can be said to be extremely fortunate if he/she manages to catch a glimpse of the room’s inhabitant. Behind a humungous stack of what looked like a chaotic mess of books, files and sheets of music, there could occasionally be seen a young girl of 16, with her head low, nose almost touching the desk, busy scribbling away in an old worn-out diary, which opened with a small brass key which she kept securely tied around her neck. What secrets she kept in it, no one knew, not even her, as once written, there was no way anyone including herself could read them again, her hieroglyphic handwriting made sure of that.

The overhead shelves were stuffed with books and music CDs. Everyone in that house very well knew that those shelves were to be opened at their own risk, as, if a pile of assorted objects were to topple down on them; she was not to be held responsible for it. Once you’re lost deep in the dense jungle of Angie’s room, there is no guarantee of whether or not you will come out. It is one of the most feared places in the entire society, and simply mentioning its name sends shivers down people’s spine.

Her bed was a rare sight as it was usually covered with an assortment of clothes of all seasons. One would find sweaters, jackets, shorts, tees and raincoats at the same time on her bed, no matter what season it is. Lord alone knows how she sleeps there, or if she sleeps at all. In one gloomy corner lay an untouched black guitar case covered in soot, judging by its condition one would guess that it had been there for over a decade.

The curtains in her room were rarely up and sunlight was never to be seen either. Most annoyed by her room’s condition was her mother. She would complain all day about the filthy little room on the second floor just near the terrace. She would complain all right, but even she wouldn’t dare step a foot inside. What once went it never came out. And that was true for both animate and inanimate objects. It was as if the room itself knew whom to let in and whom to torture, frighten and then ruthlessly kick out. It welcomed Angie with the usual greetings of various chirpings under the bed and a few shrill squeaks from the dormice which lay snuggled behind the door.

Just the thought of it was life threatening. There were so many ways that one could go into coma, become unconscious or in extreme and prolonged visits, even die because of her room. The moss covered door which was the only way in and out disgusted most of the daring creatures willing to go inside, the scent of rotting meat which was a very usual thing in her room was good enough to send the visitor into a trance-like state, and if those didn’t work well enough, the yet undiscovered species of poisonous insects that reigned under her bed and tended to react at the slightest disturbance would surely do the work. It was like Angie’s own little kingdom. She was the queen, the ruling power, and she reigned over happily, as no place in the entire universe could ever give competition to that nasty little room of hers.