The insistent rapping at the door pulled me from my afternoon nap. I blinked, disoriented, at the digital clock on my nightstand: 2:37 PM. Who on earth could it be? I wasn't expecting anyone.
I padded to the front door, peeking through the peephole. A man stood on my porch, his back to me. He was tall, dressed in a practical, dark jacket, with a shock of prematurely gray hair that caught the sunlight. My heart gave a little thump of unease. He wasn’t a delivery person, nor did he look like anyone I knew from the neighborhood.
Hesitantly, I unlatched the door, opening it a crack. "Can I help you?" I asked, my voice a little less steady than I would have liked.
He turned slowly, and his eyes, a startling shade of green, met mine. A slow smile spread across his face, a smile that seemed to know a secret. "**Hello, Alex**," he said, his voice a low rumble. "It's been a long time."
My blood ran cold. *Alex*. Not "ma'am" or "miss." He knew my name. My hand instinctively tightened on the doorknob.
"I'm sorry," I stammered, "Do I know you?" I racked my brain, searching for a familiar face, a name. Nothing. He was a complete stranger.
He chuckled, a soft, almost wistful sound. "Perhaps not in the way you remember, but we've certainly met. More than once, in fact." He took a step closer, and I instinctively pulled back, widening the crack in the door only enough to keep him from entering. "You've grown, of course. Last time I saw you, you were barely knee-high."
A chill snaked down my spine. Knee-high? That would put our last meeting decades ago. Yet his face, though aged, held no flicker of recognition for me. Who was this stranger? How did he know such personal details?
"Look," I said, trying to inject some firmness into my voice, "I think you have me confused with someone else. I really don't know who you are."
He sighed, a genuine note of disappointment in his tone. "I understand why you'd say that. It's a lot to take in." He reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a worn, leather-bound notebook. My gaze fell on it, mesmerized. It looked ancient, almost like a prop from a period film. "Do you remember the **old oak tree by the creek**? The one with the swing set?"
My breath hitched. The old oak tree. The creek. My childhood home. I hadn't thought about that tree in years. My parents sold that house when I was twelve.
"How do you know about that?" I whispered, my voice barely audible.
He flipped open the notebook, his fingers tracing lines on a yellowed page. "Because I was there, Alex. I was there when you fell off the swing and scraped your knee. And I was there when you buried your pet hamster, **Whiskers**, beneath its roots."
My mind reeled. Whiskers. Only my closest family, and a few childhood friends, knew about Whiskers. This man was a stranger, yet he spoke of these deeply personal memories with a casual familiarity that terrified me.
He looked up from the notebook, his green eyes still holding that knowing glint. "It's time, Alex. Time for you to remember."
---
My heart pounded against my ribs like a trapped bird. My rational mind screamed at me to slam the door, to call the police, to protect myself from this bizarre intrusion. But a primal curiosity, a nagging sense of something *else*, held me captive. He wasn't threatening, not overtly. Just… unsettling.
"Remember what?" I finally managed, my voice a strained whisper. Every fiber of my being urged caution, yet a strange, almost magnetic pull kept me rooted to the spot.
He closed the notebook with a soft thud. "The truth. The connections. The reason why certain things happen." He took another step forward, and this time, instead of pulling back, I stood my ground, my knuckles white on the doorknob. His voice dropped, becoming almost hypnotic. "You see, Alex, there are… **guardians**. Watchers. Those who ensure certain paths are taken, certain destinies fulfilled. And sometimes, when someone veers too far from their intended course, a gentle nudge is required."
I stared at him, my mind struggling to process his words. Guardians? Destinies? This sounded like something out of a fantasy novel, not a conversation on my suburban porch. "Are you saying you're some kind of… guardian angel?" The words felt absurd as they left my lips.
He offered another small smile. "Something like that. But less angelic, perhaps. More… practical. And you, Alex, have been **drifting**." He gestured vaguely with his hand, encompassing not just my house but seemingly my entire existence. "You've lost sight of what truly matters, what you were meant to do."
My brow furrowed. "What I was meant to do? What are you talking about?" I thought of my unfulfilling job, the dreams I'd long since abandoned, the quiet monotony of my days. A sudden, sharp pang of recognition, not of *him*, but of myself, pierced through the fear. Had I been drifting? Yes. Profoundly.
"The art, Alex," he said, his gaze intense. "The art you loved, the stories you were meant to tell. They've been gathering dust, both in your mind and in your old sketchbooks."
My old sketchbooks. Hidden away in the back of my closet, filled with vibrant colors and fantastical creatures from a life I’d thought I’d outgrown. He couldn't possibly know about them. Unless…
A flicker of an image, fleeting and indistinct, danced at the edge of my memory: a shadowy figure in the background of a childhood photograph, a sensation of being watched, but not with malice. My mind rebelled against the absurdity, yet the raw emotion in his eyes, the undeniable truth of his words about my abandoned passions, resonated deeply.
"So, what now?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper, the fear giving way to a strange, almost overwhelming curiosity.
He extended a hand, not to me, but toward the open door. "Now," he said, his voice firm but gentle, "you remember who you are. And you start living the story you were meant to tell."
I looked at his outstretched hand, then back into his green eyes. The choice was clear: slam the door and cling to the comfortable, predictable isolation I knew, or step into the bewildering, frightening, yet undeniably intriguing unknown he offered. My breath caught in my throat. I didn't know if he was a con man, a madman, or something else entirely. But for the first time in years, I felt a flicker of something resembling hope.
My hand trembled, but I didn't close the door. Instead, I slowly, deliberately, opened it wider.
React
