"I like the noise. Neighbors say there's been a prowler bothering people lately. Let him know someone's inside."

He heard the click of the light switch. Her disgusted voice hissed from the front room, "Light's burned out again! Why can't you ever remember to turn it off?"

Something was different. Some sound he didn't recognize. "Who's with you?" He turned his head trying to make out the tell tale image in his mind that stuck like cobwebs. He shook his head trying to clear it.

Since the accident two months ago had taken away his sight, his hearing was trying to improve to make up for it. A second pair of footsteps moved into the apartment.

"What? What are you talking about?" She turned then, hearing the same thing he did. 

"No! What do you want?" The voice wasn't her's any longer. It wasn't the voice of his 38 year old sister, surely. It had been replaced by the sound of total fear and trembling. 

"Who is it, Stacy?" Shivers were running up and down his spine. He was helplessly blind! What could he do?

"You poor black trash gotta learn a lesson. You should of gone back to Africa while you could."

He heard scuffling and then someone falling. A single moan broke the silence. "Stacy?" He was up on his feet, his fingers lightly feeling their way around the room. His stocking'd feet barely whispering on the floor.

"Your turn pal! What's a matter, to poor to afford a light?" The man had shut the front door to the apartment and was flicking the lamp switch endlessly back and forth.

Allen moved to the kitchen doorway where his feet came into contact with something wet before nudging the back of Stacy's head. He knelt and licked his fingertips. It was a broken juice bottle...thank God it wasn't blood.

"Don't think you can hide! You forgot the light from the TV." The man couldn't seem to stop talking. It warned Allen of where his attacker was.

"Dead man!" The voice was triumphant. 

Allen jerked towards the sound, slipping in the mess of the spilled food as a shot rang out above his head. The stranger stepped towards him, giving himself away again. 

Allen's hand slipped around the neck of the broken bottle. He rose, lunging with all his strength, lashing out with the jagged edge and feeling the contact shudder through his whole arm.

"My eyes!" The gun dropped to the floor. The man was falling over furniture as he clapped both hands to his face. The screaming was slowly dying away to low moans. "My eyes...what did you do to my eyes?"

Allen stepped away from the noise, his fingers already finding their way to the phone. 

"Now you finally see things my way."