[ RF ] Let 's stop for a moment with all of those `` paranormal '' scary stories . Write a terrifying piece that could really and plausibly happen to anyone .

A few yards away in the other room, I hear the shower faucet turn on. Rising sunlight is beginning to spill slowly through the half-closed blinds, illuminating the kitchen, where I've been lazily preparing coffee grounds for the french press. It's too early for planning the day, too early for action, I grumble silently to myself. As I pour boiling water over the grounds, I contemplate going back to bed. 
 
 Opening the fridge, I squint at the meager selection of breakfast food. The strawberries are beginning to grow mold at the bottom of the container, but they're salvageable. By the time I've cut the stems off of the edible fruit, my boyfriend has still not left the shower. What a waste of water. It must have been at least half an hour now. My mood is growing decidedly sour as I pop a berry into my mouth. 
 
 Then my heart jumps into my throat. Whirling around dizzily, I clutch my chest, begin beating it with my fist, trying to cough. Each attempt to inhale seems to lodge the fruit even more solidly into my throat. I'm not breathing. My screams are locked in my mouth with the blockage, resistant to my weakening attempts to claw through the skin on my neck and then through my mouth. As I blindly stumble into the other room and begin banging on the bathroom door I hear the distant sounds of my boyfriend singing through the thundering echo of water hitting the porcelain. 
 
 I'm beating, clawing at the door, and he continues his performance unaware to the horror unfolding a few feet away. He ca n't hear the death rattle of my strangled breath as my esophagus closes, and I begin to realize that my life is about to end here below the bathroom door, here on this carpet I had so meticulously picked only about a week ago. It had seemed so important then. My heartbeat is pounding in my ears, amplifying the scream of dying brain. My anti-climactic last moments on a monday morning. I feel the blood vessels in my eyes pop, and my vision starts to fade. The last thing I see is my bleeding hands, fingernails torn back from vicious pleading with the door to let me in. I never heard the shower stop. 
 

