Through the Threshold

The heavy front door sat unlatched, revealing an endless, echoey abyss of carpeted corridor. I crouched low behind the doorframe, whispering into the sliver of cool air. Waiting... letting the dread simmer. NOW! I darted across the metal threshold strip with a frantic sprint, skidding onto the patterned hallway carpet. Right ahead, a discarded beige delivery envelope lay flat like an abandoned raft. I leapt straight onto it, my shoes sliding three feet across the slick paper until I halted dead against a baseboard. Silence swallowed the hall. I belong out here now.