The smell of smoke and curiosity

~Who are you?~

Awoken to the drilling sound of my alarm bell and birds chattering among themselves through my still open balcony, and feeling the cold breeze that made my hairs stand up on edge almost made me want to curl up in a ball and go back to sleep.
It was approximately 8 am and time to shower and wait for my food shopping to arrive if I had tried to pick it up myself it would have been too much to carry. After I had my shower and now feeling refreshed again and slipped into a nice pair of black jeans with a white frilly shirt, applied little makeup to cover my bags and my hair put up in a long ponytail I was ready for the day. Even though I didn't have a particularly good sleep it was Monday and I have to continue working on my book later.
Something I didn't talk about much earlier on was the fact I'm a writer and I create fictional stories, I have many of these that are now published all around the world and currently, I've been assigned by my book manager to write a lonely vampire story, something I've never tried writing before, but I'm sure it will be interesting.
Shortly after a light breakfast and cupboards now stocked I set up my laptop on my new desk with a freshly made coffee set aside, my story was ready to begin. Balcony open to clear my thoughts and focus, I sipped at my drink and breathed in the morning air. And then I smelled it again. The stale fumes of tobacco creeping into my room uninvited which had emerged from the slightly open balcony door adjacent to me.

Only to realize that I had not introduced myself to the stranger next door yet. The chair wheels rolled as I arose from it and headed towards my front door with a heavy feeling in my chest. Anxiety was always a downfall for me especially when it comes to meeting new people, but for some reason, I could feel the tension already from this one, like that type of feeling you get before you go on a big roller coaster. I spent a moment or two gathering what I was going to say and then cracked open my door like ripping off a bandit.

I knew whoever lived there was most definitely at home as the smoke was a giveaway. Being as I was the last one on the right in this hallway of flats I only had this one neighbour to be acquainted with, it shouldn't be too much trouble, right?

Three just loud enough but not too loud to disturb knocks I placed on the old wooden door with the number 6 on it, and I waited patiently for a reply. A few moments had passed and I couldn't hear anything. Not even the faint sound of someone walking about. Should I try again I pondered, maybe they left or just couldn't hear me. Three times more but a little more impatiently than the last and with a bit more force.

I waited and I waited but my patience was wearing thin, so I turn my feet in preparation to move away from the silent door until I heard a noise that stopped me in my tracks. It was a subtle creak like heavy feet across floorboards of an old house and my head turned back to the door again. Thoughts rushing around my head like traffic in the busy city I finally plucked up the courage to speak. "Good morning I'm sorry for the disturbance but I just wanted to introduce myself, I'm Willow, your new neighbour and I hope we can become well acquainted" I had spoken with confidence but was soon shut down with a loud sign on the other side of the door. Then came a voice. It was intimidatingly deep and cold-hearted "Go away" moaned the man, even though it was only two words it shot me back almost like I was just pushed. I was stunned and muddled. What had I said wrong? I was at a loss for words when suddenly anger came to my attention. "You don't have to be so rude I was only trying to be nice, besides it's not like I can go very far away from you we live next to each other now" I spat. I didn't mean to throw that back at him but I was a little annoyed at his response. The silence sickened me and then came to his response "I don't care, nor ever will, I don't need to be dealing with you people right now so piss off" then a door slammed from the inside of the flat as he had abruptly left the conversation at a dead end. I threw myself away from his door also in a huff and slammed my flat door.

Head pounding with anger I rested my head on my desk with my laptop and sighed. What have I got myself into? And what did he mean by "you people?" .