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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/orangeplr on 2024-09-08 22:24:04+00:00.
Looking back, I feel dumb. Completely stupid, actually. I should have known that apartment was far too cheap to be right, even for a studio. I should have known there had to be a catch.
The day I moved in was a complete blur. I insisted that no one help me, not wanting to prove any of my family members suspicions about my character. By late afternoon, all my muscles ached terribly and my head throbbed. I fell back on my bare mattress, staring up at the ceiling fan with glazed over eyes. I pulled the damp strands of hair from my sweaty forehead, wincing in disgust.
Someone knocked on my door, causing me to jump. I cursed under my breath, pushing myself up on my elbows.
Two girls were peeking around my door frame - foolishly, I had left it wide open, forgetting the old college rule: only leave your door open if you want to make new friends. And I was not in the mood to make new friends.
One of them, an asian girl with choppy black hair, was grinning at me. The other stood a little further back, fingering a box of Marlboro reds. “Hey,” she said, nodding at me. Her voice was smooth and raspy at the same time. “Did you just move in?”
I laid back down, rubbing my face with both hands, choosing not to bother with manners. “Yeah. About five seconds ago.”
“Cool.”
The girls walked in, evidently ignoring my very clear body language. The girl with the black hair ran her fingers along the edge of my desk, and then picked up a little ceramic duck from my unpacked box of trinkets.
“Grandma,” I explained, feeling strangely defensive.
“Cute,” she replied, holding it up to her face.
“Has anyone told you yet?” The other girl asked abruptly, looking around my apartment. She had tucked the cigarettes into the back pocket of her jeans, and was now tugging at her long red braids.
“Jesus, Gianna, give her a second.”
“Well, she needs to know…”
“Yeah, but we haven’t even asked her name.”
I blinked at the two strangers incredulously. I hadn’t even had time to put toilet paper in my bathroom, and here they were, touching my things and talking about me like I wasn’t there. I just wanted to take a nap, honestly.
“My name’s Arden,” I said.
The girl with the red braids, Gianna, sat down next to me on my bed.
“Did they tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Oh, of course they didn’t. The rules.”
I blinked again, my face blank. I didn’t know about any rules, besides the typical renting ones. I had signed the lease after, at best, skimming over it. The landlord was a skinny woman who smelled of ashes, and I was fairly certain she had never developed the facial muscles necessary for smiling. I wasn’t about to ask her any follow up questions, especially when the rent was so cheap.
The other girl laughed nervously. “Where did you move here from?”
I ignored her. “What rules?”
Gianna got a strange, wicked sort of smile on her face, bouncing a little on my mattress. The other girl sighed loudly.
“Something happens here every night,” she began, pulling out my rickety office chair and sitting down. “Something weird.”
“Like what?” I sat up, frowning at her. Finally, my interest was peaked.
“Someone walks down the street,” Gianna said, her voice reminding me of a camp counselor telling a scary story around the bonfire. “That one, right down there.” She pointed at my window. “It’s someone different each night. They scream for help for about an hour. But we aren’t supposed to help them.”
I just stared at her. I felt a small chill run up my spine. I didn’t know what to make of all this.
“It happens at a different time every night,” the other one said softly. “We never know when it’s coming.”
“Why?”
She shrugged almost sadly. “We don’t know why.”
I scoffed, leaning my elbows against my knees. “I don’t believe you.”
The girl shrugged. “You don’t have to. You’ll see for yourself.”
The look in her eyes made me want to believe her, she seemed sincere, but I couldn’t even begin to fathom what they were saying being true. It was too strange, too outlandish. I knew this wouldn’t be the nicest neighborhood, but it couldn’t be that bad. It had to be a prank, they had to be hazing me or something.
“We’ll come back later,” Gianna said matter-of-factly. “We’ll show you.”
Before I could protest she grabbed the other girl by the wrist, and they were gone. I followed them to the door, watching them march down the hall, talking to each other in hushed voices.
I closed my door behind them. That night, as promised, they came back. They came dragging along two boys: one was somewhat muscular, wearing a tight black t-shirt and baggy jeans, and my eyes were instantly drawn to a silver heart shaped locket around his neck. He smiled at me and introduced himself as ‘Will’ when he walked in. The other boy was smaller but chubbier, and nervous looking, with a buzzcut and ill-fitting cargo shorts. His name, I was told, was Mateo.
The girl named Gianna came in carrying a bottle of wine, and that same slightly crumpled box of cigarettes. The other one, the girl I still didn’t know the name of, was the only one who looked even somewhat apologetic.
They all sat down on my dusty floor, next to the window, and motioned for me to join them. I sat between Will and the nameless girl, unsure whether I should continue feeling violated or if I should just give in to my strange, pushy neighbors.
“Do you all live in this building?” I asked, hesitantly accepting the wine when it was passed to me.
“Yeah,” Will answered with a grin. It seemed half-hearted. “This building is where all the young people live.”
“It’s where they put us,” Gianna cut in, lighting a cigarette. It didn’t even occur to me to tell her not to smoke inside. “We’ve all been sorted out.”
“Forgive her. She’s a bit of a conspiracy theorist.”
“It’s not a theory,” she snapped, glaring at him. “Look at the other ones. Next door, the middle-agers. People with kids, but no grandkids. Across the street, old people. Not a single twenty-something in that entire building! Mey, tell him!”
So her name was Mey. I looked her over, admiring her smokey eye makeup and how she’d tied her hair up, long strands poking out like exploding fireworks.
“Stop it,” Mey muttered, reaching for the wine bottle. “You’ll scare her.”
“I’m not scared.”
She just shrugged at me, as if she didn’t believe me.
We passed the bottle around, and then around again. I listened to them bicker and laugh - it was clear they’d all been friends for a while, and I felt a little bit like I was intruding, even though they were in my apartment. Will asked me if I had gone to college, and I told him I did, but I dropped out. They all nodded sympathetically, which made me feel stupid.
By midnight, I was a little bit buzzed, and my guard was beginning to fall. I had to admit, it felt good to have friends. I had already mentally resigned myself to a life of solitude, at least for a while, but it seemed that might not actually have to be my fate. I laughed at Mateo and Gianna’s drunken argument, passing a cigarette back and forth with Mey, blowing the smoke out of my open window.
I had almost completely forgotten why they were all over when it happened.
All at once, a blaring alarm came from each of our phones, like an Amber Alert. I could hear the sound echo throughout the neighborhood, like an entire chorus of hundreds of phones going off, not just ours. I nearly leapt out of my skin. Not even Gianna laughed. All of them went quiet, and they looked at me as I took it out, frowning at the screen.
DO NOT INTERFERE.
“It’s coming,” Will whispered. He had changed, his eyes almost glassy and his voice soft and shaky. Mateo squeezed his shoulder. I looked at Mey. Her eyebrows were cinched together in concern, and she was stubbing out our cigarette against the windowsill, shrinking away.
There it was again, that chill. It crept up my back, spreading along my scalp and making me shiver. Something felt deeply, deeply wrong. The others were quiet now, staring silently at the window I was sitting up against. The air felt somehow warmer, like it was buzzing with something… or maybe I was just sweating.
We sat there, unmoving, for what felt like half an hour. Right as I was getting tempted to ask what was going on, I heard it.
It was far away, and faint, but I still heard it. A cry. It continued as it got gradually closer, louder… more desperate.
“Help… please, my god, someone help me…”
Slowly, I leaned out the window. I had to see it with my eyes, had to confirm there was actually someone out there like they had said there would be.
My new apartment was on the fourth floor, so it was hard to see who was down on the street without squinting.
In the flickering streetlights, I could make out the outline of an elderly man. He was hunched over, wandering aimlessly from door to door, wearing only what looked like a hospital gown to cover his pale, broken body. Behind him trailed a path of dripping blood, although I couldn’t see where it was coming from.
“Please… I’m hurt…”
I looked back at the others, my mouth hanging open. “What is this?” I demanded loudly. “What the hell is this?”
Mey touched my arm, trying to calm me down. I pulled away from her.
“Arden, please…”
“We have to help him! Why can’t we help him? He’s just an old man!”
“We can’t help him. Trust me.”
I ignored her, leaning further out the window, prepared to call out to him. Before I could open m...
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