Apartment number 10

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My apartment building is quite old, it was built nearly eighty years ago and I assume it won’t be much longer until they issue a demolition order. To be honest it’s a safety hazard, but that has its pros. I practically spend nothing on my rent and get to live not so far from the city center. The building has five floors with 3 apartments each and it isn’t uncommon to hear various noises during the night when things go quiet. One night there are sounds of some neighbors yelling at each other, the other there are strange screeching and hissing noises coming from the dogs and even some slightly creepy giggles probably made by children who wake up during the night. Living in a small community like this it is only natural that every single person knows everyone. Imagine going to a huge family reunion with your old grandparents, a couple of weird uncles, widowed aunts and some cousins you hate. That is exactly what it feels like when you walk through the hallways. And having the misfortune of living on the top floor I am bound to meet and chat with at least two or three people every time I go from my door to the buildings exit. Only once in the history of me living here has happened that one of our neighbors went away and got replaced with someone else. I say went away not moved out because to this day nobody knows what happened to the girl living on the third floor. She was kind and would always greet me with a smile and some small talk, honestly she was probably the only person I liked to meet when going out. The police investigated her disappearance, interviewed every tenant in the building and concluded that she probably ran away without paying and went into hiding. It didn’t sound like her, but what did I know, can you really know enough about a person from making small talk every second morning in the hallway? I assumed the police were right and didn’t think much of the situation.

Trying to figure out what happened to the girl wasn’t a top priority in our small community because we had our own unresolved mystery. The tenant from apartment number 10. Nobody in our entire building has ever met him (or her), seen the person they’ve only heard voices coming from the flat from time to time. Almost everyone has tried to knock on their door and open it, but it’s always locked and even the folks from his floor tried to wait for hours looking through the spyhole trying to get a glimpse of our mysterious neighbor but all efforts were in vain. An old granny from the second floor who has been living there for over thirty-five years claims that whoever is living in that apartment is the only person who inhabited the building before her and still lives here. All of us even have a contest in which the person that takes a photo or in any way proves they’ve seen the mystery tenant from apartment number 10 will get 50 bucks from every other person in the building. Other than that life in this building has been pretty normal and boring most of the time. I was starting to feel lonelier each day, my work was annoying me I didn’t have a girlfriend or even a true friend for a long time now. With no one to talk to I’ve spent most of my days, and nights, watching TV alone. And that went on for a while until one day something weird happened and my life turned around upside down for good.

You see in our building there is this old and I mean really old, ancient elevator that looks like it’s over a hundred of years old and sounds like someone is strangling a few cats at the same time when it moves between the floors. Despite all that it is still fully functional, but nobody from the repairs department would even consider improving it or making it safer because “it would only be a waste of money to fix an elevator in that wrecked old building”, as they say. And that is the reason why nobody has used the elevator a single time that I know of, you would need to be insane to get into it or injured so badly that you can’t take the stairs. We press the button and call the elevator from time to time just to see if it still works because we also have a bet on the year and month the elevator will stop working or collapse. And so one day I got hurt extremely bad during work, a twisted and swollen ankle, dislocated knee, injured hip and a broken leg, all from a high fall at the construction site. I got careless and stumbled of the second floor that was in the making. I ended up in the hospital for only two days and they already sent me home to rest and assigned me a nurse to come and care for me daily until I get back on my feet. The hospital is pretty small and it can often get overcrowded so I didn’t complain, besides resting at home sounded way better than being placed with a bunch of sick people. They gave me two crutches and I could barely lean on the leg that wasn’t broken and wrapped in the cast. That one only had a twisted ankle so I could manage to make small steps ignoring the pain. They told me to do the usual exercise so my muscles don’t weaken too much. That evening when they dismissed me, my nurse drove me back home and helped me get inside the building. At that point I really, really didn’t want to meet any of my nosy neighbors or have someone carry me five floors up like an incapable child so I’ve decided to take my chances with the old elevator. I limped slowly inside it, waved goodbye to my nurse, pressed the button for the fifth floor and that’s when things started to get really bizarre.

The rusty doors made a very loud noise while closing and the elevator started moving slowly upwards. It took it almost 15 seconds to pass the distance between floors one and two. Reaching the second floor I felt a huge breeze blowing on me out of nowhere and the space inside got icy cold. You know that feeling when something is off but you can’t really put your finger on it? I have never been more sure in my life that something unexplainably weird is going to happen in the next few seconds. The light above me flickered and I could’ve sworn there was some unknown voice trying to speak to me. It didn’t laugh or sob like they usually do in most scary stories, it just whispered words I couldn’t quite understand yet. Feeling more uneasy than ever with only one more floor to go I decided to turn away from looking at the door and faced the mirror that was behind me. That’s when I saw her. Eyes colored with the darkest black, skin as pale as a first winter snow and long dark hair tucked in behind her ears. I have never been more afraid in my entire life. She stood there staring into my eyes mumbling something, but I didn’t listen, the only thing on my mind was getting away from there as quickly as I possibly can without harming my legs any more. I turned to face the door again and she was there standing right in front of me still not trying to do anything other than talk. Since I had nowhere else to go I took a step towards her prepared to fight for my life any way I can and she did the strangest thing. This creature, appearing out of nowhere, she didn’t try and attack me, kill me or harm me in any way, no, she took a step back looking almost as scared as I was and vanished into thin air saying something that sounded like “I’m sorry”. The elevator reached my floor and I slowly moved from it to my door, my hearting beating faster than a drum solo. I’ve entered my home and made sure to lock the door behind myself proceeding to spend almost the entire night questioning my own sanity and eventually drifting away to sleep.

Next morning a call from my nurse woke me up and things were just as normal as ever, not a boogieman or anything out of the ordinary in sight. The nurse came over and stayed with me for an hour or so, bringing me food and helping me get some exercise by walking me around in circles like a dog. After I finished my complete work our she finally allowed me to go back in bed and rest. Since I haven’t slept a full four hours after my last night’s encounter I fell asleep within no more than five minutes after being left alone.
“Damian. Damian can you hear me? Wake up Damian”, a familiar voice interrupted my dreams. I opened my eyes to find myself looking at the girl from last night who was now standing at the bottom of my bed waiting for me to wake up. That voice it sounded so sweet and not threatening it was almost like was talking too…
“Anna?”, I answered.
“Yes Damian it’s me!”, her expression changed into a wide smile, “I knew you would recognize me. I’m sorry about last night there is no easy way to start a conversation like this…”
Anna was our neighbor that I talked about, the one that went missing a while back.
“Conversation like what? And what exactly happened last night, I was so scared I’m not even sure what happened. Where were you all this time? And how did you get in the elevator?”
Asking question after question, not even giving her the time to answer I started to realize the bitter truth and her answer confirmed it.
“Well, I’m dead Damian. But don’t freak out and listen to me. I’ve been dead for almost a year now but I’ve never felt better. Come, there is someone I’d like you to meet, he will explain things further.”
Needless to say I was skeptical about following someone who claim they are dead, but she looked just like I remember her and sounded so sincere. I was also really interested in an explanation and meeting the person she mentioned.
I got up and started limping behind Anna while continuing to bother her with so many questions. You could tell by the look she was giving me she was glad that I’ve decided to listen to her instead of screaming for help. She answered most of my questions with, be patient for two more minutes and you’ll find out. We entered the old elevator and she pressed the number four.
“Where are we going?”
“Common Damian, you were always a bright guy, don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out yet.”
I realized how slow my mind is working from all the shock and only then it popped into my head.
“Apartment number 10, of course”, I mumbled to myself.
“You are correct. And now, please don’t freak out.”
“Why would I freak out now?”
“When you turn and look at the mirror behind you there will be two more people standing here with us. An old man and a young boy. We don’t know why but you can only see us in this mirror here for the first time and nowhere else. Anyways, are you ready to meet them?”
I was scared but talking to Anna after all this time made things a bit easier, so glanced over my shoulder and there they were, I could see them in the mirror and upon turning my head back to the door I saw them clearly standing there and looking at me.
“My name is George and this is young lad is Jamie. I see you are taking all of this surprisingly well Damian. You’re a brave man.”
I wanted to ask how he knew my name, but it took me less than a second to realize that would be a really stupid question at this point.
“So what are you guys? Ghosts?”
The old man smiled and continued to talk.
“That would be the most accurate thing to call us, yes. People can’t see us at all, we can move through certain objects and only occasionally can our voices be heard. Let’s not stand in this old rusty bucket, someone might hear you talking to yourself.”, he chuckled at his own joke and started walking towards the apartment.
“Anna be kind and check if those pesky people from room 11 are looking through the spyhole, we wouldn’t want them to see Damian walking inside this flat.”
Anna nodded and vanished straight through the door for a second. She came back and just nodded once more telling George it’s safe. We stood in front of the door looking at each other in silence and for the first time I’ve seen the door from room 10 open in front of me.

I found myself in a dark room which was barely lit by a couple of candles, filled with furniture that looked hundreds of years old. In the corner of the room there were neatly placed two crates, one containing a larger set of bones while the other contained a smaller one. Next to them laying on the was Anna’s decaying corpse. My facial expression must’ve gave away that I freaked out again because Anna approached me and told me not to worry and just listen to what George has to say. He invited me to sit down and listen to his story.
“I have first moved into this building over a hundred and fifty years ago. I spent my life here alone and I was truly miserable for most of it. People always found me weird and that made me try and hide myself from everyone even more. Even back then that elevator seemed unsafe to everyone and I was the only one who used it to avoid meeting my neighbors. One night I had a really bad heart attack and even though I screamed for help in agony no one bothered to check on me. It made me feel worse than ever before and that sorrow is what kept my soul tied to this place I guess. I spent the next 40 years roaming the building, stalking and listening to conversations of other people. It made me feel less alone because the sounds of my movement that can sometimes be heard drew more attention to me now when I was dead. But as time passed I realized I needed a friend and had no idea how to make one. One faithful day Jamie over here ran away from his father’s grip in the middle of the street outside and tried to hide in the elevator. His father was a drunk, beating the kid every day, making his life miserable with no way out. I heard the crying all the way up here and rushed down to see what is going on. The scene I walked in on was terrifying. The father holding his son by his neck and beating him mercilessly. I stood there watching, wishing there was something I can do when the weirdest thing happened. The boy’s father saw me in the elevator’s mirror and lost it. He realized I was standing right behind him so he bolted out of the building scared out of his mind leaving the kid behind. The boy could see me now as well and he wasn’t even scared, he trusted me more than he ever trusted his daddy. He was beaten so bad that he was choking and couldn’t breathe. I helped him to my apartment and upon stepping his body collapsed, but his spirit moved on. Until this day he is like the grandson I never had.”
George finished his narrative and looked at Jamie, they were smiling to each other. I was speechless, trying to comprehend everything I have just heard when Anna interrupted my thoughts.
“Now do you understand?”
“I think I do. But what happened with you?”
“Well my story isn’t as sad and depressing as theirs, but life was dull and boring for me. I was lonely all the time, you were pretty much the only person I’ve talked to. I was kind of hoping you would at least ask me out, but that never happened… And so I was coming home from another lousy day I have to find I’ve lost my keys as well. Things were building up inside of me for some time and I burst into tears in the middle of the hallway. I didn’t want anyone to see me so I decided to hide in the elevator knowing nobody would use it. And that’s when I met George. He told me everything he told you and was the only person to look genuinely happy while talking to me. I realized that life with a kind soul like him would be far better than the one I led so far, so I came up to his apartment and…”, she paused for a second, “I’ve decided to end it.”
A tear ran down her cheek after she finished talking and a couple ran down mine, because I finally found someone who I can relate to, someone who I understand and someone that just might understand me as well.
“I’ve always thought you were cute but I never gathered the courage to do anything about it. I can’t describe how glad I am to hear you feel the same about me.”
She stopped crying and gave me the most beautiful smile I have ever seen.
“So, I know it’s a lot to ask and I will completely understand if you choose not to, but would you like to stay here with us and never part with me?”
Without hesitating for even a second I walked over to her body and picked up the razor she used to end her life and cut my wrist open.
“Nothing would make me happier”, I answered before fainting.
A couple of seconds after I was standing on top of my bloody corpse feeling better than ever. Anna rushed into my hands and hugged me tighter than anyone did before. I didn’t know anything about being a ghost, but I was more than happy to learn with her by my side. And that’s how we all started living like a small, happy and dead family in apartment number 10.

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Image was taken from Pixabay
This is my original work, copyright restricted

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