A devastating silence floods the room. It is lonely...
Since this confinement began, nothing has happened; I just keep living the same as always. Wake up, eat breakfast, clean the house, have lunch, have a snack, take a shower, and sleep. The same routine repeats itself over and over again, every single day. It is always the same; nothing changes, nothing happens.
I have been locked inside my apartment for several months. Honestly, I already lost count since the pandemic began. I do not even know why I have not left my apartment... I can go out whenever I want, however...
I am not capable of it.
I am tired. Is there really nothing else I can do? Can I only sit here and watch life keep moving forward while I remain stuck?
While my life slowly wears away...
...
Wears aw...
...
Did I say something?
I just want to return to my normal life. I want to go back to how everything was before the pandemic began. I feel stranded without direction. I do not know what I am doing with my life; I do not know what I should do now. Time is not helping, and I feel like I am wasting it. I feel like I can do something more than simply exist and lament...
Wait... lament... myself?
Why?
I am starting to ramble. My mind is saying meaningless words. What would I even regret?
As far as I remember, I am handling life in confinement well. I was always a hardworking person. I worked day and night to earn enough money to move into this apartment, although... that was the last noteworthy thing that happened in my life. Now I am writing down the events of my life in a book that I hope someone can find someday...
Honestly, the best thing for now is to rest.
Through the window I can see the moon rising high in the night sky, its light flooding my room. It is beautiful how, even in the most monotonous places, like my apartment, there can still be some beauty.
To whoever is reading this, I am going to sleep...
...
...
—Alex...
—Wake up...
I heard a voice calling me, asking me to wake up. When I did, there was no one around me, only the sound of air brushing against my ears...
Something very different from what I expected to find. I thought perhaps someone I knew had come to visit me, although I do not remember having anyone like that.
But for some reason, the voice I heard while I was asleep felt very familiar. Every time I remembered that voice, it seemed more beautiful. It was a calm, serene, gentle female voice and... lov...
I cannot finish it...
—I cannot remember anyone with that voice.
In any case, I would accomplish nothing by staying in bed. I got up, although something was different. The floor of my room was no longer smooth. Now I could feel irregularities beneath my feet. It was uncomfortable walking through a place I knew very well but that felt different.
Everything else was the same. My work desk was still in the same place, carrying the same old wear and tear. My lamp was still on, just as I had left it before going to sleep. My books remained where they always were, lined up on an old wooden shelf that needed replacing, and my plant sat in a corner of the room. Everything was the same, even my withered plant, ready to die at any moment...
Honestly, I did not feel like having breakfast. Instead, I just wanted to go back to bed and keep enjoying my rest. But something caught my attention: a sheet of paper lying beneath my bedroom door. Even though drowsiness was overwhelming me, curiosity won this time.
I approached the door to inspect the paper and it was... it was a drawing...
The drawing showed a door stained with bloody handprints. I could make out some numbers on the plaque: "420."
It was not just any door. It was my apartment door.
—What the hell is this?
No matter how hard I tried to remember, I could not. I could not recall whether I had made this drawing at some point. It had my signature, but I did not remember drawing it.
Something strange was happening. My unease only emphasized a certain expectation that was weighing on me. Since I could not simply stand around doing nothing, I decided to leave my room and explore the rest of my home.
Something was different...
The smell?
The appearance?
No...
The smell was the same as always: dampness. However, a faint sensation reached my nose. Rust?
Everything looked exactly as I had left it, but...
A stressful noise made itself known, like nails digging into wood, scraping with brutality and hatred. It was so faint that it would normally be impossible to notice, except for the fact that my apartment is always silent. Even the fluttering of a fly could be heard.
With every second I spent listening to that noise, my head throbbed in unison. The pressure was enormous. I could not endure it.
I decided to open the door. Nothing...
There was nothing...
Just the same hallways of the building that I remembered, and at the end of the corridor, around a corner, there was a staircase leading to the upper and lower floors. Honestly, after staring at those empty and lonely hallways, I wanted to return to my bed, but something prevented me from doing so.
—Alex...
!!!
I spun around instantly because a whisper right behind me, close to my ears, forced me into alertness.
—Who are you?
...
There was no response, only tranquility once again... an unsettling tranquility.
I needed to find out whose voice that was, the same one that woke me up. I had to know who was calling me.
—Upstairs...
Again... But this time I could identify where it came from.
The stairs...
It was dark. No source of light illuminated the hallway beyond my apartment, and around the corner, an overwhelming darkness flooded the staircase in every direction. Honestly, I did not want to go up, but something was calling me to do it... combined with that female voice, it only pushed me further down this path marked by shadows.
The stairs were old. Despite their constant use, they had never been repaired or properly maintained. But that was not my problem. I just needed to reach the hallway above and see what I could find...
...
The same hallway as always.
Honestly, it was obvious I would find another hallway identical to the one outside my apartment, which was on the sixth floor, so I should now be on the seventh.
Could she have meant the rooftop?
I lose nothing by trying. So I climbed the stairs again to reach the eighth floor, then continued to the ninth, and that should have been the end of it.
The building only had nine floors, a basement, and a rooftop...
I am dying to see sunlight after climbing these dark and macabre stairs...
!
—But what is happening...?
The building only has nine floors. A tenth floor was never built. I should be on the rooftop right now...
Surely I counted wrong. I will go up again.
...
No...
This cannot be happening. I should be on the rooftop. How am I still ending up in a hallway?
...
No...
Damn it!
Something must be happening. I have spent a long time climbing these damned stairs...
—Why do I keep ending up in a hallway?
I am tired.
Maybe I should just walk through this hallway to the end...
...
Ha, ha...
Ha, ha, JA, JA...
JAJAHAHAJAHA...
...
—No way...
"Room 420."
This is my apartment...
How am I on the sixth floor if I only climbed upward?
It was chilling. What was happening should have been impossible.
And yet, it was happening.
Am I dreaming?
I decided to climb again and walk through the hallway.
...
"Room 420."
Again?
I remember climbing the stairs...
Why?
...
I did not give up. I spent several hours climbing the stairs. I even went down them.
The result was always the same...
"Room 420."
—Damn it!
I have been walking for hours...
My legs hurt and I am hungry...
I think I am doomed to die in this horrible place that I once called "Home."
...
—Do you want to wake up?
!
The moment I opened my apartment door and stepped inside, I heard that female voice.
There was no doubt.
It was the same one.
And now it was coming from my room.
But that was not the only difference...
My apartment looked different.
Everything appeared more worn out. The metals were rusted, the wood rotten, and the plants withered... You could not even say they were withered anymore.
They were in a state worse than that.
Along with this grotesque appearance came a repulsive smell from my room, the same place where the voice was coming from...
Something kept me on edge. My senses screamed at me to run, to flee and save myself, but at this point I could only move forward.
The dried bloodstains I found on the walls confirmed it...
Something was happening, and it was likely that whoever was responsible was in my room.
—What is this?
As soon as I reached my bedroom door, I felt something warm beneath my feet.
My body froze at the strange warmth.
Something was terribly wrong.
My neck could not move easily...
My thoughts and body were disconnected.
My body was not responding to my intentions.
I need to look down, but...
My hands are shaking.
A pool of blood was flowing from beneath my bedroom door.
Something had happened..
And ignoring every signal my body gave me to escape, I opened the door.
Only to find a filthy, old, abandoned, blood-soaked room...
Blood gushed endlessly from a lump on my bed.
It looked like a human figure covered by my sheets...
I tried to approach it, but I could not manage it...
Each step felt heavier than the last.
The air was thick.
I could not breathe properly, and my head spun over and over again.
The room blurred.
With every step I took toward the lump, those effects grew stronger.
In the end I collapsed unconscious into the blood covering my room...
The last thing I saw was...
A beautiful?
Woman removing the sheets that covered her on my bed...
...
...