‘Na-na-na, Naa-na-na, Hey Jude’ blasted through his headphones.
Once on the rooftop Rudy was doing his daily walks with his rock and roll playlist. Mostly it was Metallica or Deaftones but here now and then some psychedelic music intervened. Something filled up his head like the midnight’s mist around. Not by the occasional shuffling music but a shadow gazing at him across a few rooftops. By slower footsteps he occasionally came to a rest and found himself looking back at it. His left arm unconsciously going on his lower back, suspecting a numbing feeling.
‘I slept funny, huh’
It was night and the moon was covered in overcast clouds, not having his glasses didn’t help either. But his legs kept marching with a dizzy eye and head. This was his daily routine to overcome his hazed headspace. Then he felt the looming breeze hard on his face which navigated towards that dark rooftop. He looked again with his conclusion and felt satisfied as a cloth was left hung on the roof by someone. He continued his walk then a memory hit him with the breeze. ‘Danny lived there, right?’ He pondered as pressed more heavily on his lower back as if trying to cover a bullet wound.
Danny’s name was not a pleasant one for him. It had an unholy vibe about it, just like himself. He was his friend and they hung out everyday until they didn’t.
It started out with cigarettes as their mutual friend. Nothing much was interesting about Danny but they still talked. It was just laughs and smoke but it was a friendship somehow. And somehow in friendship, slowly but surely, people reveal themselves. A true friend chooses to listen without invalidating and fools choose to listen and do nothing. Rudy falled under the latter kind. He noticed his hands around his thighs gradually going between them on a daily basis, but did nothing. He just noticed and gradually it grew to passive sexual talk hidden under humor. He participated in the degrading talks as he didn’t know anything else.
Mostly the only thing men have is a love-hate relation with themselves and that reflects in their interactions. ‘I’m feeling deprived of self love, I have an idea! Let’s degrade each other for a good time!’ is their motto. Nothing comes out of it but nothing really mattered in those moments. Life didn’t matter after hiding a thick tobacco smoke. The mist grew thicker
Below the night’s haze his walks have been putting him in a trance-like state lately. The roof, his own chamber of reflection. Branches of his thoughts spread out and he could weirdly observe them and the mist eloping him in its solitary solace. Whenever he had some disturbing thought, he brushed it off with louder music. Walking with full integrated body language. The music straightened his back. Active state of mind arranging his thoughts with more brain juice. Rotating in his own head like a bowl full of noodles. He slurped them all with blissed earlobes and a brisk walk down his rooftop. Most pleasant part of the summer is the night and its cold embrace. The cold felt warm to him in his daily routine but recently his eye’s just can’t help but look at that rooftop and the back pain.
The wind whispered through the gaps between the buildings, carrying a chilling undertone that seemed to match the growing unease in Rudy’s heart. He couldn’t shake off the memories of Danny, his strange friend, and the peculiar darkness that surrounded their friendship. It was as if a shadow had cast its influence over them, infiltrating their conversations and thoughts.
Rudy’s footsteps quickened as he continued his rhythmic walk on the rooftop, trying to escape the tendrils of discomfort that wrapped around his mind. The music blared in his ears, a desperate attempt to drown out the nagging doubts and fears that clawed at him from within.
A voice, sinister and seductive, echoed in his mind. “Rudy,” it hissed, “you can’t escape what lies between us.”
His legs trembled, threatening to give way beneath him. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to flee from this nightmarish encounter. But a morbid curiosity, mingled with a sense of dread, rooted him to the spot.
The mist swirled around Rudy, suffocating him with its chilling embrace. The shadowy figure on the rooftop began to move, its movements grotesque and unnatural. It crawled, its limbs contorting with each unsettling step, as if mocking the very essence of humanity.
Rudy’s breath hitched in his throat as the figure drew closer, its presence overpowering. He tried to utter a scream, but no sound escaped his lips. His mind raced, searching for an explanation, a logical reason for this nightmare unfolding before him. But deep down, he knew that logic had long abandoned him.
A surge of primal fear coursed through Rudy’s veins as the figure finally reached him. It loomed over him, its malevolent eyes piercing his soul. In that moment, all the hidden truths, the unspoken desires, and the darkness within their friendship coalesced into a terrifying revelation.
The figure spoke, its voice a chilling whisper that seemed to originate from the darkest recesses of Rudy’s own mind. “You thought you could bury the past, Rudy. But the past always finds a way to resurface. You cannot escape what you are.”
With a jolt, Rudy’s back pain intensified, a searing agony that consumed him. The figure extended a twisted hand, reaching for his trembling body. And just as it made contact, everything went black.
When Rudy opened his eyes, he found himself lying in his bed, drenched in sweat. It had all been a dream, a horrific manifestation of his own subconscious fears. The nightmare had woven a web of shadows, blurring the lines between reality and the darkness that lurked within.
But as he sat up, he noticed something amiss. On the nightstand beside him lay a single, folded cloth, identical to the one that had hung on the rooftop. A surge of terror coursed through him as he looked at all his room’s doors unlocked and felt that numbing lower back pain all over again.