It all started on the third night when I first moved into my apartment.
My apartment was what any college student would love, modestly sized for the cheap price, every everyday item pre-purchased like plates and forks along with the pots and pans. The windows were tinted so you could have privacy and still enjoy sunlight without closing the curtains and doors barred with metal cages so that you could feel safe. The room itself had noise isolation pads that would make even the loudest music barely sound like hum to my neighbors. A cleaning lady that would come to change your linen sheets and towels that were already included with the price of the rent. It was perfect. It had everything a person who is living alone for the first time would want or need. That’s why after a cursory glance I rushed to move in.
The contract was odd. I don’t mean odd in the sense of malicious or controlling, I had enough lectures from my parents about the predatory nature of some landlords to fill a book. No, I mean that the contract was odd in the sense that it had one weird specification don’t bother your neighbors. To be more precise the contract had explicitly stated that since we were all “upstanding and paying tenants” we were “prohibited to disturb one another”. I asked my landlady about it, she simply gave me a kind smile while saying “don’t worry about any noise you make in your apartment, the noise you make inside your apartment won’t be heard by your neighbors. Just don’t disturb the other tenants while in the hallway. Some of them work during day and others work at night, we find that those that work at night hate having their rest disturbed in the morning. So don’t bother your neighbors and they won’t bother you.” It seemed reasonable after all I would hate for my neighbors to wake me up at night while I was resting. So I signed the contract gave the standard deposit and choose to spend the rest of the day getting acquainted with my room.
The entirety of my second day was spent moving the little knickknacks from my previous apartment, my previous roommates being the malicious types of dildos that they were, chose to not help me pack or move, all except Xu. Xu was perhaps the only person from my previous 4 person apartment that I could tolerate. Don’t get me wrong she still was obnoxiously loud at night, messy, and generally disgusting; a treasure trove of bad ideas and all around terrible person. But, she was the only pair of extra hands that I could acquire with a cheap lunch. She carried the last box that I just couldn’t fit into my arms while suckling on her favorite cotton candy-flavored lollipop. As we marched up the stairs carrying my box of memories I got a little lost in my mind while staring at Xu from behind. You would never guess her to be such a terrible person from her appearance. She had an expensive fashion sense, a love for a lifestyle she couldn’t afford by herself but one that was fed by her treasure trove of “toys”. Her cute face, her hair, her beautiful hair as dark as midnight in a Fubuki haircut , her slanted sharp eyes and a devilish grin that seemed to always be present along with the white end of her lollipop stick. All of that gave her the illusion that she was a beautiful person. But I know better. I know how terrible she is. She was an inveigler. One who made her fortune in the misfortune of those that met her. Just like the rest of those that lived in that house. Yes. She was the demon just like the rest of them, albeit she was not the devil, and only for that reason alone did I allow her to help m—
CRRAAASSSHHHHH
The loud noise snapped me out of my train of thought. And before me, I saw the door to my apartment and my very tiny box of valued memories dumped on the ground like trash. Xu gave me a foxy smile, before louder than necessarily telling me “Welp! That’s all the help you’re gonna get out of me, put your trash in your room, and let’s eat!”
I was mad.
I was fucking mad.
I inched closer to her, dropping the rest of my boxes each brown box making a loud thud and bang. It didn’t bother me. But maybe it bothered Xu
Xu backed into the cage outside my apartment door. Her soft body coiled around the metal. As fear grows in her eyes.
I am mad.
I am really mad at her.
My hands lowered to reach my tiny box of memories. If but a single one of them was damaged I would make her pay.
Right as I was opening my box, making sure to block Xu in her place to make sure she couldn’t run away from her mischief.
KNOCK
I heard it. A single but sharp knock.
My eyes quickly moved toward the source, identifying it to be from my next-door neighbor’s window. A single crack formed veering into the endless dark void of my neighbor’s room, darkness which even light seemingly refused to enter.
“Excuse me. You are bothering me.” A female voice said. It had an unpleasant tone to it, but the voice itself seemed to have belonged to a very pretty person.
“Please excuse me and my friend” I quickly replied whilst attempting to gaze into the darkness, trying to see if I could make out any one of her features.
The voice never answered, instead it chose to gently shut the window.
While my attention was focused on that, Xu squirmed her way away from me, before giving me a knowing smile. She knew that I could never catch her out in the open and that she had escaped the consequences of her breaking my box.
My anger began to soothe. This would be the last time I see her, there should be no need for me to get so worked up about it.
With that, I began to move the boxes inside, making sure to leave the heavy ones that she couldn’t move outside while taking all that she could into my place first. After stacking all the small and medium boxes I had, I rushed outside lest Xu became bored and thought burning my big boxes would be fun.
When I came outside of my apartment, I saw that my boxes were as I had left them, but Xu was gone only the stick of her lollipop on the ground to indicate that she was ever there. I took no note of her absence, most likely in the minute that I was away she had found a new “toy” that got her attention and had decided to leave without goodbyes. Why would she stay to say goodbye, we weren’t friends. We were just people who lived together. With that I took her lollipop stick with me, to throw away.
With that, I spent the rest of the day unpacking. But it was the first of many restless nights.
KNOOOCK
That was the first time I had heard it. An insidious knock woke me up from the comforting embrace of my blankets. Still in a daze from my interrupted night’s dream, I sat upright for a second, wondering if it was my mind that had played a trick on me. As my eyes began to adjust to the darkness I carefully scanned my room. The messy piles of boxes tattered and thrown around were as I had left them an almost unwitting alarm system for any would intruders. My eyes growing more weary and heavy eventually convinced my brain that there was no immediate danger and thus my mind convinced my instincts to calm and rest. The warmth of my blanket and the comfort of the darkness soon began lulling me back to the land of dreams.
Knock
Now my mind was sharp. Whereas before it was uncertain, it now knew the discomforting reality of the knock being real.
Who was it? And where did the knock come from?
I quickly get up, careful not to knock on my boxes to alert whoever it was.
I quickly opened my door to confront the source of the noise. But it was only silence and darkness that greeted me in my empty apartment hallway.
For the rest of the night, I sat near my windows and door, uncertain exactly when the noise would make its entrance again but certain that I would catch it. Only for there to be no more knocks for the rest of the night. When daylight came, I began to relax a little.
I called to complain to my landlady.
BEEEEP—BEEEEP—BEE—
“Hello?”
“Yes, good morning ma’am, I’m the guy that recently moved into the new apartment”
“How may I help you?”
“Yesterday, I kept hearing this knock from outside my apartment, I was under the understanding that most noises wouldn’t be able to make their way into my room from the outside”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Yes, most noises probably wouldn’t make their way into your room. Most probably the only way a knock could be heard is through your window.”
This sank my heart a little. Was there someone outside my window last night?
“Is there any way you could make sure this wouldn’t happen again? I would like to enjoy my night’s rest.”
“We will do the best we can.”
With that, she hung up. With not much else I could do I decided to spend the rest of the day business as usual. Only to stop briefly at my neighbor’s window. I noticed that the room she was in was still unusually dark, the window still cracked ajar.
Maybe it was her that did it. As a way to get back at me.
If it was her. I would make sure she would regret it. As I moved closer to her windows I noticed something. A lollipop stick.
So, it was her.
That night I was certain that I would get a good night’s rest. I was sure of it.
Yet once again when I was deep in slumber.
KNOOOCK
The noise once again awoke me. My frustration grew as I once again had to use my mind when it should have been resting. I knew something like this might happen again today. So I made preparations.
I grabbed my tiny box of memories, filled with various souvenirs and tools of my trade. With it, I made my way outside my apartment.
Once again nothing but darkness awaited me outside. I gave them a cursory glance both ways of the hallway, before sneaking towards my neighbor’s door. The rudimentary steel cage and locked took me barely any effort to open. The silence barely being broken by the clicks and clacks of the door making sure to lock both of them on my way in. I made my way inside, finding the room to be as dark as I did when I looked into it in the morning. My careful footsteps barely made any sound, I was good at creeping around like that. I made my way to her bedroom. Where just as I had suspected she was missing. I entered her closet making sure to leave just enough of a crack so I could see through it. In but a few short moments I heard the doors lock open. As I had anticipated.
I could hear her soft but clumsy footsteps. I could tell that she was light, likely lighter than I am.
I saw the flicker on for a second as it sounded like she threw her shoes and her coat to the ground, before just as quickly turning the lights back off. She was similar like that to Xu, so incredibly careless and messy. But, it seemed like she loved the dark as I did.
I could hear the dings and beeps of her phone and the subtle click you hear when it turns off. I heard the flick of another light, as she went into what I assumed to be her bathroom.
I thought about it for a second, her bathroom would more likely be easier to clean than her bedroom I reasoned.
I slithered my way out of her closet, careful to not even make the slightest sound.
I heard the showers turn on.
“Perfect”
“Hu—AAAAAHH”
Well, you don’t need to know how the rest of the night went. Just like you don’t need to know how that morning went at Xu’s.
It was just before the first rays of sunlight had landed that I left my neighbors. Satisfied with a new memory and certain of my presence being removed from that place. I hadn’t wanted to do this so early. I would have loved to live here for long, but I had valued my rest over this place. I knew I had to leave soon, but I was certain that I could at least finish my rest before I did.
But you wouldn’t believe it.
I heard another KNOCK.
Once again I panicked and rushed outside, only to be greeted by the silent dimly sunlit halls. I stood there shocked and in disbelief.
So that is why I am writing to you guys perhaps in need of advice.
I keep hearing knocks at night. And it won’t stop. Neither can I.