In The Walls

”God! How do you get the stink out of this place? I swear this cat lady who lived before us, shampooed her hair with rotten eggs. ” Dream said in a nasal tone to us, some of us were shifting furniture and some were trying to clean the kitchen counter. While Dream was spraying, a room freshener, about a can down.

”Why does it have to be an old lady with cats.? ” Rayn said, baffled. I thought to myself it does smell like something is rotting and Alessia was the most sensitive one to smell. She smelled the funk at the first step she took to the apartment. She must have been really bothered by it, she was never the one to complain. ”It could be the wet rouge ”. Rayn was always bustling with practical speech.

”No, dorn it was an old woman with a cat, she probably died and they ate her face. ” Dreams irritation along with her answer.

”How are you so sure Miss Shay. ” I raised my eyebrow to Dream. ”I think you are being too dramatic. ”

”Its the smell! ” Alessias quick comment, I could see it was getting to her as well. However, the girl was great when it came to covering up, be her emotion be her pain. She always stood out in this way as well, the mature one in the group.

”Well, so I am the only one to notice the signs then, well there are scratch marks very fine, shape and small in all the rooms. Mainly in the living room! It has to be cats. ” Dream said while pointing at one, which was exactly how she described it, small three-nail scratch marks. I got close to it, inspecting it, something very off to me, me and Alessia exchanged a similar kind of suspicious look. It was so minute that we almost missed it, and at that time it was even more minimalistic compared to the matter of renovating an entire apartment.

In the middle of cleaning, what felt like an impossible mission, Alessia excused herself to the bathroom pretty frequently. I could understand that she was not doing so well, every time I ventured to get her off the cleaning, she claimed she was okay, just a bit nauseous. She could be really stubborn that used to get to my bones, I also left it as it was. She was scrubbing the sink when suddenly she saw something in it, she used her flashlight to see what was stuck there. One look and she sprinted to the bathroom; I never took her for someone with a loose stomach nor that she was. Jennifer and Dream chased her. By the time Rayn and I reached She was penetratingly throwing up, dream holding her hair back, as I notice she is holding on to her cross necklace. She painfully mumbled the word sink. At this point, I came to some practical consciousness, what did she see to make her gag like that?

Rayn with a disgusted face looked in the sink, a small rat skull, I assumed it was a rat skull, the thing that was stuck there. Jennifer released a Squamish scream at the look of it, we somehow got it out of the sink pipe. Alessia was in her room with a glass of water, her lips were dry and pale as well as her complexion. I sat next to her, trying to comfort her, I hated to see her in that state. We all have been through sickness and health like married people together. It was the rarest to see her like that… like lost…

”Hey! You doing okay? ” I started ”It was pretty disgusting I admit it, I would have also puked. ”

”Its not that Andrew… ” Alessia said while her eyes avoiding mine. ”You know I tell you everything because I know, you somehow always believe, even crazy stuff like bigfoot. ” She chuckled as I made a pretty silly face, gesturing in a dramatic way to lighten the mood. However, honestly, I wished she would tell me that something is not going right. I selfishly wanted her to join the wagon of this apartment. Just that back then wouldve changed things. ”I kind of keep drifting away, I feel sick down to the stomach, maybe thats why… Its too much stress getting out of our own place to speak the truth. But when I saw that thing a few images flash before my eyes, and suddenly I got dizzy. ” Hearing her just strengthened my belief that something was wrong but then she continued ”I am pretty sure this is all because I am sick, all I wanted to say is that this is a lot of stress, and I am glad I got you guys, I feel better. ”

I didn say anything back then, I just sat there holding her hand and her head leaned against my shoulder. For a while, we sat there, and I remember finding some peace being with her. She noticed that her glass was empty. Showing me the glass, it was understandable she wanted a refill, I was walking behind her when I noticed there was a piece of paper stuck under her boots. I call out to her, directing at the paper. With her other pair she got the paper off, as she continued, a prolonged pause and she went back to it. I stood confused as she looked at it with some fear on her face like she was in some trance. ”What? Whats wrong? ”

She went ahead to pick up the paper. The page was coated with words, one on top of the other can be made a head and tail of what is written, there was barely any space left there to see the white background of the paper. It absolutely made no sense but Alessia looked at it very carefully like she could make a head and tail out of lines and over those written words. Moving back to her room, she grabs a pen from her purse. She started to make hard lines connecting one to another, in one go she roughly made a word out of it which still haunts me to the day, read as Kill.

All that Alessia was doing was tripping me off big time, I held the pen and threw it out of her hands, she looked completely in trance, I got a grip of her and shook her trying to bring her to her senses. She passed out in my arms within a few seconds. I scream, gathering everyone in the room. We reached the hospital as soon as we could and all the way she was unconscious. The doctor diagnosed her as having too much stress and overwork. We all stayed the night at the hospital, and as midnight hit, I decided to stay next to her. After a while she woke up, I was about to rush to get a doctor when she held my hand. Petrified looking at the dark, like she could see someone in the dim hallway. ”What is it? ” I asked her a couple of times. She could see a person standing in the hallway, a slender body with only hollow white eyes, nothing else for the face had a structure.

”Theres someone standing in the hallway. ” Alessia was scared down to her core, shaking her hand holding on to me trying to protect me from something I couldn even see. She blinked and a tear rolled off her eyes. And just like that, it was gone, there was nothing standing there anymore. She let go of my hand and tried very hard to utter words but she couldn , even though she desperately tried for her life and mine. I just got her some water to move to find a doctor. I moved to the hallway and she calmed a bit down but still shook with fear and an unbelievable body ache. She looked at me paralyzed when from the hall I was trying to grab a doctor while at the same time keeping an eye on her. Now she could see more clearly someone was behind me, the head was of a rat skull, and it was gigantic leaning over looking at me like it was about to attack me.

Alessia released a death scream and woke up, finding herself in the hospital. All of us surrounded her, she took a look at me and leaped to hug me leaving me in confusion, as hard as she could. The doctor took some time to examine her and we were told she had a nightmare. That time I didn know what she saw. However, now I know, she told me much later what she saw, midnight, that thing and how it makes some much sense for her to see that, I know now for certain it was no nightmare, she saw someone behind me. I can even imagine seeing something so horrifying, but soon we were living in the nightmare that just a glimpse Alessia saw that day. And that nightmare even has the name Apartment number 07.