II.

Day 4

Nightmare again. Nothing’s changed; just more details.

If it weren’t for the sun, I’d think it’s been days since I last wrote. It feels like it.

Hours have passed—I think—since what I wrote above. Finally!, good news: The radio’s working. It’s all static, except for a local news station, and even it has a weak signal: I’ll occasionally hear something like growling—reminiscent of the creature in the dream—distorting the signal, and every time I get this terrible headache, or it exacerbates what I already have.

I found some old audiotapes in my chest, so I’ve begun recording what I could of it. Maybe I’ll transcribe them when I have the time . . . who am I kidding? I have nothing but time right now. It’s still a pain. I’ll just leave the tape.

The television still won’t turn on. The phone still won’t dial; there’s not even a dial tone. The heater and A/C shut down days ago, leaving the temperature unnaturally cool—(I assume: I have no way of checking outside. Well, that’s not entirely true. Sometimes the weather report will come through the radio.)—but it’s tolerable in here. I suppose. Sometimes the ceiling fan will begin to twirl on its own, but there’s no airflow to move it, it’s all stagnant and weighted. I’ve learned to accept it. There’s nothing I can do to change it. I’m powerless, in my own apartment.

Looks like I’ll have to find another job. . . .

Day 5

My hand won’t stop shaking; my body too. Something’s happened. Something terrible is happening. My legs are weak; my knees are giving away; I can barely stand, but I can’t sit down either. There’s something wrong. (Not that I didn’t already know that, but, now, much worse.)

I’ll start from when I awoke, from that nightmare, that selfsame nightmare.

I felt light on my face, coming through the window—I guess I’d forgotten to shut the blinds; I guess it didn’t matter, I don’t sleep much at a time anymore; I can’t stand to—and I heard the traffic, the people, the populous, all living without me, proceeding with their lives as usual, nothing atypical, no second thoughts about how maybe, just maybe, a fellow in Room 302 has been locked in his apartment for the past five days, waiting it out, patiently?, praying for some way out of this nightmare-within-a-nightmare.

Today, the fifth day, my prayers came true. And now I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.

I did the same thing I’d done everyday so far: tried the phone, tried calling Frank. No dice. Same thing as always: some weird static & distortion; couldn’t describe it for the life of me. I hung up, disparaged, like every morning, like every hour.

I took two steps towards the door and it happened. It rang. Five times before I could answer, before I could gather the strength to speak. (When was the last time I’d made a sound? I stopped yelling at the windows two days ago; there were no other reasons to speak when I knew there was no one listening. Would they listen if they could hear?, I wonder. I couldn’t answer. I didn’t want to.) My voice still worked, enough to say Hello. I could hear breathing; I thought of high school.

Silence.

Help . . . me! . . .

What?

Silence, beep, beep, beep. . . . dial tone. Silence.

I didn’t make a sound; I didn’t say a word. Nonplused, I picked up the entire phone. The cord swayed in front of me: it had been cut. . . . My chest collapsed; my heart sank; my mouth, dry as a bone. A physical impossibility: my entire apartment had become a quantum & mathematical joke. I expected a headache, but nothing came.

Immediately after hanging up, I heard a scream, a blood curdling someone’s-just-been-killed sort of scream; quite the wake-up call: it worked. I didn’t want to move. It came from the living room, I thought, but maybe that meant there was a way in; maybe a way out. . . . I had to know.

I opened the door to the hallway. Lungs filled with stale air, made me choke briefly. I couldn’t see straight, but nothing seemed different; no one was here; no one to let me out. I walked around the place, looking at everything, just to ensure nothing had in fact been disturbed. I did hear that scream. At least I thought I did. Maybe just an admonition of things to come; maybe I made it up. I don’t remember right now. It’s no longer important; that scream doesn’t matter. I looked around, tried the television, still doesn’t work, messed with the clock, still stopped at 10:10, same old photos of myself—why do I have photos of me?—wine bottle in the refrigerator, baking soda, there’s nothing of any interest to me any longer; nothing to satisfy. I even went so far as to try the front door again, but nothing doing.

*EXCURSUS (ON THE SIDE OF THE PAGE): I had to change pens. I didn’t want you to think someone else began writing for me. I guess you could’ve figured that out on your own.

EXCURSUS (ON A SEPARATE SHEET OF PAPER): About the front door. . . . Looking back, I realized I’d forgotten entirely to mention it. Why? Possibly I’ve forgotten more, but this is important: I’m surprised at myself.

It’s locked. No shock there: I can’t leave. How it’s locked, though; why I wanted nothing more than to be heard, to be let out . . . it’s impossible. Even now, five days later, it’s unbelievable, straight out of a nightmare. This though is no nightmare. I believe that now; I don’t want to, but it’s true. All too true. I have to. The door has been locked from the inside . . . chained shut with locks that won’t break, can’t be broken. I spent hours pounding on it the first day, hitting it with everything I had: I didn’t know what else to do. Like I said before: Powerless. Like starving, and finding food, but having no teeth. . . . I swear I’ve heard that before.

For the next several hours, after having just awakened from that nightmare, only to find this whole new nightmare awaiting me, invading my apartment, I just sat against the door, chains pressing into my flesh, leaving two-inch links imprinted into my back. I didn’t notice until the next day, when I showered; I’d forgotten about it, convinced it was part of that dream. Should’ve paid closer attention. . . .

I thought to myself how incredibly ludicrous it all was, it all became. It made no more sense, became less of a prank, as the days passed, to my dismay. At least now I know what I have to do, and how to escape.

There was a crash outside the door. I looked out the peephole, hoping whoever—or whatever—it was could help me out, but it was only the neighbor next door, in 303. I heard her, but she didn’t hear a thing from through the door. She was picking up whatever she’d dropped—looked like she just got home from shopping, groceries mainly—and said something along the lines of her luck changing and a party. I wasn’t too clear on it. Whose party, I wonder.

I met Eileen when I first moved in, two years ago, sometime in the spring. Turns out she’s been living here for awhile, so she knows this place as well as anyone; I guess most of the tenants do: They’ve all lived here longer than I have. Don’t really know anyone else who lives here all that well, or at all, actually, but I can recognize’em if I pass them in the hallway—of course that hasn’t happened anytime recently . . . and probably won’t.

We’ve never spoken much. She’s twenty-something, I believe, and has family here in town. I guess she took over the apartment when her parent’s moved away; not sure why they moved, and I’m not sure where to, but I suppose it’s of little relevance. That may very well be all fictional anyway—I don’t know how long she’s lived here, to be honest.

After she went back to her room, I noticed there was something slipped under the doorway: a slip of paper, folded in half, aged and yellow, written in crayon, probably by a kid, it read:

Mom,
Why doesn’t u Wake up?

Is this a joke? I thought. There aren’t any kids living on the third floor, just the three of us: 301, 302, 303; Matt (I think it is), myself, and Eileen. After two years of living here, I don’t recall ever having said a word to Matt, or even exchanged so much as a glance in passing; must keep to himself a lot, holed up in his apartment. Sometimes I can hear pounding on his wall adjacent to mine—it goes right into my bedroom, it was late, I was trying to sleep, but he wouldn’t stop, all night long; sometimes this strange growl, too—no, it’s not really a growl, but a low droning; I’m bad at describing things—maybe he has a pet, I’m not sure. Doesn’t sound like a pet though, not one I’ve ever heard.

Does he even still live there? Did he ever live there? Maybe I’m thinking of someone else.

Before I could put the note in my scrapbook, which I was on my way to do, I noticed something sticking out from behind the bookcase—something I hadn’t seen before. I walked over to check it out and tripped over my chest—still kinda hurts.

The papers behind the bookshelf were the pages of some aging text: it had turned yellow with age; the ink had faded significantly, parts of it were impossible to descry. I stapled it to the following page if you’re interested.

*EXCURSUS (ON THE SIDE OF THE PAGE): Well, a copy of what I could read, some of it’s too damaged to bother with, will work better. This thing looks ancient.

Through the Ritual of the Holy Assumption, he built a world. It exists in a space separate from the world of our Lord. More accurately, it is within, yet without the Lord's world. Unlike the world of our Lord, it is a world in extreme flux. Unexpected doors or walls, moving floors, odd creatures, a world only he can control. . . .

Anyone swallowed up by that world will live there for eternity, undying. They will haunt that realm as a spirit. How can our Lord forgive such an abomination? . . .

(This part’s illegible.)

. . . It is important to travel lightly in that world. He who carries too heavy a burden will regret it . . .

(The rest is illegible, too.)

My eye then caught something out the window. I don’t understand why, there was nothing extraordinarily interesting, but I had to stop and look: A woman, dressed . . . provocatively, standing, pacing, in front of the subway entrance, arms folded, crossed, on her hips, pacing, back & forth, for a good three minutes. I watched, observed, content, and she slowly stepped into the stairwell, strutted in a way, down the South Ashfield Line. I wanted to document it, photograph it, but by the time I could run and grab a camera she may very well have been gone before I returned. I didn’t want to risk it; I felt compelled to stay and watch.

It was unnerving to think that I was watching this stranger so intently for so long. How would she feel if she knew? Probably think I was a pervert, a peeping-tom. But that doesn’t matter: I’m invisible to the outside world; no one can see or hear me. Yet . . . something knows I’m here.

As I stepped away from the window, I heard a crash from the end of the hall; the sound of a wall crumbling—that isn’t the first description I thought but thinking back, it’s the most suitable—like the final strike to a miserable obstruction, of cheap brick and corroded cement, hit by a hammer or shovel, and the rubble collapses in a heap by your feet—it sounded like that. I like that sound.

In fact, it pretty much was that. . . .

I followed the sound to the bathroom. Opened the door. The bathroom was in ruin. It was like I said: Something, someone, had broken through that final amount of wall, leaving a tunnel—I don’t know how long; looked like miles—and a hole in the wall. I could faintly hear whispering from within, children’s voices, sometimes crying. Couldn’t understand a word, just weeping, just whispering.

This is the only way out. I can’t sit around in my apartment any longer. I have to leave; I have to find out what the hell is happening here, why no one can see me, where this hole came from.

I’ve been sitting on my couch for the past two hours, I think, writing, debating, asking no one in particular, no one specifically what I should do. You’ve helped me come to a decision; you’ve helped me come to my conclusion. If I never come back from that hole, may these words reach you, somehow, in some way. It isn’t going to matter what happens to me, I’ve got no one waiting for me. But the idea of dying in my own apartment, alone, with a hole in my wall, leading to God-only-knows-where, is reason enough . . . I have little to leave here, and even less reason to stay. I have to go in; see where it takes me.

This is it. Into the hole. Wish me luck.

[CLICK]