By: Reese Yan

“I’ve arrived,” said the man. His hair was brown, and he was wearing a black coat with jeans. He opens the door and presses a key making it lock; he slowly starts to walk. He has arrived. The building looked rough and black as if it was burnt, and it was enormous. The building was as tall as the Statue of Liberty. He could feel the presence of people inside it, although it was hollow. He starts to walk closer. Soon, he is in front of it, and the man slides his key and unlocks the door. When he entered, a cold wind brushed against his clothes, giving him goosebumps. As he started to walk forward, closing the door behind him, a sense of uneasiness slithered down his spine.

As the days passed, the man moved in with all his furniture. But the man still felt uneasy because the past few were the worst days of his life. At night, whenever he tried to rest his eyes, he never could. All he could hear was knocking against the door leading to his bedroom, which made him have dark round eye bags underneath his eyes like a panda. Even during the day, he was never able to have a quiet and peaceful time; it was like there were people next to him following the man. Wherever he was, he would always feel the presence of someone else even though, in reality, nobody was there.

One day, he felt as if the presence surrounding him was gone. At night, when he was sleeping, he never heard knocking on the door. He thought that something was wrong since there always was the sound of knocking, but he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to get sleep, so he didn’t think much about it. When he woke up, he felt refreshed, as if he was a ripe fruit freshly picked.

When the man finally thought the knocking and random noises were gone, he started to be happier. But his peaceful time didn’t last long. The noise eventually came back, but worse than before.