Lance is alone.

Lance has been alone, now, for 31 hours and 1,716 skipped beats of his heart.

(His clock had stopped on Tuesday).

Was it Tuesday? He thinks back, tongue tight between his teeth and brow furrowed over closed eyes. He woke up Friday, right, and showered. The water felt particularly cold that morning, Frank was probably getting tired of him paying bills late all the time. He was running late to work when he stumbled into his door that wouldn’t open and when he realized why it wouldn’t open, he screamed, and he expected people to run over, because he’s screamed before and Richard Braintree from next door always comes over to complain about it with hands waving wildly.

But nobody came.

So— that was all Friday. His clocks stopped 31 hours after that, which, means they stopped Sunday morning, when Lance refused to sleep and was just watching the slow blinking dot like two red eyes in the shadow of a table lamp. The clock was still stuck at 4:17 AM.

And that happened on Sunday so… if the faucet dripped 12 times an hour, if his heart beat 80 times a minute, if Richard Braintree left his apartment every day at 7am to get the newspaper and to mutter complaints about the stench of the building under his breath— that’s happened three time since the clock stopped— Oh. So, no. His clock stopped Sunday. Today was Tuesday.

Lance ran his hands down his face, and the pads of his fingertips brushed over long lashes and three-day-old stubble. It felt more impressive under his hands than it looked in any of his dingy mirrors. Though his eyes remained closed, he could see the ugly popcorn ceiling above him.

If his mom could see him now, she’d have a fit. He hasn’t moved since Sunday at 4:17 AM. He’s almost certain that his ratty collared shirt has fused to his bed linens now, the thin fabrics binding together to trap him even deeper in his apartment.

He went through the same laundry list of questions, tired and worn like the fraying blankets under his lean body. Questions like: Why was his door locked? How was the door locked? Why couldn’t he get out? Could he ever get out? And, Why wasn’t anyone helping him?

Cause people can see him— he knows people can see him, because Pamela Kim and her daughter from next door, the ones who always invited him for dinner every third Thursday with a card that little Leila Kim draws herself— they unhinged their jaws to display grinning teeth, and they waved, when they saw him in his window trying to pry the rusted hinges open and jump.

Lance couldn’t help but to start laughing with them, even as they turned away. Even as he watched the ground swallow them, wide grey tongue leading to the subway. He must have looked pretty ridiculous, pressed up against the window, banging and begging and sobbing and wishing the glass before him would shatter or the floor under him would collapse or that he would just die.

He rolled over, movement unhindered. Hypothesis disproved: the nest of blankets is not soldered to his skin.

Lance’s eyes call for sleep again. But even as he allows them to close, he resisted rest, pinching the soft skin at the inside of his thigh and biting so hard on his cheek he draws blood again. No sleep. No sleep, no more nightmares. No sleep.

No sleep.

He had habits, now, to stay awake. Count the dripping of the faucet, to pass time, until that became too calming— and then he traced patterns in his skin, connecting rare freckles like constellations. Slamming his fists against his broken clock. Percussive maintenance. Singing to himself, screaming to himself. Talking to himself. Begging, for anyone else.

I mean— it’s not that being alone is so bad. Lance enjoys being alone, sometimes. And the first two days of being locked in were fine. S’not like he hasn’t spent weekends without leaving his apartment before. Everyone has weekends like that. It’s just— when he doesn’t have the option to leave or even call out to order pizza— that’s when Lance’s skin starts to feel too tight, pulled against his bones, shifting and grinding against each other.

Also, the whole “probably haunted apartment” thing didn’t help. At all. Nor the fact that he couldn’t sleep without nightmares growing in his mind like mold.

So, he would relive memories from the days previous, walking through them like a dream. It was the closest he got to falling asleep, cause as soon as his breathing slowed, Lance would slam a hand against his forehead and force his consciousness back behind his eyes. No sleep.

Most of these memories were in the apartment, now, but some of them were still set at photo shoots or at the coffee shop he worked at to make enough money to pay rent— because photo shoots do not pay rent.

His mind kept wandering to a photo of a church he had taken in some smaller town a couple hours north of here— about half a day’s drive. He had gone up to take some cheesy family portrait with the first hired job he had gotten in three months, and while he was there got some gorgeous landscape shots of foggy moors and older buildings and a dilapidated church with windows like blind eyes.

It was a beautiful town, if a little cold for vacationing. His visit felt like it was years ago, but Lance did the math. It was two weeks this Friday. The photo of the church hung framed on the wall opposite of him and he could practically feel its cold, briny wind of the bay and the tendrils of fog, wrapping around his legs. He wished he were there. Anywhere but here.

Every seven and a half drips of his faucet, Lance force his eyes open, and he would pick up his yellowed receiver, and he would hold it to his ear in the hopes of hearing a dial tone, or ringing, or maybe his mother’s voice. The plastic is warm against his hand and Lance doesn’t even bother pressing it hard against his cheek this time. His other hand flops out from under him, hitting the end table and mashing numbers, the beeps faint and mocking.

Damn it. Damn it. Lance slams the receiver back on the dirty cradle, hitting against the silent dialpad on the way, and the twisted cord almost hung in the air for how tangled it was. Lance curled inward on himself, glaring at the yellow plastic, that fucking phone, not even the phone god damn works and there’s no reason for it not to work, he’s checked the cord a thousand times over, because at least if it were frayed he’d have a reason—

And just as Lance turns over to his other side, eyes closing and mouth falling open— the phone rings.

The phone rings.

A piercing shriek, coating the air around him with the familiar warbled tones. Someone is calling him. The phone is ringing. Lance fights paralysis and jumps out of bed, blankets falling and pooling around his feet in the process. He desperately holds the phone up to his ear, both hands grasping the receiver with white knuckles.

“Hello?” He rasps out, voice thick with exhaustion and scratchy from disuse. There’s static on the other side, and Lance can barely make out a man’s voice through the aluminum crackling.

“I… Where I am…” It hardly even sounded like English, for how warbled the words were. “Help… me.”

“What?” Lance felt something fall within the pit of his stomach and the hissing grew louder. Adrenaline rushed through every word as they tripped out of his mouth. “No, no no no. No, I need your help, please. I’m trapped in my apartment, it’s in South Ashfield, please, Room 302 in South Ashfield Heights— please —”

And without warning, the static stops. The line is dead.

“Fuck!” Lance screamed, throwing the phone down on the base with all the force he could muster. The plastic phone bounced off of its cradle and onto the floor, its mocking faces staring at Lance. He glared at it, hot tears pushing behind his eyes, when they suddenly ran cold. His eyes traced down the phone, following dirty fingerprints and the tangled cable that was not tangled anymore, because it had been cut.

The cord is cut.

Slowly, gingerly, Lance turned to look at the base and grabbed that end of the cord with shaking fingers. The cord’s cut. Has the cord always been cut? When— was the cord cut?

Lance grabbed the plastic, light in his shuddering grip, pulling out the cords from behind his worn nightstand, and with a fluid movement Lance shattered the entire thing against the tile of the kitchen wall.

He stands, chest heaving, and watches triangles of plastic fall in slow motion and clatter on the dingy floor. Wires hold some pieces together, like innards, spilling out from the gut of the phone base. Some liquid gushed out from it as well and Lance put “mop the kitchen floor” on his mental to do list.

Lance’s eyes moved slowly, as though attached to a tired rudder, each degree of movement further exhausting and purposeful. They traced a line up the ceiling and to the entrance of his apartment and to the door. The door, covered in rusty locks and mildewed chains and a message scrawled in blood. His entryway light is off, but he can still see the shrouded door from the bed, mocking him: “Don’t go out!”

The locks had appeared out of nowhere, bruising his body when he ran into them when he was late for work last Friday. They wove together, tangled from wall to wall— he had tried to tear down the uppermost left lock, but it was as if it grew out of his foyer, bone fused to drywall. Constantly shaking, rattling, ridiculing. Fucking annoying.

He laid back in bed, squeezing his eyes shut in a way that allowed them the rest they desperately needed while also keeping him in enough discomfort to stay awake. He needs to stay awake, he does his damndest to stay away because the nightmares— the nightmares—

But it doesn’t take long before the adrenaline evaporates from his veins, and his body succumbs to his desperate exhaustion. For a long time, it’s dark, and it’s quiet.

When Lance wakes again, he opens his eyes to find a room covered in red. Everything is peeling, like rusty skin. Even in the dim light, Lance could see the walls and ceiling pulsing and stretching some mucus across its beating frame. It almost looked like strep throat— how the pus patterns itself across ruby, and coats it in secretion like mother-of-pearl.

Lance peered up curiously at the ceiling, trying to recall when its popcorn texture turned soft and swollen. He turned to the side to find his phone back on the pinewood nightstand, dust framing the dialpad. The base was haphazardly pieced together with shiny scotch tape. He didn’t remember doing that, and there’s still no sound when he picks up the line.

It’s a moment before Lance realizes there’s no sound in the room at all— no heartbeat from the walls or within his own ears. Not even the sound of breathing, his own, or otherwise. His eyes pull from the taped–together phone and trace up the convex wall. Pictures hang askew, barely holding on with every inhale the room took.

Those photographs, framed and dark— they look so unfamiliar but Lance knows he took them. Where were they from? Did he—no, he had to have taken them. Why else would they be on his wall?

Lance flung his legs, long and gangling, off the bed. He steps closer to where they’re hanging, but can’t even really make out what the pictures are. It’s not that their fuzzy he— he just can’t see. Lance looked down to notice scuff marks on his shoes. He didn’t go to bed with those on.

A thought flies into his head, foreign, and grafts on to his withering mind: I need to remember where I put my book, my notes. Lance shakes his head to try to dislodge the words and focus on what he was seeing before belatedly realizing he had closed his eyes again. He dragged a hand down his face.

Maybe he didn’t get enough sleep last night.

Lance takes four and a half gentle steps to the left, floor supporting him even as soft and pliable as it was. His hands grasp the sash, fiddling with the lock that refused to move, and he shook his head again. His eyes felt unfocused— he can’t see anything through the window. He can’t even see his own reflection, it’s so dark, and black. Lance suddenly whips his head around— what is lighting up his room? Its pitch black outside, there are no lights on, and there are no candles lit.

He feels its warm touch before he sees the black moving into the room. The dark from outside, oozing through the dingy glass, worming around Lance like it knows him. And Lance— as if he hadn’t already figured this out— Lance has a realization that something is very wrong, and the walls start pulsing closer to where he is and he feels their slick covering his hands and the shoes he didn’t wear to bed, and there’s the sound of someone breathing, or maybe laughing— and he can’t breathe— and

Suddenly he can again. With a gasp, Lance forces his eyes open. For a moment he can’t move but he still feels his body relax. The tangling grasps around him— just a blanket, and he shucks the sweat-soaked fabric off with a stilted movement.

A dream. Another dream.

This one… less frightening than the last. Maybe they’re finally going away. Maybe whoever— whatever— decided to do this to him— maybe they’re bothering someone else.

Lance runs a hand down his face and stretches his toes, socked ankles cracking as he rolls them once, twice, three times. A fourth time for luck. A fifth time just because it feels good. He tries to blink the sleep out of his eyes, but they just glue back together. He shambles out of bed and into his bathroom— easily the most disgusting room in his apartment. For whatever reason it was the most susceptible to whatever was taking this place over, all green hues and opaque shadows, and rust that had never been there before.

His shoulders are still tight from his restless sleep and the circles under his eyes looked like wine stains. Lance’s hand gracelessly twisted one of his creaky sink knobs and the other waited patiently under the tap, miming as though water were already flowing out. Nothing.

Lance twists again. Again. The squeaking is grating and obnoxious, and not any better when Lance switches to pull on the other tap. His water isn’t working— of course. Why would it?

“I only wanted to wash my fucking face.” He spat into the sink, red-tinged spittle hitting the porcelain. “S'not like I even fucking paid this bill on time.”

He looked up again, mouth twisting into a painful frown, and a gaunt face stared at him from the mirror with eyes wide and blue and full of an untapped, unnamed emotion that tasted most like hatred. Lance smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth— of course he’s thirsty— and he tried again with both hands forcing the knobs to the far right, both hands tugging the faucet with a mighty creak, both hands shaking the entire porcelain stand and leaving fingerprints in all the spots his mother complains about. One more look up has him growling at his reflection, words unable to form on a tongue heavy with rage.

Without a second thought, Lance’s fist met a mirrored one. The glass shattered on impact, easily, too easily, and shards cut up the brown skin stretched taut against his knuckles.

“Fuck!” Lance screamed to his reflection, now like stained glass, black lines cutting between features. Bloodshot eyes begged for release and bloody fists hung limp at his side. He goes to wash the blood off his hands before remembering the water doesn’t work. He starts to totally sob, hands clutching the porcelain sink and body wracking with shallow breaths. “Fuck! Fuck…”

Lance had never punched anything in his life, save for his brother Tom, and that was perfectly deserved because Tom had stolen his bagel bites, and Lance was eight years old. Glass poked out of his soft hands, and as Lance wandered back towards his bed, he picked out the largest iridescent shards. None of it really hurt but he still started to cry.

Lance pushes back the piles of blankets onto his flabby pillows, dented in the middle, to make room to sit on the edge of his bed. His socked feet find a home under him and he belatedly realized it’s still dark outside, the edges of the horizon barely teased by yellowed rays. It’s not long before Helios rides through the early morning sky— according to the clock, 4:17 AM— and the downy clouds go from black to dusty blue. His disheveled reflection appeared with the sun, and Lance desperately wished his fist could shatter that.

There’s a train station near his house, a wide mouth swallowing early risers, people in suits and with small children and too many gangling men carrying ratty guitar cases. The sign above the cavernous maw used to light up at night, but about a year and a half ago Lance realized it wasn’t flickering against his window anymore. Made falling asleep easier.

And of course it was convenient to have the stop right there— easy on, easy off. It’s why he picked to live here. It’s fucking cheap, he’s fucking poor, and having the train on his stoop was really great since his living is half-made at a coffeeshop and half around the state of Maine.

Lance breathed out an “oh”— he had a photo shoot on Monday, he just remembered. He was supposed to have some landscape shots postmarked by the end of the day, some dramatic fog-covered view of a lake. There goes that $300. A cursory glance around his room reminded him that he had very little idea of where his camera even was. He wished he could go out and snap a couple of shots or at least go to bed and get some sleep.

It’s Wednesday, now, he’s pretty certain. The sun has risen, though the clock is still blinking 4:17 AM. Richard Braintree from next door has opened his shuddering door and shuffled to get his newspaper. Another day. He’s so fucking tired. But with light streaming in his dirty windows, it’s a little easier to stay awake.

Every third Wednesday was laundry day for Lance. He would take an overfilled knapsack, haphazardly secured to his back, and bike down to the laundromat where it would steal three of his quarters before actually washing anything. He didn’t often organize his clothes before going— he didn’t often talk to himself as he folded them, either, but this was a new normal.

It wasn’t even the third Wednesday.

Lance hummed as he folded a pair of khaki pants, dropping them into a middle pile: unworn. Another collared shirt, worn to bed several days ago– that can go into the "cologne necessary" pile, Lance reasons.

The piles grew taller, skyscrapers on his olive carpet floor. The smallest pile was the one of "unwearables"— only one shirt, from last night, covered in blood from his scabbed knuckles. Lance refused to even place it near the trash can. He didn't want to give any item of clothing up in case he needed it for—

"Well, maybe something." He realized he was muttering aloud. He tossed an old and frayed t-shirt into the "desperation" pile, and wrinkled his nose at the scent.

"Better to have and not need than need and not have," he sing-songed to himself, his voice scratchy from disuse.

Suddenly there was a shuddering knock at the door. Lance leapt to his feet, knocking over the pile labeled "laundry I needed to do before I got locked into my apartment, but I never did it, so now it's comparatively on the cleaner end of my closet's spectrum." A pink tshirt caught on his foot, but Lance kicked it off by the time he had sprinted to the door.

The knocks were booming this time, three in a row, and Lance peered through the peephole to see the building's superintendent glaring back.

"Oh, shit," he said to himself, right as the other man started to yell.

"This is the superintendent,” he called out, balled up fist smacking against the door again. "Are you in there, Lance?"

"Frank!" Lance yelled back, banging on the door himself and rattling the rusty chains, locks banging against the wood. The heaviest one in the center swung wildly and chipped a piece of paint off. "Frank, I'm in here! I need help!"

Lance didn’t expect the man on the other side to hear a thing but his heart still sank into his socked feet when the superintendent didn’t bat an eye. Frank Sunderland reached into his back pocket and pulled out a key ring, forcing one into Lance's lock, but the knob didn't even rattle.

"It's like something's blocking it from the other side." Lance could barely hear him mutter. Frank tried another key, then a third, and then the old man took a step back and stared at the door. His back slouched, and his arms crossed over his chest, as though holding his ribs together as he sighed.

Frank has visited before— Lance has seen him exactly like this, a mannequin posed as Lance hides behind his fingerprint-covered door and pretends to not be home. He was sometimes late on rent checks or utilities, because sometimes he just needed a couple more days to scrounge enough change out of his couch and charm enough tips out of coffee-starved customers before he could pay. So Frank Sunderland would come stand outside his door, wiggle the handle, shake his head like a morose father trying to just understand his reclusive son.

Except Lance wasn’t his son, and Frank just wanted his money.

But it’s not the first of the month, so Frank wasn’t here to collect rent, so Frank has no reason to be here— so Frank must know something is wrong, and Frank must be able to get him out.

"Frank– Frank, come on!" Lance half-heartedly rattled the chains again, desperation giving way to despair. He couldn’t bear to look at the frowning man anymore. He wished Frank’s steel-toed boots could just slam through this old and fragile wood but somehow Lance knew even a bomb would probably do nothing to this cursed door. His eyes fell to the rust-red message scrawled on the eggshell paint: DON'T GO OUT!!

"I can't!" Lance yelled back to it, fists balling against the door and shaking it one last time. "Don't fucking– you know I can't!"

He could hear steps moving, some muttering– and for one fleeting second Lance allowed himself to feel hope. Was Frank trying again? Was there another key— maybe he had used the wrong one? Maybe he was still talking to Lance— someone talking at him was better than nothing— but. He looked up, stinging eyes pressed against the peephole only to see Frank's back turned.

His keys jangled mockingly from his back pocket as he shuffled back down the hallway. Lance let out a choked noise. Frank is leaving, leaving Lance alone, leaving him locked in here alone, for another god damn day—

And Lance turned around, back stabbed by the chains and locks on the door, and he crumpled to the musty carpet and he started to bawl.

"I just want to go out," he moaned, musty, scratchy carpet tickling his face and piles of clothing staring him in his teary eyes. His chest wracked with sobs and he couldn't breathe, couldn't think. All he could do was cry. "I just— I just want to do my laundry."

Lance’s gasps rhythmically slow, his diaphragm pulsing against his taut stomach. His eyelashes felt like weights on his lids, pulling them down even as the man tried to resist the call of rest. His body melted into the pilling fabric below him and Lance fell into a fitful sleep.

When Lance opened his eyes again, he knew he was dreaming. And, inexplicably, he wasn’t afraid.

In his apartment— still, always, in his apartment— but his ceiling was as it always was, and the walls weren’t collapsing lungs. But as Lance’s eyes focused, he realized he wasn’t lying in bed. His body was propped up against his bathroom wall, cheek against cold, stained tile.

He pried himself up to standing. It was darker than normal, but Lance figured that would be normal for a dream. Its dimness was almost green, as though the tiled floor and walls were imbued with sickly energy.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror— dirty, like the rest of the room. The upper half was obscured with some black… something. Lance bet he could scrape it off, but something within him warned against trying. He stooped instead to take in his face, freckled and pallid.

With how close he was, his breath almost fogged up the mirror. Lance went to chuckle before his teeth caught his attention— something was up, staining the gums around his left canine. With a cold finger, Lance pried his upper lip out of the way. His other hand pressed on the spot right above the tooth.

It was almost black. Its color bled out to the gum around it, branching like lightening, dark as thunder. It was soft to the touch, and felt almost normal. Lance was prepared to brush it off and pretend he never saw it when one last press caused the spot to burst.

A vector-black liquid was gushing out of his tooth, down his hand and into his throat. Lance’s cry of alarm was muffled by the rivulets of ink. Lance threw his face down towards the sink, watching the liquid snake down the drain, and his hands started pressing frantically against his gums again, looking for the off switch, the off switch, the off switch—

And he swore that for a second he could feel himself peeling back his gums, and he swore that where the root of his tooth should be, there was something other there. His eyes glanced up towards the mirror but he was (perhaps blessedly) hunched too low to really see what was gushing out the viscous liquid from his maw.

A quick press on the root— or, what should be the root— and the liquid slowed, slowed, stopped. Lance felt a pressure come off his lungs and he stood up, hacking into his elbow. Looking back into the mirror, he could see his tooth intact, dripping with the last remnants of that dark liquid.

Just as quickly as horror overtook him, normalcy returned. That— This was the scariest part of this all. There’s no explanation for this, Lance thought to himself as he wiped his stained hands on his pants. There’s no explanation for any of this and I don’t care .

His blue eyes remained glued to his face, hair falling limply over his forehead. Even as the vantablack had dyed his fingers, his face remained unscathed. His mind took the moment of quiet as a moment of respite, and for just one second he didn’t think, and it was wonderful.

But a violent sound, like a hammer to bone, pulled Lance’s attention away from the mirror. He stepped out of the bathroom only to forget about his reflection or his appearance. His mind suddenly froze, overwhelmed.

The locks had fallen. The message was gone. His door was open.

And even though Lance knew it was a dream, he still felt hot tears roll down his cheeks as he stepped towards the cracked door and pried its eggshell wood away from the jamb. As his mind still struggled, his body decided its moves.

None of him moved beyond his twisting wrist. But that action itself seemed to send him somewhere new, unrecognizable through fog and his clouded eyes. There are no strange shoes on his feet this time— but he doesn’t even register his feet. He’s moving, floating, through this foggy place.

He’s been here before.

Lance shook his head, trying to remember how he knew this place— there aren’t any recognizable landmarks besides the mass of pine, looming like giants, guarding this place. He was here for a photo shoot, maybe, probably. But maybe, probably, for something else.

Lance can hear the whisper of voices in the distance, but this time there’s no laughter, and Lance feels his shoulders relax.

Figures appear before him, as if born out of the distant trees, tangled in thicker tendrils of mist that Lance is in. He can hardly make out details about them. There are two, one shorter than the other, and both completely unfamiliar.

Something has Lance walking over to where the figures stood— much closer than he would have expected, more quickly than he would have assumed. The fog doesn’t disappoint but invites him in with thick tongues, wrapping around his calves and welcoming him.

The man in front is a little shorter— not by much, but there’s a lift to his muck-covered boots that probably helps. Lance is only in socks anyway. He’d totally be taller. His features are so strange, so unfamiliar, and yet if someone asked Lance to describe them he— he couldn’t. As if there were a noose on his words.

But his skin is soft, Lance learns that when his hands find the man’s face and clutch on for dear life. Lance has no idea if he’s breathing but the strange man is panting. Lance can feel his heartbeat under his thumb, running up and down his neck. Something pulled at him, to bring them closer together, something drawing him to slot their legs together and force their lips to connect.

It’s odd kissing a man whose name you don’t know or whose face you can’t really see. Lance couldn’t tell which mouth tasted like blood. And then he notices the man’s lips moving against his, a vibration of a voice he can’t hear. Lance pulls back to see worry coloring a face, shrouding it in fog. There’s a man standing behind him, Lance remembers, and his mouth is moving too, forming words Lance doesn’t even recognize.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” he thinks, and he feels his mouth forming the letters, his tongue tapping against his teeth and voicebox straining but he can’t hear anything.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” he tries again, but the men in front of him don’t flinch. They seemed to scream back with as much force, but all Lance could hear was a howling wind, growing louder. Belatedly, he realized he didn’t feel it.

“I don’t know what’s going on!” Lance screams with all the force his body could muster, all the air in his lungs, and his throat goes sore from the effort. He’s screaming and screaming, and crying, and screaming and it’s his own worn voice that suddenly wakes him up, panting and screaming and crying.

Richard Braintree left his apartment and got his paper and complained about the mold in the corner before Lance woke. Only bright sunlight told him it was a new day.

Another day.

It’s Thursday, now, and according to the clock it’s 4:17 AM. Lance’s tired eyes alternate between staring at the paralyzed dots and the phone receiver, who’s amputated cord hung off the edge of the nightstand.

Without thinking, Lance extended a hand to the phone, and pressed it against his cheek. The plastic was cold. He croaked out a hello, and pretended to hear a greeting back. He watched the sun climb into the cloudless sky and marvelled at how everything still looked grey.

“It’s so good to hear from you.” Lance pantomimed a cheery laugh. “Yeah, I’ve been stuck in my apartment still!”

Silence in the room. Lance sat up, stretched as he listened to the invisible voice on the end of the cut line.

“Let’s see, it was… Six days ago,” Lance paused as if to give the person on the other end of the line time to respond. “Mmhm, that’s when I first had a nightmare. And the next day, I’m trapped— I haven’t been able to get out of my room since.”

A fake laugh rolled through his entire body, hiccupping gasps slowly pulling his ribcage apart. “I hear you— which is, y'know— it’s ironic! Since I can’t even get anyone to hear me!”

Lance forced his body off his bed, stacking his bones only to slowly wander over to his fridge. Socked feet shuffled against muted carpet and stained tile, and he clutched the squealing handle. He meant to get that screwed on better. It had been falling off for years, but the whole thing felt like it was about to give out at any moment, so Lance wasn't about to spend money on screws to repair a wood paneled handle, even as he almost tore it off in his distress.

It was his grandparents old refrigerator, that he took after his abuela died, and Lance was pretty certain that even with all its vibrating, and moaning, and vibrating because of moaning, and moaning because of vibrating— he was sure the machine would outlive him, too.

(Which— all things considered— might not take that long, anymore).

Shelves like sewer grates host very little for his perusing pleasure. Chocolate milk, mayonnaise, a wrapped paper package of— something. He had no idea what. Lance forced the door close, and remembered he wasn’t hungry, anyway.

When was the last time he ate?

Lance shook his head and remembered the person on in his hand, pressed hard against his face. He wondered if it would leave imprints. “Yeah, I’m still here,” he said lightly, and with a laugh so fraudulent it felt like bile. “Was just thinking. You know, for a guy who was so extroverted, you’d think people would be more concerned that they haven’t seen me.”

“I just—” He was still laughing but the smile fell from his face. Tears started to collect under his eyes and in the little corner of his mouth. “I don’t know how to get out. Though, the door tells me not to—”

The door? The door. The door! What about the door? Asks the voice in his ear. The questions don’t ever really stop so Lance just talks over them.

“Yeah, get this! It says— Oh, god.” There’s something dripping from the peephole, now. That’s new. Lance stepped forward and hesitantly wiped his finger through the viscous liquid. Blood. The peephole was bleeding. He was still laughing, breathy and deranged and scared.

A masochistic curiosity had full control, and Lance steeled himself for whatever might be out there—

But it took only one look through the peephole to have Lance collapsing, nails scraping against the dirty white paint of his door. His trembling hands slapped against his hips and the floor, finally making contact with the dropped phone.

“Hey, are you still there?” Lance whispered hoarsely to the silence on the other end. His lips brushed against the shaking plastic, his hand stretched the coiled cord, his fingers frayed the cut copper. “You’ll never believe what’s outside my door.”

A long, unbearable moment of silence— and then Lance thought he heard his mind give an audible snap, and he thought he heard a voice a little too much like his own coming through the tinny receiver: “What’s outside there? Are you okay?”

“I—” Lance almost couldn’t speak. He was hyperventilating now, only upright thanks to the door behind him. A drop of blood fell from the peephole and onto his shoulder. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” The voice— his own, really, his own,— was cutting in and out, his own, screaming through the earpiece. He clutched the receiver closer, as though it were a hand. His eyes pricked with pain and blood rushed through his ears.

Lance looked back up at the peephole– he could hear a voice from outside, a frantic whisper like some sort of prayer. He forced himself to stand back up and look through the peephole again.

“What’s out there?” Lance said. “It’s— it’s me.”

Everything went silent. Lance collapsed against the door again. He just barely remained standing, and he could hear his own screaming, distant and desperate and tired.

“I’m really fucking scared, right now.” He yelled into the phone, into the door, into empty air and he prayed someone could hear him. “I—I don’t know what’s going on but I’m standing outside of the door, but it’s obviously not me—”

He screws his eyes shut, mouth moving without him giving permission, words forming that he can’t hear. Lance realized he had stopped breathing. He took a shuddering breath in and, with it, a sudden calmness overtook him. He stood up, limbs sore and throat raw. It took 92 heartbeats for him to muster the courage to look through the peephole one more time.

His voice was quieter, now, and the phone dangled from his hand. Lance spoke to himself, burning the moment in memory. “It looks exactly like me, except you can’t see my eyes, my hair is blocking them and—” Lance’s hands shook against his face. “There’s numbers carved in my neck. 21121. And I’m covered in blood.

My mouth is bleeding.

I’m whispering something.”

Lance tried to pry away from the door again, but it was like the chains had wrapped around him, now, holding him tight to the stained wood. “I’m whispering something.” He repeated, tears leaving tracks down his dirty face. “Over, and over. Please help me.”

He lets the phone fall out of his hand again, fingers barely hesitating as the worn plastic tumbled onto patchy carpet. As the phone drops, so too the charade, and Lance forces his eyes shut and tries to stop crying. The red of his eyelids slowly dims until everything is black— the sun must be going down, but Lance’s breathing never slows.

He doesn’t sleep, but it doesn’t feel like he stayed awake. His mind presses gently on squeaking brakes until it has stopped, and Lance opens his eyes in time to watch another sunrise. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see his reflection in a floor-length mirror. Sunken eyes— they used to be blue, but now are caverns shadowed by high cheekbones and hair matted to his brow. Scabs itch all over his hands, and Lance can only identify some of them.

His gaze falls to the forest of carpet in front of him, unrefined fabric waving under his heavy breath. Lance feels… gross. Honestly, his floor is pretty disgusting— especially his kitchen floor. He still needs to clean that. With a groan, his hands find purchase on the piled carpet, and he pushes his body up.

His body is slow to catch up with its own actions, and Lance’s head spins as he sits on his haunches, socked ankles pressed at an awkward angle under his weight. Lances takes the moment to peel off his shirt, now days-worn, and throw it onto the silent puddle in the kitchen. The liquid immediately takes to the light-colored fabric— that counts as cleaning up, for now. He’ll come back to it another day.

He has the time.

Lance shuffles forward on his knees, hands finding the piles of fabric still left from his laundry escapades on Wednesday— was it Wednesday? He always did laundry on Wednesday, so— yeah, probably. He pulls on an undershirt, old bleach stains on the hems, and lazily buttons a shirt over it. It’s one of his favorites, all soft cotton and grey pinstripes.

He finally stands to pull on some fresh jeans, like new skin, giving him a little more ability to act a human when he hears it. Something, from a distant room— distant to him, at least. When Lance first moved in, he felt he could hardly stretch without hitting fragile drywall. He used to think the space was crowded, claustrophobic with one futon and a bed, but now that’s it’s been the only place he knows, it’s spread. He puts miles in between the rooms, and that makes it easier for his mind to breathe.

Lance looks at the shattered phone, sitting again on the kitchen floor, and he thinks of his mother.

When he moves to investigate, he has to squint— it’s so dark, and he’s first blinded by the shattered mirror, and his socks are stabbed by little glass shards on the floor. Lance grabbed the nearest pair of shoes and forced them on, eyes never leaving the doorway of the bathroom where something cold is seeping.

Lance takes one step in, and then two, and then his breath stops because there’s a hole in his fucking wall. His hand immediately goes to his head, feeling for fever, for a heartbeat, for proof he’s alive and god, he must be hallucinating now because there’s a hole in his fucking wall .

And the worst of it is: he’s really considering crawling in. It’s big enough too, that much is for sure.

And god, it seems like a way out.

He’s been here for…. so long.

And Lance, without noticing it, is muttering to himself: Is— god, what is he thinking? Can he really escape? Would it be worth it? What is he— where does it even fucking go ? What if he just ends up trapped in this little hole and then starves to death?

(Even though— when did he last eat? Has he even been hungry?)

He remembers what his mother used to say, cryptically in that knowing tone: “Is the devil you know better than the devil you don’t?”

Lance closes his eyes and imagines his ceiling soaked in blood in his dreams, the door blocked by chains when he wakes, and he steps out of the bathroom.

It’s only a breath before Lance is back in, and climbing into the hole. Its jagged edges bit at his skin and the hole was tight and felt like it would go on forever but Lance kept whispering to himself, begging, begging: be a way out .

It doesn’t feel like long before light appears at the end of the tunnel and Lance is tumbling out of the side of a wall and his hands are scraped by cold concrete, and there’s a giant sign in front of him reading: “The train coming from Silent Hill will be arriving soon.”

“Where—” Lance immediately sputtered, picking himself up. Scabs on his knuckles had busted and he thoughtlessly wiped them off on his sleeves.

He hardly noticed the hole he came from was gone, now.

Instead, his eyes twitched as he stared at the comically large sign— a schedule, he realized, and he must be in a train station. Of course, he must be in a train station, he thinks as he looks up and around at its lofted concrete ceiling and narrow platforms and chasms bearing rails.

But a train station in Silent Hill?

“This is half a day’s drive from Ashfield.” Lance muttered slowly to himself, his teeth hitting against each word as if it were a bitter seed. “How did I get here?”

Suddenly, Lance was hit with a vision of the church that’s in this town— this was where he was, weeks ago, for that foggy, moorish shoot— and that was where his dream was set, too, all pine trees and silent voices. His breath quickened with every thought: if he could find that church, he’d be able to get a general direction. If he could get a general direction— maybe he could find someone. Someone here, to help him.

And it seemed he’d need the help. This place seemed— dangerous. Like the whole town breathed with a slow, sinister breath.

A noise banged in the distance, rattling the air and shaking Lance in his bones. Something was so off here. He could see fine, but there was only one light around. It seemed too bright for it to be the sad flickering’s doing. It went on, off, on again, like a heartbeat. Too stable.

Sounds started to make themselves apparent: something flooding through pipes below him, the distant rumbling of tracks, or maybe he was imagining it.

Another sound started shambling forward, scratching against the floor and growling rapidly. Lance was certain he wasn’t imagining this one: in the dark tunnels, he could make out a figure approaching, and he frantically searched the floor for something— anything—

Lance’s fingers found a pipe, rust flaking off under his cold grip. Barking came from the sound-maker, now, and Lance barked back— a cold laugh, coming from somewhere deep within him that he couldn’t explain. The pipe rested on his shoulder after he took a few practice swings, and then Lance took his own soft feet forward.

The thing was shuffling forward, and finally made it under the singular flickering light. It looked like a dog, if dogs had dirty verdant leather rather than fur, and if dogs didn’t have eyes, and if a dog’s tongue lolled out of its mouth and dragged against the floor and left a trail of— something— in its path.

Lance froze for a moment. The thing seemed to sense him regardless of its blindness, and the clicking of its paws (or what should have been paws) picked up along with Lance’s pulse. Suddenly, the slobbering creature was lashing at Lance’s legs, trying to pull him down.

Instinct took over: the pipe crashed once, twice, three times into the spine of the creature. Something spurt out with each hit. Too dark to be blood even though it smelled like it. He felt something sharp— teeth— drag against his jeans, trying to tear through.

“Fuck!” Lance screamed out, backing up and stepping on the creature’s tongue in the process. It didn’t seem to register, only moving with Lance. He thought he could hear more growling dogs in the distance, and he swung his pipe with even more force. But the creature refused to let up.

Its tongue felt hollow, and it moved with a mind of its own. It left slick all over Lance’s legs, reaching up his back, as though to tie around him and trap him. Stepping on it did nothing: the end of the tongue still wrapped around his ankle.

“Just fucking die already!” Each word was punctuated with a slam of the iron pipe, on its spine, down its side, finally on its head. The skin over its face looked too tight and cracked open as soon as Lance hit it. Blow after blow, and blood started running down the dog’s face, and staining Lance’s shoes.

The pipe ended up breaking, the rusted end shattering. Tetanus was Lance’s first worry— before he realized its new use, and stabbed it deep within the back of the creature, hearing the squelch of pliant flesh, parted by his weapon. Finally, the dog’s tongue stopped whipping against Lance’s ankles, and the clicking of its nails against the floor slowed to a stop. The dog slumped to its front legs, and Lance took only a second to pry the pipe out of the dog like sword from stone. He ran without even checking if it were dead.

He didn’t know where he was running to— where he could run to, but finally he stopped outside some bathrooms. It was silent here, and a little darker.

Lance stared down at his shirt, buttons shining from slime. His hands were rust and the blood on his clothes weighed him more than he thought possible. In the distance he could hear footsteps again— what sounded like heels.

Was someone else here too?

Were they also going to try to kill him?

Would he be able to kill them ?

Holy shit, he thought, I did just kill something— what if it wasn’t a dog at all? What the hell was that thing and what the hell is this place and why the hell am I here and—

Lance’s thoughts ground to a halt as he started to laugh again— the same as before— and now he had his reason. Cause at least now, at least now…

He’s out of his fucking room.

Written to be a prequel to Another Warm Body.