Unlike what you had hoped, Mark had run off before you had a chance to say anything to him. Begrudgingly, you left the classroom with only one goal in mind to comfort you: food.
There was a nearby Panera down the street, and you were feeling like you were craving some mac-n-cheese. Just the thought of it's cheesiness and overwhelming smell had your mouth watering. Luckily, they had recently started delivery, so the plan was that you would order delivery from where you were, and it would arrive to your apartment building by the time you would arrive. It was easier that way, since the location it was at was stationed opposite from where you apartment was.
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Just as you had hoped, the delivery car sat right outside of the building as the taxi driver drove into the parking lot. You quickly stopped the driver and jumped out of the vehicle, excited to see that you were so close to satisfying your cravings.
When you had entered, you noticed that a young man was talking to the receptionist with a Panera bag in his hand. His hair was dyed at the top to look blue. His skinny stature allowed you to see the look on the receptionist's face, which seemed to be somewhat interested in what he was speaking about. His behaviour made it seem like he wanted out of this situation, but by the looks of it, Mallory wasn't going to let him off so easily.
So, to benefit the both of you, you tapped on his shoulder, making him swivel around to you. At first, his acne-covered face looked frightened, but when you gestured for him to grab your food, he was more than happy to oblige. As he rummaged through the bag to grab your meal, you took that moment to peer at his name tag that read 'Ethan'.
"Hey, Ethan." You whispered, careful to not let Robin over hear your conversation. He looked up at you, grabbing your food as well.
"Yes?" He asked.
You handed him a $5 bill as his tip, since you had already paid for your meal with your card, and winked playfully at him to try to ease his conscience.
"My room is 5C. Next time, just run up." You commented. The boy nodded at your suggestion and smiled with gratitude before running out of the lobby. The receptionist looked at you with a dirty snarl, but you only ignored her and went on your way to your room.
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You took the elevator up, food in hand - well, bag. The doors shut in front of you, and you could feel the contraption begin to move up to your desired location. But then, it abruptly stopped, partially making you lose your balance.
You steadied yourself on the rails around the inside of the elevator as you replayed the malfunction in your head.
'There wasn't any sign outside that said it was unusable. So what, is it just conveniently falling apart right now of all times?'
Regardless of your thoughts, the lights in the elevator began to flicker, making you direct you attention up to them. The longer you stayed in this thing, the worse it was probably going to become.
Before you could do anything drastic, the lights fully returned to their usual condition, the elevator sprang back to life and it continued to bring you up to the next floor.
You stood there silent for a moment, completely still. When the familiar ding of the elevator reaching its destination rang out, you scrambled to get off of it. Feet now on solid ground, you looked back to the machine, which seemed to be back to normal. You stared at it as it closed, and your eyebrows furrowed with confusion.
'Weird.'
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You made your way to your apartment without any problems, and you entered your room. You were so hopeful for a nice, warm meal, along with your french baguette that you loved to dip into the white cheese. In response, your mouth began to water with anticipation. You locked the door behind you, the thought of something blocking you from the outside soothing you.
Unfortunately, before you could take a couple of steps into the room, you heard this annoying, yet faint ringing sound. You stopped walking and listened more intently at the constant noise. Recognizing where it came from previously, you sat your food down on the kitchen counter carefully and made your way over to the TV.
The last time you heard this irritating sound was when you woke up to the TV's static ringing, but as you made your way towards the living room, the sound became fainter and fainter. Confused, you quickly walked over to the television, but the screen wasn't even on.
'What in the world is going on in my apartment?' You asked yourself. You were quickly beginning to get tired of these weird, un-explainable occurrences that were seemingly originating from your apartment. Your mind then rewound itself back to when Mallory handed you the keys to your apartment.
"Your room is 5C. Good luck."
What was Mallory talking about? Have these weird things been happening since before you got here? Is that why is was so cheap compared to all of the other apartment rooms?
There were so many questions that you wanted answered. The faint ringing had soon disappeared as you drowned the noise out with your thoughts and curiosities. The events that were happening in this room were not natural in the slightest, so you were concerned to say to the least.
You combed your fingers through your hair and convinced yourself that it was probably Mark watching TV or something like that in the room next door. You didn't know what could cause that noise, but frankly, you didn't want to think about it too much.
You began making your way back towards your bag full of food that you were so excite to dig into, but then a discreet, thump came from behind you.
Now, heart beating through your chest, you did the only thing you could, which was grab a knife and turn around towards the noise, pointing the weapon towards whoever was there.
But the only thing you saw was the TV, once on its stand, now fallen on the floor. It's white static shone through the carpet to let you know that it was on.
You heard the ringing come back. But now, instead of ignoring it, you looked around, searching for the source of the tone and whatever knocked the object over. You could only hope that it was the wind, but all of your windows were shut, dismissing your weak theory.
You continued to scan the room, making sure your back was to the wall to limit your vulnerable spots. Someone was here. Someone was in you apartment. That you were sure of.
"W-Who's there?" You weakly questioned, the knife following your gaze.
The ringing suddenly became louder. At first, it was just disorienting. But after a couple more moments, the sound became too much, and you collapsed on the floor. You held onto the knife for as long as you could, but with the sound getting louder combined with the fear of what was going to happen if you didn't surrender, you dropped your knife and focused solely on covering your ears to prevent any internal damage.
Just as you had suspected, the ringing died down after you dropped your weapon, but the sound was still very much present. It seemed more like a warning than anything else at this point, but it still made you dizzy.
You stayed on the kitchen floor, blinking your eyes a couple of times to try to remove the discomfort.
Amidst the ringing sound, you heard a light chuckle. It was faint, but you recognized the tone of its voice. It was still difficult to point out exactly who it was, on account for the dull pain coursing through your body.
You felt something chilled press against your chin. In immediate response, you tried to turn away, but once you did so, the ringing came back louder. So, you re-positioned your head to where it was before, pleasing the man in front of you. The ringing died down again, allowing you to slowly open your eyes in attempts to see your intruder. Your vision was still hazy, but you could identify that it was a man who was wearing pastel pink dress shirt with long sleeves. You were beginning to collect the dots, but the grip on your face became colder, which pulled you out of your thoughts.
"It's so nice to be able to meet you in person, (F/n)." The voice echoed, barely catching your ears against the ringing.
"W..Who.. Are you?' You asked. At the moment, this noise was causing you to develop a severe migraine, which wasn't going to help you in this situation. You fought it off as hard as you could in hopes to gain some answers.
"I admire your curiosity, but that is something that will be discussed later on." The man replied, his cold touch disappearing from your face. You hung your head low, losing strength to continue fighting off the noise.
The person before you must have realize this, because the noise drained out of your hearing. Not completely, but just faint enough to remind you that it was still there. He allowed you a couple more seconds to recover before he placed both of his hands on your cheeks. You let out a hiss of pain, but that didn't stop him.
You felt him lean forward and stop just before your ear. His chilled breath hit the edges of your earlobe, giving you a bit more of an uncomfortable feeling, but you tried to ignore it as best as possible, afraid that the piercing sound would return.
"Mark is gone, remember that." He whispered into your ear. You shivered as his words trailed down your spine. What exactly did he mean by 'gone'? Did he mean replaced? Removed? Dead?
Before you could ask anything, the chill around you quickly vanished, as did the high pitched noise. Your migraine faded away quickly, so you were able to open your eyes with clear vision. The knife that was once at your side at been put back into the drawer, and the TV that was previously on the ground was back up on its stand. But the most intriguing thing was that the TV was on, but it was running perfectly - no longer creating static, but it was just showing a seemingly normal TV show.
You didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that everything seemed to be back to normal, but you still had a lot of questions that overflowed your mind. Who was that? Why was he talking about Mark so weirdly? How did he get in your room? And more importantly, how did he get out? You had locked the door behind you. Of course, he could have unlocked it, but he was gone so quickly. Did he really have time to do that?
You leaned against the counter trying to jog your memory of what just happened. It was all too sudden and quick for you to remember without making your current headache worse, so you decided that maybe you would sleep on it or call the police, or something to help calm your nerves.
You went to get up from your position, but as you went to stand up, your legs collapsed from underneath you. You hit the ground again with a groan, but immediately felt a pulse of anger course through your body. You took the initiative again and began pulling yourself up by the knob of the counter tops above you. You rested your top half on the surface with a thud as your legs dangled beneath you. You grumbled out a few curse words before grabbing the meal that sat on the counter top and allowing yourself to fall back down onto the floor with it in your hands. You pulled out a fork and the food and rested the items on your lap.
'A break-in isn't gonna stop me from eating my macaroni.'