No one is as first seen. Everybody has that never released personality that even the person carrying it doesn't know.
That's because we don't want ourselves and others to penetrate that real self that's locked in the cages of our minds. Why?
We just wanna create the illusion of being secure.
It's engraved into the core of our brain, buried in the thick layers of blood, skin, and tissue.
The invisible shell of the human soul.
But the mind is fragile and so is every man and woman and child. And sometimes in the deepest, angriest, and happiest of moments that fragility becomes stronger and breaks the cocoon....
Ethan broke the eerie silence that had captivated the night and said.
"Do we exist"
"Yes we do, wtf is up with you Ethan"
"I don't know, I feel like I'm not real" Ethan placed both his hand on his head, touched the temples with his fingers, and started rubbing them.
"Then let me ask you, do you get hungry"
"Yes"
"Do you get thirsty?"
"Yes" doubt
"Do you get tired?"
"Yes"
"Do you get lonely"
"I guess so" Ethan thought about all the games he used to play as a kid with his friends. He remembered that time where he fell down a bruised his knee. His mother was there to help him and bandage it down. He wanted to say yes.
He felt as if was falling into the abyss of darkness and despair, and he was never getting back out.
"Then you are real." Nathan said.
That answer replicated the brightness of freedom and the endless darkness finally had a crack of light for Ethan to chase upon. The feeling of suffocation that he was feeling dissipated, and a breeze of fresh air entered his lungs.
Nathan resumed speaking.
"Never forget that i know every thought and every feeling you've ever experienced. And that's because I'm that thought and feeling"
"I know, thank you..." Ethan said smiling widely showing his teeth.
"And don't forget everytime you're gonna beat yourself up because of the fucked up life and circumstances we live in , I'm gonna be there to make you think about something else."
...
The circumstances were horrible indeed.
Ethan lived on the second floor of a five-story building, in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country.
His apartment was very small and almost resembled a square. The living room connected with a small kitchen where he would cook.
Next to the left wall was the tv that was standing up on a dresser where he would place all his clothes.
In front of the TV was a sofa bed that he could adjust during the day and night according to his mood.
His Sister had given him that as a present many years ago, and he never let anything happen to it. Always opened it slowly and never left the chips crusts pollute it.
On the right side of the apartment there was a small cubicle bathroom.
It had a WC and a shower head, both of which were on the left side.
Directly ahead of the entrance of the bathroom, there was a mirror and a sink. On top of the sink, there was a generic white soap and toothbrush that stood next to a cheap brand of toothpaste that did the job.
Stepping right back into the living room you could see that the apartment door and a small window standing right in front with each other, just between the left and the right wall.
Ethan would look out of that window, and see a man in the next building right before him.
He kept the blinds shut, but the faded silhouette of him behind the then was always visible, at any time of the day or night.
It was as if he never rested.
***
Nathan was always trying to calm Ethan down, and always finding excuses for the man's unceasing behavior.
But this thing had been going on for too long, and now the plate was full, and it was spilling.
Therefore, they decided that they would find out who the man that had been observing them was.
Ethan got up and opened the apartment door, and a lengthy dimly lighted narrow hallway greeted him.
Navigating through the corridor was a hard task though, and Ethan mde sure to keep one hand to the side of the wall to maintain his balance in case tripping and falling would ensue.
He had learned that after falling quite a few times and twisting his ankle more than he was proud of.
The caretaker had promised that he would fix the lights and the elevator for years, but he never did.
So the stairs were the only option.
He finally exited the building and the light grazed his skin.
He always loved that feeling. It reminded him of when he was a child when he still played in his childhood home garden with his sister.
Those days were long passed though, and now he was on a hunt to find out who that man was.
"Look up, he's still watching us," Nathan said.
Ethan looked up, and surely the stranger was there again, still unwavering in his window.
"Go left towards the market... get in and act like you're gonna buy something" Nathan followed on saying.
It almost looked like they were secret agents in a mission and Nathan was the operator inside Ethan's ear. He would explain and make the best possible route for him and he would act upon it.
The only difference is that he didn't need any gadgets to hear Nathan. He was already inside his head.
Nathan's judgment calls were always correct, and this time was the same, and Ethan always obeyed them without question. He had grown to rely on him too much.
Nathan had made the right assessment again, because the man was on the third floor and he didn't have the right angle to see inside the store, since the light of the sun reflected on the store's windows and that blinded his line of sight.
"Hey, Josh what's up" Ethan greeted the cashier as he got in.
Josh was a 33-year-old man, fat by society's standards, bald, and pretty short. He always wore oversized shirts and loose jeans to hide his fatness, but that didn't do him any favors nonetheless.
Ethan was always nice to him though because deep down inside he felt pity for the guy.
"Hey, Ethan long time no see" Josh greeted him back.
("Tell him you want to use the back door")
"Look, Josh, I don't have time to explain but I have to use the back door now"
Josh made an expression that made him look like he was gonna say something but Ethan interrupted him.
"Questions later, just give me the key!"
Josh complied and threw him a cylindrical small key which Ethan dropped on the floor and didn't catch it.
("Damn you gotta work on that") Nathan commented.
"Oh, shut up"
"But I didn't say anything," Josh said with a confused look on his face.
"Sorry man, I wasn't talking to you" Ethan answered after getting the key from the floor and running to the back door.
He opened the back door, exited the store, and ended up in the alley next to it then started sprinting towards the back road.
"Hey, you forgot to give me the key" Josh screamed.
"I'll come back and give it to you sooner or later"
"You better give it tonight bec...."
"Yeah, yeah don't worry" Ethan screamed while running right through the exit of the hallway.
Ethan exited finally exited the alley and looped around undetectable from the strange man's stare.
It was important that the creeper didn't see them coming. Otherwise, he could escape, and they wouldn't ever find out why he was spying.
Thankfully with all the fuss that was going on outside, he couldn't. The city's roads were always filled with people and chaos. Everyone shoulder to shoulder all going through their daily activities not knowing what expected them if they took another step.
Besides he was looking in the wrong place. Still probably looking at the store waiting for him to walk out.
But what if he was a regular person? A quick thought passed through Ethan. But that doesn't explain the reason why he kept his blinds shut, and for sure didn't explain why he always there watching.
Did the man even need food? or water? His presence almost felt paranormal. He was the living representation of that jump scare that builds up but never happens.
Doubts came and went and never faded. Just like sunset would bring the darkness and the drowsiness of doubt, the rising of light would always be there to awaken it.
("Can you hear him this time?") Nathan echoed inside Ethan's head.
"No?... Hear who?" Ethan answered.
("The guy who we talked about the day you gave me my name")
"Still can't hear him," Ethan said as he approached the entrance of the building on which his strange neighbor lived. "Anyways, we're here and we have bigger problems to deal with"
The entrance of the building was protected with one of those door phones, and they couldn't get in unless they had permission or a key.
("Call a random apartment") Nathan echoed again.
Ethan submitted and pushed a random button. No one answered. He proceeded to push another one. Still, no one answered.
Frustrated he pushed every button releasing all of his 10 fingers up and down the phone booth, hoping that the one who answered wasn't the same man who crept on them.
"Dad?" A female voice answered finally.
"Yes, open the door," Ethan mimicked an older's man voice.
The door buzzed and he pushed it forward, entering the unrecognizable grounds of the building.
***
As Ethan stepped in, he could smell the horrid smell of piss and feces. The building hadn't been cleaned for years, and the smell reminded Ethan of broken down decomposed blacked-skined corpses.
He had seen his fair share of them back when he was 8 and his father had decided one day that he would bring him to his work. He worked as a Pathology assistant at the local morgue in town. The first time that his father took him there, he could feel his little heart almost dropping out of his chest. The smell of the dead made the lungs work overtime, just to exhale and inhale enough air to keep his body functioning. Vision-shifting, stomach-upsetting nausea didn't take long to hit him. Confused and frightened he began to run spirals through the corridors of the morgue panicked. But everywhere he went he couldn't break free. He was lost in the confusing mess of reality, and everything felt like it was pushing down onto him. All his energy felt like it was depleting and releasing down his legs to the floor below his feet, almost as if the dead bodies were sucking his life. Until finally his senses betrayed him and everything turned black. Ethan had found himself a few hours later in his home bed, as his mother was caressing his head.
But his mother wasn't gonna be there this time, and he wasn't an eight-year-old kid anymore. He was a grown man. Besides Nathan was still in on the ride always.
So Ethan covered his nose with his fingers and pushed up the steps to escape from the stink, hoping that the rest of the building didn't have the same stench. As he climbed the stairs, arrows that pointed somewhere with graffiti figures between between them could be seen. They looked a whole lot like demonic symbols.
On the first floor there were various graffiti painted all over the walls. A man with a spear penetrating a huge insect, which resembled some kind of wasp. Right above it, it was a star with eight sides with an eye in the middle. Sticky figures that were meant to be humans bowing to a man in a throne unreachable to them and a human skull with the star symbol tattooed on its head.
On the second floor, he saw, warnings written everywhere saying: "The end is near"; "The future shall set us free"; "The creatures are near"; "Cleanse your sins before hell humbles you". Many more were written everywhere but Ethan didn't read them all. It made his skin crawl, made him feel like someone was right behind him whispering and breathing down his neck.
He just followed the arrows until they ended up in one of the apartments of the building. On the apartament's door's frame, something was engraved.
The engravement wrote "Knock three times, wait exactly two seconds, knock three times again and wait for the door to open."
Ethan reached for the door knocked three times, waited two seconds, knocked three times and the door pushed open like it was one of those automatic doors that you need to type the password before unlocking.
An old's man voice could be heard from inside the small apartment saying: "Come in Ethan, I was expecting you"
Ethan stepped into the apartment walked through a claustrophobic-inducing hallway, turned left, and finally saw the mystery man that had been bothering him for so long. He was an old man probably in his late 70s with a very nice groomed beard, that was sitting in a wheelchair.
"Who are you?" Ethan said standing tall just between the door that connected the hallway and the living room, precautiously not getting in yet.
"You are not ready to know that, but I do have answers for you" The man spoke laying still in his wheelchair unmoving like all of the times Ethan had watched him in his window.
"Why are you alwa..."
"I know what you're going to ask me even before you do. Let me speak or we are gonna waste important time" The old man interrupted Ethan's question, his mouth a little askwed while he talked.
("That's bullshit !") Nathan commented.
"Tell Nathan it's true. I know everything that's gonna happen in the next 3 minutes that this conversation is gonna last."
"You can hear him? How do you..." Ethan's eyes turned wide open from the realization.
"As i said, hear me out so we don't waste time." the old man interrupted him again.
Ethan stepped closer and entered the room fully seemingly looking for answers but Nathan was quiet and didn't speak further. The man had scared him in the deep reaches of Ethan's mind. For the first time after so long he felt naked, because the stranger was the only other person that could hear him.
"I come from the future! I'm on a mission to save the world from turning apocalyptic and preventing the coming into power of "The King"
"Am I supposed to believe you?" Ethan screamed, his eyes wide open ready to bulge out, and his head turned red from the overwhelming unprecedented information the man was uttering from his mouth.
"I'll prove it to you... In the next ten seconds, a car horn will go off, followed by screaming. A terrible accident will happen and a women will die.
Exactly one hour earlier a man at 7:35 am had just woken up late for work. He had worn his clothes in a hurry and hadn't even got a shower, but had only made a quick instant coffee, which he poured into a carton cup, and had taken his key holder just before flying out of his apartment. By 7:45 am he was in his car, started it, and began driving to work. Traffic delayed him until 8:15 am when his car stopped because it ran out of gas in the middle of the road causing an accident with the vehicle behind him. Traffic got heavier and another car type Hyundai Prius just behind the car that caused the accident was driving in the hospital because his wife was giving birth. By the time the Police opened the road for everyone to drive safely away, it was 7:34, fifteen seconds before the clock turned 8:35 am. The Hyundai Prius turned left and accelerated to 65 miles per hour and exactly ten seconds later a woman was passing the road at the wrong place and at the wrong time. The man inside the Prius tried to horn but it was too late and the woman was caught between the wheels. Blood was plastered everywhere on the cement. Her body was mutilated, her arms torn off, and her head resembled a deflated ball. Screaming ensued soon after:
"Ahhhhhhhhhh !" An old middle aged lady screamed from sheer terror.
"Annaaaaaa" A man in his 30's shrieked.
"Omg, she's dead" an 18 year old boy commented while filming the all ordeal.
The stranger's prediction had turned out true. Ethan had been stunned and felt just like that time when he was eight years old and had gone to his dad's work. He was suffocated, and derealization encircled his surrounding. That left him paralyzed in place until the geezer offered him a glass of water. Ethan reached his hand forward, took it and drank it in a sip.
"Now that that's out of the way you have to listen to me."
Ethan was unsteady, his feet felt wobbly - his arms were weak and he felt like he could fall from moment to moment if he spoke another word. So he didn't.
"Good !" the man said "In two days time you will be given an offer to be part of a very exclusive group. You will accept the offer. You will have to extract information and find out exactly what the weapon is. If you don't follow my advice, everyone you love will die. We will contact you again in the near future. Do you understand?"
"Ye....." Ethan fell over, his eyes closing just before hitting the ground and everything going black.
***
Ring, ring..... an alarm clock was buzzing infinitely as Ethan opened his eyes and stared through his room with confusion. He was in his bed, in his own apartment and the old man wasn't there. He stared at the clock for 3 seconds until his eyes adjusted and saw that it was 7:35 am. Then jumped from his bed, ran to his window, and looked in front of the stranger's apartament. No one to be seen.
What had happened last night? No way it was just a dream. He took Josh's back door key. Did he return it? When did he came back home?
Every day the questions seemed to pile up, and it seemed that it was just a matter of time until the pile came down and drowned him.