The apartment beneath his was rarely occupied in the building where Kimo lived. Residents usually did not stay longer than a month, so the estranged building manager never bothered to advertise its vacancy. Residents complained that temperatures were kept too hot or too cold (whichever they hated most), sounds could be heard behind the walls, horrible dreams attacked their unconscious, and some claimed it was haunted as things were always moving around the apartment unexplainably. Shadows loomed in corners and doors would slam shut on their own. Even users were deterred by the abnormality, as the source of disturbances was difficult to explain despite supernatural abilities.
The space was nothing exceptional; two bedrooms and one bath, some lingering furniture such as an ugly green couch and a dented coffee table, and a small kitchen with a breakfast bar. The two bedrooms were of equal size, dirty windows letting in foggy light, and piles of books covered the floors and every shelf of the apartment. The books were the only things that did not contain dust.
The creature that occupied apartment 432 was a doctrina, an entity that craved solitude and would do anything to keep its home that way. It was the ultimate introvert and once finding a place to settle, they were unwilling and unable to move to another residence. With each new tenant, the doctrina would learn their behavior and personality to find the best way to drive them out. Most could not see him as he stood in the corner of the room, watching the new intruder with his 6 blue eyes on his elongated head, the size of a child with skin the color of ice. He spent his solitude reading through novels, textbooks, newspapers, magazines—he craved written language and doctrina's had a gift for attracting knowledge. When he finished his books, more would appear. He would tear through the collections residents brought in. It was the only thing he enjoyed about them. And then Corrie Patton moved in.
Corrie was in her mid-twenties with long brown legs and black hair that sprung from her head. She was an etheri—a user able to feel and control other's emotions. Though she did not have a talent for spellwork or incantations, her solid control of emotions and ability to sense others made her a logical thinker and a manipulative person when she wanted to be.
The doctrina took his time watching Corrie and observing her behavior. She had simple tastes in furniture, mostly cooked red meat, and enjoyed playing Chopin on her keyboard in her bedroom. She kept a small social circle but enjoyed her evenings the most when alone. She slept soundly every night and the doctrina was surprised by her lack of unconscious activity. She never dreamt—or dreamt on a wavelength that the doctrina could not observe. She kept the apartment clean, doing daily chores, and often hummed while she worked. There were moments when the doctrina would watch her with frustration, ignorance coming off her breathing and whistling, and then she would pause, look directly to the corner where the entity stood in observation. He knew he was masking himself from her sight, the girl not powerful enough to look through his cover, but she saw something there. Then the moment would pass, and she would look away and continue her cleaning.
The doctrina started by moving her things. He moved her shoes under the couch, took down her artwork and hung them upside down, took food out of the fridge to let it perish. None of it bothered Corrie. When she saw her shoes under the couch she shrugged and put them on. When she saw the milk on the counter that had been sitting all night, she gave a simple sigh and tossed it in the trash. When the doctrina moved the furniture, she moved it back into place when she entered the room. When he shredded her notebooks and journals, she tossed the scraps in the trash and bought a new one. Her heartbeat never elevated; frustration never showed on her face.
At night, the doctrina watched her sleep and shouted at her in the quiet room. She slept soundly and pretended not to notice. After a few months of the doctrina trying to disrupt her life, he was growing cold with despair. He felt weary from her presence, unable to focus on his readings that were stashed around the apartment. He had left them out on the coffee table once, curious what she would think of them. Two were human books on mythology and folklore, and the other two scrolls from hidden civilizations in the Sahara desert. She looked past the readings like she did not see them. Though a user fully aware of her abilities, she did not engage much in witchery or other magic arts.
Then, one evening, Corrie came rushing into the apartment with a frenzied mind. She was searching around the apartment and pulled out a flip phone from under her mattress. She quickly dialed a number and began speaking hurriedly, giving coordinates, and repeating many times that this was 'a high-valued target'. The doctrina did not know what she was speaking of, but for the first time, he could see a wave of fear wash over her features. Tears began to fall from her eyes as she sat on the ground in her bedroom.
"I'm sorry sister," the doctrina heard her mutter and looked at her questioningly. He knew Corrie's sister was a girl not much older than her and they looked remarkably similar. Same brown skin and dense black hair, full lips, and high cheekbones. She had come to Corrie's apartment a few times and they chatted and laughed like old friends. Corrie's sister was the only person she didn't emotionally manipulate. Probably because she couldn't—the doctrina could tell her sister possessed greater abilities. Corrie did not too much to mess with people, but at one point or another, he had witnessed her manipulation as she tried to get one of her friends in the mood for a night out or make someone feel an impulse to leave when she wanted to be alone. He could feel anger seeing behind her waves of sorrow and fear, sensing she wanted someone dead. But he was not sure who.
As the doctrina watched Corrie weep, he felt a crash of sorrow hit and sat down next to Corrie with sad eyes. The doctrina had never been overcome with any sort of compassion, but he did not like the sound of the woman's crying.
But Corrie did not stop crying. The doctrina feared she couldn't. Tears continued to fall, her heart continued to ache, and the entity felt something rotten growing in her. Emotions so dense and painful that she was being crushed from the inside.
The doctrina remembered reading about etheri's and their abilities and knew the dangers that came with those gifts. Though control is challenging for them to lose, once it was lost emotions could become a real, uncontained power.
Corrie's body did not move from its spot on the ground. Eventually, the weeping sounds died in her throat, but dense tears continued to fall from her face, which quickly grew steely and cold. The doctrina did not know what to do, or how to reach out to the girl, and was overcome with a fear that his home was to be destroyed by the crushing emotion the woman was omitting. Her body grew still, her breathing faint, teeth grinding.
The doctrina could only watch as Corrie lost control of her abilities. Her eyes glazed over and her shoulders stopped moving. A low wheezing whistled through her lips. Her hair fell around her shoulders and slowly began to braid down her back where the hair began to warp into dark vines that began to sprout all over her body. Dark leaves and vines burst from the veins on her arms, fingernails falling away where thorns began to intrude on her cuticles. Her mouth held open as veins began to pour from her chest and snaked through the apartment. Soon the walls were covered, the windows blocked by the leaves that continued to grow more massive as the space darkened. The doctrina watched as purple flowers began to bloom from the vines, the petals opening to reveal glowing violet shades that brought a gentle glow to the room. The doctrina watched the flowers develop with wide-eyed amazement, this phenomenon was one he had never read about.
The flowers had long stamen and contained 5 petals each, small bracts at the bottom of the bud, and three large palmate leaves that sprouted 3 inches from the bracts. The vines grew in uneven thickness, leaves variant in size, the flowers blooming commonly in 2s or 3s. When the flowers first opened, they were excessively bright, and as the doctrina observed the plant he felt the surge of energy in the petals, powerful emotional urges being released, their glow fading with time until the burst of energy was released. When the flowers ran out of juice (they had a maximum capacity) the petals would fall and the top leaves shriveled into a black muck that coated the floor. New flowers would quickly take its place, and that led the doctrine to believe that the heavy, painful emotions that fueled the flowers, coming from Corrie, were not to decease any time soon. The only way to stop this painful plant was to end Corrie's life, but this the doctrine did not have the heart or ability to do so.
Soon vines began to grow through the vents and into other apartments. In Marcellis Brahm's apartment vines started invading his cupboards and pushing his food out and Viktoriya Jepson found vines in her bedroom wrapping around her bed and dresser. Henry woke up in the morning to black vines and leaves invading his fireplace, smothering the fire that was always burning. Some ripped the vines from their spots, some tried to light them on fire, and others poured dry ice. The vines would react, shrivel, and die, but many more would quickly take their place.
When Kimo returned to his apartment with vines growing over his door where he could barely slip through the opening, he grabbed his bat from his backpack and went down to apartment 432. Jumanah was already at the front door, in the process of kicking it in.
"Finally got fed up with it?" Kimo asked as he approached.
"Not even my enchantments can keep them out," she said as she kicked her foot through the door.
"Do you know who lives here?" Kimo asked.
"Lived. Only death can create something like this. I think her name was Corrie. Talked with her a few times. She was a very calm person from what I could gather."
Kimo had been at The Exspiravit three nights ago, had not seen Jonathan since, and had been in an uneven state since, unable to get the evening out of his head. And now death had taken root right below his apartment.
Jumanah pulled on her phantasm goggles and grabbed her bag on the floor, stashed with numerous potions and poisons as she was not sure what would be of best use. The smell hit both of them as Jumanah began to enter, pulling a mask over her mouth and nose, motioning for Kimo to stay back. He did not protest since he did not have gear safe enough to enter.
Inside the apartment, not just vines and flowers had taken root. Small organisms were flying through the air and crawling on the vines. Long legs like a spider and the body of a wasp, the bugs were highly toxic to the touch, creating an infection on the skin that would spread through the body within 6 hours, causing paralysis that eventually led to heart failure. There were myths and conspiracies about antidotes, but no facts led to a real cure. Jumanah took a deep breath from the mask, the fibers releasing a gas that coated her lungs enough to breathe in the dense air trying to flood her sinuses.
Jumanah scanned the room through her goggles as she stepped carefully across the vines, pulling her shirt sleeves to her wrists as she dodged the flying bugs. She looked in the corner of the living room where the doctrina sat with a book in hand, reading by the light of the vibrant flowers surrounding her. He looked at her with eyes sunk in exhaustion, a small energy shift when he realized the woman who had entered could see him.
"Your vines are bothering people," she said as she stared at the abnormal boy, trying to determine what kind of entity he was.
"I don't know how to make them stop," he said with a sigh.
"You're a doctrina," she said, eyes widening behind the goggles.
"What's going on?" Kimo shouted from the hallway.
"I'm handling it!" she shouted back, turning to the ageless child. "You knew Corrie? She lived here."
"Of course, she lived here. She is still here. Barely alive, I might add…"
"She's still alive?"
"Unfortunately. She is stronger than expected. And her grief is so strong." He looked at the fresh flowers blooming over his head and a smile grew across its face. "I kind of like them. It's a beautiful way to let out the anguish emotions. That is what has surprised me most about observing your species. Such irrational decisions, hopeless dreams, broken hearts, fantasies you want to bring into reality. But they're not real. Humans often forget that."
"You think none of this is real?" Jumanah asked as she gestured to the vines and flowers and bugs.
"For a while, I thought it wasn't."
"What happened to Corrie?"
The doctrina looked away from the flowers with a saddened expression. "She lost the only person she loved. Taken without rhyme or reason, a vanishment that tore her apart. It's funny that I miss her company."
"Where is she?"
The doctrina motioned to the door at the end of the hall.
Jumanah approached the room with caution, gently pushing the door open as she dodged one of the wasps. Corrie sat in the middle of her bedroom, vines protruding from her back and chest, arms rotting into green moss that covered the floor, thick purple flowers blooming from her eyes and mouth. A fluctuating glow darted down her spine as it pumped energy into the vines and flowers.
"I'm sorry this happened to you," Jumanah said with a gentle voice. "But I'm going to make it better." She turned to her bag and took out a vial containing small glistening blue beads and dropped three into her hand. They were freezing to touch and even through her thick gloves Jumanah could feel the searing cold in her palm. She placed one in each of the flowers on her face. The petals absorbed the beads and Corrie instantly began to cool, the glow on her back beginning to fade. Jumanah then took a knife from her bag and began to cut at the fines growing from Corrie's chest. With each cut, the glow of the flowers began to fade and Jumanah knew the only way to stop her heart was to rip it out of the young woman's chest. When she got to the center of her chest she pulled out a ruby stone, a clear surface revealing the liquid trapped inside. When she ripped it from the spot Corrie dropped to the ground, the vines stopped growing, and the flowers grew black and withered. Jumanah looked at the stone in her hand, feeling the heat of circulating blood, then slipped it into her bag before exiting the room.
"It's finished?" asked the doctrina when Jumanah exited the bedroom.
She nodded. "No one else will come in here again."
"I wanted to help her," the doctrina said and Jumanah looked at the entity with surprise. From everything she knew doctrina's were not capable of empathy. "She was always so calm. Never startled by anything I or anyone else did. How did it happen? How did she suddenly snap?"
"I'm sorry I don't have the answer."
"Thank you for helping her find peace."
"I don't know that it was peace she found…but I think the suffering is over."
When Jumanah exited apartment 432 Kimo was still in the hall.
"Did you fix it?" he asked.
Jumanah shrugged. "In a way." She took out the glass heart and showed it to Kimo, who took it in to feel the last of Corrie's blood pumping through the stone.
"What happened to her?"
"The power of grief."
When Jumanah went upstairs to her apartment she took out Corrie's heart and placed it on one of the shelves beside jars of other strange creatures. Beside it was noctulas monoculus—a one-eyed creature with long tentacles floating in a jar of pale blue liquid with the ability to see into the future. The eye itself was worth more than a pound of gold, and when used correctly could grant the user an endless string of time and see as far into the future as desired. But if the concoction was performed incorrectly, it would spin the user's mind into madness before they were able to access the new ability. On the other side of the stone was a large jar swirling with smoke where three drithal's fluttered behind the glass. Small batlike creatures, their excessively large teeth were always gnawing on each other. Their smoke, when inhaled, could knock a person unconscious, time ranging from 6 hours to 2.5 years. There were a few research studies on the creatures and trying to find a pattern that explained the drastic effects depending on the person. No clear answer was published or taught.
Jumanah touched the stone again as it sat on the shelf, shivering at the warmth that emanated from it. She could feel the torment that still encircled what was left of her.
That night the Jumanah caught the doctrina in her living room, staring at the stone.
"Don't like your old place anymore?" Jumanah asked.
"I became used to the presence I once despised. The air there feels abnormal now."
Jumanah said nothing and allowed the doctrina to continue staring at Corrie's heart. He began to linger around Jumanah, reading in her apartment when she was gone, collecting books and readings on her floor, and spending time watching the pulsing stone on the shelf. Jumanah never made a point about it, did not question his behavior, and allowed the entity to do as he pleased.
The landlord finally taped off apartment 432, the door replaced and locked. The apartment was left alone, the vines no longer growing and slowly decaying, the books within rotting and forgotten.