Chapter Text
The quiet, it swallows us.
What's waiting around the corner?
Senses we cannot trust,
Hunted by unseen horrors...
White noise.
It began late into your shift at work. The incessant ringing was subtle enough to ignore when you were distracted by tasks involving focus. You were mostly unaware of it, until the brief lulls in activity whilst you swept or boredly shuffled between the aisles. Now that you were home, snuggled into bed for much needed rest, you had nothing to focus on but that unsettling sound.
Endless ringing; it disturbed your sleep, and disrupted all cognitive thought. Oh, for fuck’s sake. Was it getting louder?
Forced to sit upright, you rubbed at your forehead to relieve some of the disconcerting pressure building within your skull. The longer the ringing continued, the more intensely your head ached, until it became disorienting and all-consuming. Sleep was impossible under these conditions.
Hissing out a frustrated breath, you abandoned the comfort of your bed. There was a restless urge to investigate your apartment and hunt down the source of the white noise. At least it would preoccupy your mind before you went mad.
Bare feet padding across your plush white throw rug, you slowly approached the door which lead out of your bedroom and into a short hallway. Then you paused with your hand just shy of the doorknob. What you thought just happened was perplexing, to say the least.
In the dim, alternating blue-and-red light of your 1960s lava lamp, the bedroom door seemed to wobble and warp into odd shapes. It reminded you of a black-and-white film you watched burn up in an old-fashioned projector. How the images distorted before they curled and disintegrated into misshapen, thin strips of burnt plastic. Well…I did just work a 12-hour shift, you rationalized, shrugging it off as a hallucination caused by eye strain and mental exhaustion.
Sleepily, you opened the door and emerged from your bedroom, walking the short distance into the den and kitchenette area of your small apartment. The television was on.
Huh. You must’ve forgotten to switch it off before going to bed.
From where you stood, it was evident the outdated television was to blame for the irritating white noise. The screen radiated a dim, bluish glow from the flickering static. Very strange, considering how the channel had come in just fine when you watched reruns of your favorite late-night shows. Seeking the remote to switch the hissing box off, a sudden loud crackling of electricity and shattering of glass caused you to yelp and fall over in pure fright.
Hand pressed over your heart to prevent it from busting through your ribs, you stared in disbelief at the smoking remains of the television. There was a gaping hole of sparking, exposed wires where the screen once was. The fucking thing just exploded!
Tendrils of foul-smelling smoke reminded you that 3AM was an ungodly hour for the smoke alarm to be going off. The other people who lived in your apartment complex were always so pissy. They would surely hate your guts even more if your burning alive interrupted their beauty sleep.
Darting for the kitchenette, you rummaged around in the cupboard underneath the sink. The fire extinguisher was so old and dusty, you doubted it would even work, but it was all you had to battle the faulty wiring. After much fumbling, you managed to spout the powdery substance over the busted television, smothering the heat. Once the wires cooled enough, you unplugged the power cord.
“Piece of shit,” you berated the dead television, regretting the fact you spent fifty whole dollars on it. The early-90s model wasn’t the sleekest design for an HD television, but it had a novelty to it. And your thirty-percent employee discount at Pete’s Vintage Goods thrift shop made it a steal.
Well, you should’ve known not to trust something your boss scavenged from an abandoned storage unit. They were glorified dumpsters.
Once the excitement died down, you realized the horrible ringing hadn’t stopped. In fact, with the television reduced to a charred husk of plastic, the white noise increased both its frequency and volume. It became unbearably loud and intense. You doubled over with your head cradled in your hands, whimpering.
“What’s…happening?” you asked the empty darkness of your apartment, wobbling a little as your equilibrium was impaired. Teeth clenched and eyes shut tight, you resisted an intrusive thought which involved shoving a sharp object through your eardrums. You just wanted the torment to end.
Strings of saliva wet your chin as you bent over, clenching and unclenching your jaw, whining, none of which eased the tension or pain. “Please…God, make it stop…”
Accompanying the mind-numbing white noise were faint, hair-raising whispers. They came from the walls of your now darkened apartment, their words indecipherable yet ominous. You wanted to scream and cry out of frustration and mounting fear, but no sound existed. None except the ghostly whispers and the unending hiss of painful frequencies.
Then you felt it. What began as fingertips lightly tapping along the flesh over your hunched spine. There was a broad hand resting on your back, right between your tense shoulder blades, its weight distinct and unmistakable. Pins and needles pricked deep into your flesh as the phantom touch corrupted your nerve endings. You wanted to recoil, but you were paralyzed. A violent shiver ripped through your body in response, as the lukewarm temperature in the room dropped well below freezing.
“Do you...stand…”
Those words became distinct from the other, unidentifiable and incoherent whispers communicated in dead languages. A disembodied male voice spoke to you in a deep, unwavering baritone. He repeated what he had been saying all along, his words becoming clearer with every firm intonation.
“Do you understand me?”
Face buried in your trembling hands, your knees gave out and you sank down onto the floor with a pained cry, unable to handle the horrid ringing anymore. You shook your head in confusion and denial. Light and darkness battled for domination over your vision as your mind struggled to make sense of how reality was unraveling.
Terror constricted your throat, preventing you from asking what the entity wanted.
“Nobody does…”
There was a melancholic disappointment in those words. Meanwhile, the laws of physics no longer seemed to be in effect. The walls creaked and groaned, as the floor underneath you warped, like the old building was going to collapse on itself.
Opening your eyes wide in panic, you saw the familiarity of your apartment had faded into immaterial nothingness. The metaphysical shadows had become a shifting veil of black smoke, hardly distinguishable from the yawning void which surrounded you on all sides. You dared not turn to look at the dark entity looming on the edge of your peripheral vision, lest you suffer dire consequences for doing so. Hiding your face behind your hands like a frightened child, fingers pressed almost painfully over your eyes, the only thing you could do was remain still and quiet.
If you ignored the overbearing presence, maybe he--or it, or they--would leave you alone.
No such luck.
Solid and strong, two large hands clamped down over your shoulders with commanding pressure. At the same time, his overpowering aura wrapped around you like a suffocating, heavy shroud. Then you were abruptly plunged into the depths of an unfathomable void. It felt like being waterboarded by the energy of interdimensional space. You were half-drowned by the force of it.
Loud and gruff, in direct opposition to his earlier monotonous hum, the male entity shouted with startling rage, “You will listen to me!”
Defiant anger overcame the seductive, dominating pull of the darkness. You resisted it fiercely and felt the oppressive weight lift at once. Gulping in a sharp breath like you just resurfaced from deep water, you finally released the distressed shriek that was trapped in your throat.
In the space between the kitchenette and the fried remains of your television, you lurched upright, where you had been sprawled flat on your back. There was a dull ache in your tailbone and elbows from striking floor. The impact was hardly softened by the vintage, psychedelic black-and-white rug you threw down over the exposed patch of cement. Did you faint? Cold sweat dampened your pajamas and hair as you shivered, breathing hard from the scare. Legs drawn up in a defensive posture, ready to spring onto your feet at a moment’s notice, you looked around with panicked eyes.
What the hell was that?
You pushed your mess of hair back from your face, too nauseous to look at the hypnotic pattern of your rug. There was a sudden, unexpected pounding at your door, which didn’t help you recover from…whatever the fuck just happened.
Nearly passing away from cardiac arrest, you wanted to ignore whoever was at the door, but the persistent banging just made your migraine worse. With no other choice, you dragged yourself off the floor and shakily walked over to unlock the deadbolt, leaving the secondary chain above it latched.
“What the actual fuck is going on?”
It was your neighbor from down the hall. He looked ready to come unglued. Judging by the heavily wrinkled shirt bunched halfway down his lanky body, and the sweatpants hanging unevenly around his hips, he threw on clothes in a rush. His blue eyes were bloodshot, with dark circles that resembled bruises, indicative of many sleepless nights. The poor guy must suffer from insomnia, you thought.
His name slipped your mind. You barely interacted with him beyond nods of acknowledgement as you passed one another in the stairwell. The elevator had been “out of order” for years, long before he moved in. On the bright side, you had calves of steel.
“Uhm…sorry,” you apologized listlessly, unsure how to explain what just happened.
“I thought you were being murdered or something,” he grumbled with a huff of aggravation when he realized that wasn’t the case, which meant you disturbed him for no good reason. Suspicious and on-edge, he looked past you, taking in what limited view he was given of your apartment. His eyes wearily scanned the living room, as if expecting some knife-wielding murderer to jump out from a dark corner. None did, so he sighed, arms hanging tiredly by his sides as he leveled an unimpressed, critical stare at you.
“Why did you scream like that? Fucking hell…” he pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes scrunched tight, before swiping a hand back through his short, unkempt brown hair. The haggard look on his face and his long-suffering, heavy sigh made you feel guilt and embarrassment for waking him.
Reflecting on the surreal phenomenon that just went down, you decided it was all just some vivid nightmare. You were probably sleepwalking. Yeah, that makes sense. After all, the medications you took listed these as potential side effects, among other things. You never experienced sleep paralysis before, either, but that was a solid explanation.
Self-conscious, you shifted uncomfortably in the doorway as your disgruntled neighbor stared you down. He was awaiting some form of response, a justification, as to why you caused such alarm in the middle of the night.
“Bad dream,” you offered lamely, cringing at yourself.
In that moment, you knew the man was resisting the compulsion to wring your neck. One eye twitched with visible irritation as he lifted a finger, mouth open, inhaling sharply as if to vent all of his pent-up frustrations on you. Then he closed his mouth and huffed through his nostrils. Without another word, your neighbor abruptly turned and strode off. At the end of the hall, the door to his apartment creaked open and closed with a loud thud.
You were left alone with a creeping sense of unease.
Well, that was the best social interaction you’ve had with anyone who lived in your building. The place had a heavy, cold, and gloomy atmosphere, like a storm cloud perpetually blacking out the sun. People always looked exhausted, depressed, and under the weather. None of them spared you much attention, beyond irritable glares or rude muttering if you happened to be in their way. At least your neighbor showed genuine concern for your life. Some people wouldn’t have bothered getting off their asses, if they suspected a murder was taking place. Human decency and compassion were rare, it seemed. You watched too much true crime, because a certain gruesome and tragic murder came to mind. Rest in peace, Kitty Genovese…
Sighing, you eased the door shut with a soft thud and the resounding click of your deadbolt.
Back facing the quiet dark of your apartment, you truly hated how much you dreaded turning around. It was irrational, but you were afraid someone would be standing there, after all. Ultimately, you did turn, greeted only by the lonely shadows and silence.
Relieved, but also saddened, you allowed the uneasy breath to whoosh out of your lungs. Maybe I should get a cat, you considered, feeling a bit isolated by the stillness in the air.
Sleep paralysis, you made a mental note to research further into the subject later. For the time being, you should at least try to rest. Tomorrow morning, you were going to visit a dear friend.
Wrapped back into the warmth of your bed, your eyes remained wide open. You laid there for a while, watching the room shift between ominous red and dreamlike blue, waiting for the horror to resume.
The white noise had gone silent. There was no whispering from your walls. Reality seemed to behave as it always had. So, you finally allowed the anxious tension to leave your body. Pleasant thoughts warded off bad dreams, as you looked forward to reuniting with your favorite person in the whole world.
Little did you know the world was about to become a whole lot darker.