Chapter Ten

Obscure

As Petra was returning home, in that chilly late afternoon, the conversation she'd had with the old lady was still very much present in her mind.

Although, for some inexplicable reason, a small part of her insisted on believing her, the greatest part of her refused to believe it. The woman was mad and evil and obviously took a great deal of twisted pleasure in scaring others.

She could clearly see her building in the distance and once again couldn't stop noticing just how ugly it was. Its unappealing design would never stop surprising her.

Petra could also see, once again, on the sixth floor, standing in a balcony, the same girl she had seen days before. Standing in the same spot, she was gazing at the city again, her hair and dress flowing with the breeze. She was once more enraptured by the beauty of this vision, until the girl, way up high, seemed to turn her gaze to the ground.

If Petra didn't know the probability was very low, she would've bet the girl was now staring directly at her. She couldn't really tell, since she couldn't see her features, but thought it was better to stop looking and keep on walking anyway.

At the building's entrance, as usual, was the old woman. Petra ignored her, but noticed the woman following her with her eyes, grinning. Petra decided to pretend she couldn't see her.

It was getting dark, the sun seemed to have gone to rest faster than it should (or had she been staring at the girl in the balcony for longer than she thought?) and she turned on the entrance's lights. Ever since Mr. Creepy's appearance, she always turned on the lights, though it wouldn't help her, it did make her feel safer.

Passing through the message board, she noticed a large piece of torn paper that screamed for attention because it was written in with large, bold, red letters.

Neighbors,

BEWARE of this man:

And nothing else. No picture, no description, no name, nothing.

Looking outside, she saw the old lady still watching her, her grin more evil and happier than ever. It was like Petra's concern and confusion, as she tried to make sense of the note, was severely entertaining to her.

Sick of the woman and her antics, Petra ripped the note from the board and went to her.

"Did you write this? Did you?" she asked the woman, putting the note right in front of her face, unable to contain her frustration anymore.

The woman laughed, which only pissed her off even more.

"So you think it's funny, huh?" she almost yelled, ignoring the confused stares she was gathering from the few people passing by. "You think it's funny to mess with people? To make them feel as crazy as you obviously are, right?"

Again, the woman laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound either, it was more like a myriad of squeals of delight, as if Petra's accusations were hilarious jokes to her.

"Well, if you ask me, this note should have your picture in it." She crumpled up the paper and threw it at the woman, who laughed even more vigorously. "You're barking mad and you should be locked up. You're a lunatic." She went back inside, still hearing the woman's laughter.

On the fifth floor's hallway, Petra could hear the faint sound of music and laughter, probably coming from upstairs. Eli and Kyle seemed to be having fun. The sound of their party was enough to calm her down. It was nice hearing positive sounds and feeling good vibes inside the building, for a change. It was a much needed improvement in atmosphere.

When she got home, she already felt bad for yelling at a poor, old and lonely woman like that, no matter how crazy she was.

***

After a relaxing shower, quick dinner and an unproductive study session, Petra decided it would be a good idea to sit on her balcony with a cup of warm tea to invite the sleepiness in. She hadn't seen Natasha all day, in fact, now that she thought about it, she hadn't seen her flat-mate in a couple of days – not that it bothered her much, but there was some comfort in knowing that she wasn't home alone, even if her company was the overbearing and possibly problematic Natasha.

The whole city was in silence, as it usually was in that area after midnight, and she couldn't hear the laughter or music coming from the boys' apartment anymore.

Petra was in the middle of finishing her audacious, and probably fatal, emergency exit plan, when something else caught her attention.

Movement on the building across the road.

The movement itself wasn't odd, except that the whole apartment where she saw it was in darkness, every light turned off. But she could clearly see something moving inside the highest apartment, the one directly in front of hers, through the tall glass doors that lead to its own long balcony. It was weird because someone was walking around, back and forth, repeatedly.

Just to be safe, she decided to turn off the lights on her living room, to make sure whoever it was couldn't see her shamelessly spying on them. With her lights turned off, she could see their shadow even clearer, aided by the faint light coming from the street lamp, which was right next to that building.

Taking a sip from her warm tea, she wondered what would make someone walk back and forth for so long in the dark. Maybe they, like her, suffered from insomnia once in a while. Maybe they had problems, stress, and couldn't sleep through them. Maybe they were simply talking on the phone.

There was something hypnotizing about it, though. Something that messed with her instincts – although, she had come to realize lately, her instincts were more often than not overdramatic. Still, she couldn't help but feel like there was something familiar about that walk... The way each step was so slow and precise, like an animal ambushing its prey, the timing so perfect between each of them.

The more her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, the more she could see. The person walking was abnormally tall and dangerously skinny. There was something wrong with their proportions too, the legs and arms seemed way too long for the torso.

Maybe the darkness was simply playing tricks on her sight. When the person turned to pace again in the opposite direction, she could almost swear she had seen inhumanly bright and large eyes, but shrugged that thought away, attributing it to lack of sight competing with an overactive imagination.

Until, suddenly, the pacing stopped.

She waited in odd anticipation for some sort of movement. It seemed like the world had come to a screeching halt as she anxiously waited for something to happen. She felt there was a reaction about to take place. The person was just standing there, staring at nothing, probably a wall, and the atmosphere was unusually heavy. She was even afraid to move, scared that it may disturb the enchantment and give her away, trying to be as hidden as possible in the dark.

And then, out of nowhere, she was covered in light. She jumped in surprise.

"Hey! Everything cool?"

It was Natasha, presenting herself with the worst timing possible. She was standing by the balcony door, a huge smile on her face.

"Ye-yeah," Petra replied, feeling kind of nervous, like a child being caught in the middle of mischief.

"Are you sure? You look like you've seen the Devil," Natasha joked.

"Yes, of course," she replied with a small smile. Everything was fine.

Wasn't it?

"Alright. Going to bed now." She waved. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight. Oh, would you please turn off the light?"

"Will do."

Once the lights were out again, she took a breath of relief. For some reason, she felt too exposed in the light, feeling much safer in the cover of darkness.

When she returned her eyes to the apartment in front, she almost dropped her cup.

The person was now facing her. She was sure of it because she could see the strange big and bright eyes, like they were sucking in all the light from the street lamp. The shadow was facing her and staring right at her, without moving. It was extremely uncomfortable and very much unnerving. Those eyes were way too bright, way too spooky. Maybe the person wore glasses and they just reflected the outside light funny... She tried to convince herself she was hidden in the dark, there was no street lamp near her balcony. She tried to reason that he couldn't see her, he must've noticed her when Natasha turned the light on and was now staring at her general direction, waiting to detect movement from her.

The more she looked at him, the more she wished to look away, there was something disgusting about that shape, something that was making her sick.

As her eyes got used to the dark again, she was able to see something she hadn't noticed before. She had to squint her eyes to see it and couldn't resist the urge to slowly move closer to the railing.

The curtains around the balcony doors, the ones framing the shadowy figure... they were remarkably similar to the ones around the door of her own balcony. And the sofa next to them was also very familiar...

Then it hit her.

It was her living room inside that apartment. She was seeing a glimpse of its reflection on the glass doors.

But that meant...

She turned around immediately with a loud, shocked scream. It was short, but echoed throughout the empty street.

When Natasha arrived at the living room, almost out of breath, she found a terrified Petra crouching in the balcony's floor, eyes wide, trembling, refusing to get inside.

Finally, once the lights were back on and Natasha reassured her that no one else was there besides the two of them, Petra got inside. A very confused and scared Natasha spent a few minutes trying to convince both of them that Petra had just been a victim of another one of her very realistic dreams and Petra agreed, if only so that Natasha would calm down and not think her insane.

Petra went to her room and locked herself inside, still shaking. The pills were calling for her.

Instead of succumbing to temptation, she called Olivia through her laptop and simply asked her to keep her laptop and their video call on throughout the night, while they were both sleeping. Olivia studied her for a moment and accepted, no questions asked.

Hours later, the sound of Olivia's light snoring was still her only comfort.

And she let her lighton.