Chapter Five

Insomnia

When Petra woke up the next morning, the odd happenings of the night before were all but forgotten or diminished into overly active imagination and high stress levels. She was much too consumed with the exhaustion her recurring nightmares caused and the worries of attending university for the first time.

Late as always to catch the bus, Petra flew out of the apartment without even seeing Natasha. She closed the apartment’s door and ran to the elevator, pressing the button to call it repeatedly, as if it would somehow make it reach the fifth floor faster.

She finished swallowing her toast and took a quick look around the hall. It was like it was still night. She was still questioning the bizarre choice of having no windows, when she noticed, for the first time, that the ugly dark walls weren’t completely bare. There were primitive drawings and weird symbols drawn with white chalk on the walls. She had no idea if they were there last night but, regardless, she wondered why someone would do it. The drawings were in every wall and, most daunting of all, in all the doors.

Petra walked closer to her own door and noticed the white, archaic symbols were there too. She was sure she would’ve noticed them had they been there last night. It was early in the morning, which meant someone had to have done it during the night.

They were kind of creepy and unnerving but, at the same time, eerily beautiful, almost pure looking. She was ready to convince herself some misbehaved child or teens with way too much free time on their hands had done them, when she turned around and looked at her front neighbors’ door.

The white drawings were there too, but they weren’t alone. The door was severely scratched. The wood sported deep cut wounds, animalistic, beastly even and she wondered what kind of animal or even object could perform such a display. It was disturbing and they were dispersed in a way that suggested it hadn’t all been done at the same time. The door of the neighbor at the end of the hall was the worst though. It was a wonder it wasn’t shredded completely.

The elevator signaled its arrival and for one blessed second, Petra forgot about her vandalized building and ran to it. As it descended the five floors, she unfortunately found time to think about it again. The only logic explanation was that some very nasty people were having fun entering the building and wrecking it to their will. What she couldn’t understand was why no one reported the situation to the authorities or maybe, probably, they already did, she just didn’t know it. How could she, really, she had just arrived.

She just hoped she wouldn’t run into any vandal while she walked home at night.

But those scratches had to be there before, there was no way anyone could’ve produced such profound cuts to the wood without making heavy noise. And she hadn’t heard anything nor had she slept much either.

The elevator doors opened, interrupting her train of thought. She ran out of the building and abruptly stopped at its entrance. She had just realized she had a very poor idea of where the bus stop was. 

Last night, she had been right. It was a very busy street indeed. The outside of the building brought with it relief and peace. As she had predicted, the houses on the other side of the road caught very little sunlight and the building behind her cast a formidable looming shadow over them. Still, she felt free, like she had been having trouble breathing for a long time. The traffic noise, the voices and the loud and vibrant sounds emanated from the city made her feel as if she had been deaf, the light and the vivid colors made her feel as if she had been wearing shades for hours.

She felt alive again, lighter.

Looking around to see which direction she should take, she had a vision that froze her blood and brought her momentarily back to the silent, heavy, dark world she had just stepped out of.

The old lady was there.

She was still there, looming at the entrance of the building, standing in the exact same spot she had been last night. Whether she was there again or if she was still there was a mystery, but an irrelevant one. Either way, it was strange. And it was scary.

The old lady smiled at her, exposing her spent and rotten teeth. The act gave her shivers. It was not a kind smile, it was not a nice gesture. It was laced with some kind of evil.

Petra immediately walked in her opposite direction, determined to ignore the old lady. She hadn’t walked very far when she stopped, closed her eyes, cursed inwardly and realized she would have to go back home.

It was stronger than her. And she hated herself for it.

It was a need, a necessity, a primal longing. Petra knew her head would never leave her to rest for the whole day if she didn’t go back. It would nag her incessantly with images, scenarios, paranoia and a constant longing to go back.

She sighed. It had to be done. Might as well get it over with.

Cursing and mumbling, she turned on her heels and walked back to her building’s entrance, her eyes never leaving the ground, determined to avoid any eye contact with the old creepy woman. She couldn’t help but notice how everyone else seemed to do the same. Everyone passing the old lady avoided her gaze and tried to not lay their eyes on her for long, like it was some kind of whispering instinct.

She quickly walked inside, returned to the decrepit elevator, went up the five floors, walked into the hallway, approached the door to her apartment and tried to open the door. She then pushed and pulled the wooden obstacle and, upon realizing it was indeed closed and locked, felt satisfied and relieved enough to return to the elevator.

Once inside, Petra looked at her wristwatch. As expected, the bus was long gone. She would have to wait for the next one. She sighed, embarrassed. Late on her first day.

Some things never change.

***

The sun was already setting when she made her way back home. She was tired but pleased with how the day had gone by. It had been a relief to experience normalcy.

Walking towards her building, she noticed, still at a certain distance, a girl standing in one of her building’s balconies. She lived in the floor above hers and her long dress flowed rhythmically in the wind. She couldn’t make out the girl’s features, but she could tell she was staring ahead, looking at the city straight in the face, almost as if longing to meet it.

Petra couldn’t tell why, but that sight was so beautiful it actually felt sad.

Her attention was suddenly stolen by the loud sound of violent barking close to her. She jumped as she noticed how close the dog was. The animal barked with aggression, raw rage, its menacing teeth on a terrifying display, its dark fur stiff on its back but, surprisingly, it wasn’t trying to reach her or get closer. The owner exchanged confused and apologetic looks between the dog and her.

Not feeling it was necessary to wait for an explanation or a verbal apology, Petra walked away, towards her depressing building. The girl wasn’t standing in the balcony anymore.

On her way across the road two more dogs turned their heads to bark at her. They only got more aggressive the closer she got to the door.

Something was seriously wrong with the canine world in her street. She shrugged. Weirder things had happened to her already.

The paranoia she might’ve felt with her recently acquired knowledge that dogs seemed to suddenly hate her was quickly overshadowed by relief as soon as she noticed that, for once, there was no old lady creepily waiting next to the door.

Petra got inside, excited and hopeful (maybe the scary woman had given up on that particular spot and had moved on to haunt other people’s entrances). She got inside the elevator, up to the fifth floor, ignored all the deep scratch marks and insane white doodles and walked inside her apartment.

Immediately, upon opening the door, she knew something was odd. She could hear the sound of furniture being dragged through the floor. The sounds came from the living room, so she quickly walked across the long hall. What she saw in that division was nothing short of surprising and confusing.

Most of their furniture was misplaced. The chairs were either lying on the ground or upside down on top of the misplaced table. Pillows were thrown everywhere, the carpet was folded, the couch was clearly out of its usual place, the china that was supposed to be on top of the big cabinet were all upside down or fallen on the ground.

The only things that remained in their rightful place, completely untouched, as if glued to the wall with enough strength to survive the apparent hurricane that victimized their living room, were the creepy portraits.

For some reason, that only made them creepier.

Petra examined the whole chaotic scenario with her mouth hanging open. Next to the oversized wooden cabinet was Natasha, frantically pushing it to its right position along the wall.

“Oh my God, what the hell happened?” she finally managed to ask. “Did we get robbed?”

“No, oh no, nothing like that,” Natasha answered, giggling as much as she could in between her tired breaths and mildly waving away any apparent reason for concern. “It was me, I was just… cleaning.”

“Cleaning?” Petra asked, with little to no belief in her roommate’s words.

“Yeah,” Natasha replied, smiling with relief as she finally managed to put the huge cabinet in its right place again. She cleaned a few drops of sweat that had begun to form on her forehead. “I guess I’m a messy cleaner.” She laughed.

Petra found too little to smile about though. The room was a complete and utter mess. It was worse than it was before Natasha’s cleaning.

“Cleaning…” She repeated, still unconvinced. “Well… Do you want any help?” She didn’t wait for Natasha’s reply and walked straight to the middle of the room, retrieving one of the upside down chairs to its natural position.

“No!” Natasha ran to her side and gently pushed her away from the mess and clutter, into the hallway’s entrance. “Really, I appreciate your kindness, but it’s my mess, so I should be the one cleaning it.”

“But… Are you sure?” Petra couldn’t argue that it seemed fair, but still, the situation was too odd to simply wave away.

“Oh yes, you should go to your room and rest. I… I insist!” She laughed, though it sounded forced. “I have a method, you know? I do prefer to do it myself.”

“Alright… If you say so…” Petra wasn’t convinced and she had to question Natasha’s cleaning methods if they involved turning the place into a war-zone, but she also didn’t want to intrude and, honestly, after her lack of sleep the night before, she was pretty tired and in dire need of a nap.   

She complied with Natasha’s will without much convincing and went into her room, not really feeling the energy to worry about the phenomenon taking place in her living room at that exact moment. Though she couldn’t help but wonder if the girl that had left really was the loony one. She must’ve been quite something, if Natasha thought she was too weird.

Petra gladly let herself fall into her bed, trying to decide if she should call Olivia before or after her nap, or even if she should succumb to temptation at all (Lord knew she had enough trouble sleeping at night without taking naps in the afternoon).

She was slowly letting sleep conquer her though. She let her eyes wander from the badly painted white wall, to the old and clunky closet, to the ceiling.

 And then her heart stopped.

And sleepiness seemed like an old, impossible memory.

Footprints.

Deformed, skeletal, twisted, inhuman, horrific footprints. Again. In her ceiling. Directly above the place where her pillow would’ve been. As if something had stood or crouched above her, using the ceiling as the floor.

There were only two footprints this time, but they were more than enough.

She jumped out of her bed, as if it was dirty and cursed. Petra had no desire to look at them, they were so sickeningly ugly, they made her stomach turn. But she also couldn’t take her eyes off of them, as if she was afraid they would run and disappear into a more sinister place, like a disgusting bug.

A disturbing question formed in her mind.

Where they there before?

Why hadn’t she noticed them?

Or hadn’t she seen them because they weren’t actually there?

Petra tried to picture every single step she had taken the night before. She couldn’t remember if she had looked up at the ceiling with the lights turned on. But she wished, with every cell in her body, that the creepy footprints had already been there, that she simply hadn’t noticed them and that they really had been the sinister product of last girl’s crazy mind.

Otherwise, the implications were, admittedly, quite worse. It would mean that Natasha, someone, was making fun of her, trying to make her feel more insane than she already did.

Those were the only logical explanations, right?

And still, she couldn’t help but notice how very un-logical the whole situation was.

She decided not to dwell on it, as it was making her sick, and also not to bring it up to Natasha. If the prints were already there, she didn’t want to sound too paranoid. And if Natasha had done it, and she didn’t really want to think much of the disturbing connotations of that, she didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.  

Petra sighed and left the room. She knew were the broom was stored already.

***

It was deep into the dark night and she couldn’t sleep. The pills, hidden away deep in a not-so-forgotten drawer, called to her with longing, but she resisted.

Tired of tossing and turning, Petra got up from the bed, her back already sore from the tension. She was tired, exhausted even, her eyes ached and her body demanded rest. Yet, her mind, incoherent as it was, insisted on dragging worrisome and blurred thoughts at the speed of light, keeping peace away.

As she walked aimlessly, in desperate circles around the room, the smell of dark smoke reached her nose, partially waking her from her sleepy stupor, as her senses stayed on edge, her survival instincts on overdrive.

Something was on fire.

Either that or her tired mind was playing with her.

She wondered which would be the best option.

She walked outside of her room and carefully examined the dark hallway.

Tonight, at least if felt empty.

The scent of intense smoke was definitely stronger there. She slowly travelled to the living room, finding some solace in the fact that it was already back to normal.

Her eyes were aching for a whole different reason now and, turning on the lights, she was alarmed to realize that she could actually see the grey smoke. In panic, she ran to the kitchen, trying to find whatever it was that was burning. To her relief, and confusion, nothing was. In fact, everything was turned off.

She then ran to her living room, through the hallway, into the bathroom and checked every division for any possible combustion. Nothing. Which was good. But left the question: where was the smoke coming from?

Petra resisted the urge to knock on Natasha’s door and realized that both the smell and the fumes were more intense on the hallway, especially close to the door. She peeked through the seeing hole on the middle of the wooden door and saw nothing. It was pitch black outside of their apartment.

Opening the door, she was immediately assaulted by the violent smell of fire. She quickly turned the light on and found herself submersed in an ocean of dark smoke. Her eyes stung and she had to cover her nose, though that didn’t stop her from having an aggressive coughing fit.

“Hey!” she yelled into the corridor, trying to wake up her neighbors. Someone’s house was definitely on fire.

She knocked on the door of the apartment directly in front to hers and no one answered. Then, she noticed the smoke was actually coming from underneath the door more to the right. Petra ran there and frantically banged on their door, yelling for them to wake up.

Again, no one answered. No reaction, no sound, nothing. Fearing the worst, and with her heart bumping dangerously close to her throat, she ran inside her own house, in frantic search of her cellphone, ready to call the Fire Department. Once she held the object in her hand, her heart sunk as if it had bungee-jumped to her feet.

No reception.

She ran again, this time to the corridor, her mind set on running down the whole five sets of stairs if she had to, until she got reception on her phone. As soon as she stepped outside her house though, the most amazing thing happened: there was no smoke. No fire. Nothing.

It was like it had all been a dream. A horribly vivid one.

She quietly walked the corridor, slowly, as if in a trance, looking for a trace of smoke, inhaling deeply in search of the familiar scent of burning fire.

Nothing.

Part of her was relieved. Part of her was confused.

Most of all, she was terrified. Was she losing her mind? Was she hallucinating? Had her dreams gotten so realistic, she was mixing them with reality? Was she still dreaming?

Was she insane?

Why wasn’t anyone opening their doors to find out who the crazy screaming girl was, regardless of the fire being real or not?

Emotionally, physically and psychologically exhausted, Petra slowly walked back inside, her mind hurting with confusion and fear.

It was probably a side effect to her lingering and stubborn insomnia. That was the only possible explanation. She was so tired, so sleep deprived, her mind was playing tricks on her, the sudden lack of medication on her system making her paranoia all the more vivid. That had to be it.

Rationally, she believed herself. Her subconscious though kept being overrun by fear and doubt.

Deciding she needed some clearance and fresh air, Petra went back into her living room, glad that she hadn’t awakened Natasha, stepped into the balcony and sat in the old wooden chair she had left there before.

The gentle and smooth breeze lovingly kissed her skin, bringing peace into her tired soul. Leaning back into her seat and lighting up a cigarette, she admired the deadly silent city, beautiful and perfect in its magnificent slumber. Even though it looked frightening in the dark, Petra decided she much preferred the city as it was: peaceful, quiet, sleepy, terrifying. Nothing moved, except for the occasional stray cat searching for shelter or hunting owl, silently gliding across the clean skies. The silence was absolute, but not heavy. It was relaxing, relieving and demanding of respect.

Her mind was finally resting, but it didn’t last for long. Suddenly, as if it was an explosion, a new worrisome image flashed across her vision.

What if there really had been a fire?

Seriously, she was stuck in the fifth floor of a really old building, she wouldn’t be able to use the elevators… What if the fire prevented her from going down the stairs?

She would have to leave from this very same balcony. And there were no emergency stairs on the outside. Immediately, her active mind began to concoct an emergency escape plan that involved jumping other balconies, using air conditioning devices and window sills as support and imagining her own painful death as she fell down the five floors, turning into a puddle of blood, bone, flesh and gore on the ground.

Again, realistically, Petra knew this was ridiculous. But she couldn’t help herself. So she was glad it was all happening inside her head and no one else would ever know it.

She was stuck in the third floor, searching for a place where she could support her weight that would allow her to reach the second floor’s balcony (apparently, the third floor neighbor had no air conditioning, nor the fourth floor neighbor’s inclination to own a diverse myriad of sturdy and potentially life-saving flower pots), when the peripheral vision of sudden movement broke her concentration.

Petra walked closer to the edge of the balcony and peeked at the road way below, where she had noticed the movement. Realizing who it was, she quickly turned off the lights and got closer to the wall, as to make sure she wasn’t seen.

Walking around, slowly drawing circles in front of her building’s door, was that creepy old lady again. She walked with determined focus, as if she was a security guard, making sure nothing entered the building.

She shivered and, at that exact moment, the old lady looked up, right to her balcony. Petra remained quietly in her corner, knowing that there was no way the old lady could see her at that height, in that position, through the darkness. And yet, even from far away, she could feel her penetrating and unsettling gaze.

Somehow, Petra was sure the old lady knew she was there, even if she couldn’t see her.

For a few long minutes, during which she realized she was hardly breathing, the mad woman stood unmovable, looking right at her, making Petra feel heavy, uncomfortable, un-safe.

When the old lady finally dropped her steely stare and returned to her mindless walking and mumbling, Petra finally breathed normally again. She didn’t even allow herself to wonder why such an old woman would wander in the deserted streets, at such a late hour of the night, seemingly aimless, back and forth in front of a door. There was no use trying to make sense of it. That the lady was crazy there was no doubt. Trying to find sense in the madness would be a waste of time.

She almost wished the creepy lady was as much of a hallucination as the fire had been. Everything would probably make more sense that way.