She went to her little house with a twist of the door knob. The neat and orderly and silent house that felt exactly lonely, exactly depressing as she remembered before she left. She missed her sister.

The bucket dripped to her rear as she looked around to set down her purses and shoes and coat. The home was dark. The lights turned on, a flick of the switch. She walked through, a table hit her rear as she walked through. And it felt like all the niceness of the date, the happy distraction, was wearing out. That it was just a moment, a fake memory, for she couldn’t imagine, as she settled into her sad house with her missing sister, that life was anything but lonely.

The apartment was big. And she missed the loud banging and screaming and laughing and crying from the top floor.

She hit a table by accident, a set of Russian dolls fell down. It belonged to her grandmothers, but you wouldn’t tell by how polished Stefanie had made them throughout the year after her death.

She looked around, there was a plastic film all around the furniture. She moved to the kitchen to find a beer. The fridge door was full of magnetized pictures of herself and her sister. She almost ignored it, after all it had been there for almost a decade now. But upon closing the door and flipping the bottle cap, she noticed something strange. The picture was defaced. There was a hole through the face she was supposed to occupy.

She shrugged, it was a strange then. It must have ripped and she was too depressed to care. She tried thinking of Dion, then to her job (at a bakery, early morning tomorrow). She tried to think of everything but her sister. And by proxy, the picture too. She sat on one of the sofas. She almost slipped on the plastic. She held herself by a table and cut herself with glass.

“Ow,” She looked at it. A picture frame laid broken.

She brought it close to her. Again, strange. Creepy, her shoulders shivered. There was another hole here, on her and her grandmother.

All that remained was Claudia. She turned it around, perhaps to find a clue. As she did, the lights went out.

"Fucking electricity box." She said in German. She set the picture down and went out, into sloshy snow, around the apartment, and towards an alley. She looked around, noticing, only her section was ruined. She opened the box, nothing was broken.

“It’s probably the bulb then,” She thought. She looked up to her neighbors above. None of them seemed there, none of them reared their heads. They were quiet. The whole world seemed dead.

It’s a dump of a house, I shouldn’t expect more, she thought. I might be able to afford to leave now.

To leave her grandma's things here, to leave Claudia here and to go off. Perhaps towards the city, where there was life.

Whatever.

She went back inside, to the lower cabinets, reaching for a candle or two. The sound of her clicking lighter was a comfort, the feeling of the glowing light, even more so. A light warmness, that tickled the tip of her nose.

She could see, barely, only three feet in front of her. At least she could see. The few lights, even the street lamp, could not reach through the windows and into her building. The light was parsed, cut into sharp lines that tessellated the wood and beige walls. A cat-shaped clocked was cut in half. She could see the sneering smile, like a split Cheshire cat. The candle flickered. Her shoulders shivered again.

She went into her room. She wanted to look over the accounting, the bills and what not. To frustrate herself, mostly, but now, with the strange isolation about her, she mainly wanted a distraction.

Whatever.

The room was dark and simple, a bed lay close to the floor and a mirror-table lay behind her, the glass was cracked. She went to the corner of the room, upon a little work desk to rest the wick and to open a giant lodge with a ribbon bookmarker. She’d have to change everything. Without her sister. Her sister, fuck. She put her head down, she thought of her. She didn’t want to. She kicked her out, of course.

She lay bent overl lazily on the table, letting the cold air hit the back of her neck, the window that blew through curtains and she dozed off, with her head facing the desk, with her thin sweater hanging loose, with every muscle slowing and easing to gentle sleep.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

She heard the walls banging.

Above her. On the second floor where her sister's room once was. She jumped, immediately. She moved her head to where she heard the sound, again. Banging. She ran out (stupid decision), to try and catch someone (but what would she do?).

She didn't know why she was so courageous. Perhaps because she didn’t didn’t feel in danger. Perhaps because she thought it was her sister, sneaking in, like a raccoon chasing scraps. And she felt glad. Glad! At the thought. She would yell at her, scream, bully even. But at least Claudia would be here, and the idea that it wasn’t her seemed sad. And frightening.

She went up the stairs, candle in hand. The wax dripped to her fingers.

"Claudia," she said. "Let's talk."

The candle waned and by the third step to the last, died completely. She tried relighting it. Nothing. The sparks deflected off her flint. The wick wouldn't budge.

Whatever.

She found the room opposite the bathroom, Claudia’s room. Both of them were closed, only one had the scurrying, loud and obvious.

Or was it?

She walked up, tapped along the door.

“Claudia?” She asked and looked behind her, towards the bathroom, noticing glass sticking out from underneath the door frame. “Claudia!” She banged at her sister's door upon the sight.

The door opened.

And perhaps by the sheer depth of that darkness, the density of it, she did not notice the thing inside. She had to step closer. To feel the pieces of the wardrobe splintered on the floor. The feel the bed springs coil underneath her soles. She looked for her candle again. For the lighter and fumbled it and sparked it and cursed.

“Fuck, fuck.” She lit it.

She pointed it, to the wall, the sound still scurrying. And all across the room, she saw the dark and grainy and glossy red, the writing on the walls stretching across. The letters, the imagine.

Why won’t you love me? Why won’t anyone love me? Fuck me, please. Fuck me. Sister dearest, please.

Her face went cold. What was the tapping? What was the crawling? Something moved up. She pointed the candle. Nothing was there, nothing but a hole. The door closed behind her. She reached for the light switch (Stupid! She knew it didn’t work!). The candle spilled to the floor and died. It sputtered. The scurrying intensified, all around her now, like a mad animal. It was behind the door. No. Above it, slamming from the ceiling. She thought to escape from the window. She thought about it, but the pointed sharp tips of a fence persuaded her. But with the noises...she thought about it again.

The walls banged. Tears fell down her cheeks, her mouth fumbled for words. It was loud. An intense running, a breathing, like the ceiling was alive. She pushed against the door now.

“Let me out!” She pushed. “Let me the fuck out!” German and English blending in her fear.

And she felt it. Something dropping, like a spider upon the web. Something extending its long limbs down, to the floor. She looked behind her. The curtains moved gently, the light caused an outline of the creature. She couldn’t even speak. Move. She didn’t want to see it, to figure out the details of the humanoid thing. She pushed, finally. The door broke open. The lock went flying. Her shoulder hurt, she didn’t care. She tripped into the main hall. The doors opened and closed all around her.

“Please, stop!” She said to nothing in particular, perhaps the creature breathing behind her. Picture frames flew past her. The windows opened and shut. The house was alive, rattling, screaming at her. And she walked through it. Glass shattered beneath her feet, she walked. The bloody footprints marked her haste, down the stairs, around them. A light bulb crashed down on her forehead. It cut her across the face. She screamed then, still running, one of her eyes couldn’t see past the stream of red.

She made it to the bottom floor facing the front door. But she had to stop.

The silhouette, the lanky armed silhouette, that eerie female form. It waited there. In front of the door, in front of the low light of a street lamp, moon perhaps. Stefanie was seized by the scene.

She wanted to run up. She wanted to run out. She began to think it didn’t even matter. As she saw the figure crawling closer, raising itself as a biped would, but still low and daunting and prepped to leap. She couldn’t tell what it was. The muscle spasms. The sporadic rushing, the fidgeting of limbs told her it was something unnatural. A walking glitch of humanity.

It’s broken, this thing, It doesn’t move right, She thought. It just doesn’t.

The limbs twisting on the creature as the very thought came to her attention.

She walked back in caution. Her back hit the wall. Any pictures remaining fell with her. And the person, resembling her sister, who she knew wasn't, turned her head. Twisted it like a screw. The neck cracked as it did so. The monstrosity appeared to her, low, inspecting her, inches from her face. She stifled a yelp.

“Why won't you talk to me.” Claudia, or what was supposed to be Claudia, said. “Why won't you fuck me like the rest?”

The monster walked back, in reproach, in struggle. Grabbing herself. Hurting herself. Mumbling to herself, let go.

And whatever struggle there was, did not last long. The creature twisted its head again, a full three hundred and sixty degrees. She held her breast, squeezed it, as a taunt, as a disgrace.

“Just one little touch. Please, just love me.”

“Get away” Stefanie cried. “Get away!”

She started to crawl up the stairs, with all four limbs, desperate, trembling as she took a step.

“Just love me!” She heard the voice morphed and deep and scratchy. She heard it low and near behind her.

But she wept, alone. Cry, alone. All she could do.

“No, no!” She felt a hand grab her neck. It gripped it hard. It dragged her, her fingers split open, gripping the shattered-glass floor. She gripped harder on the wood floor, her nails chips and broke and scratched and left straight line marks. And she cried, dragged along, carried into the air. And she cried, as she was thrown, straight across the room. And she cried. Until she hit something. Until it stopped hurting. Until the hurt of thinking stopped completely.

And everything went black.