Chapter 15.

My eyes narrowed as I’d discovered the perfect sacrifice if the worst-case scenario came to pass. I’m not a racist or anything, but white women predominantly tend to die in horror movies after all. There was a saying among some of my black friends; as long as they ran in front of the white woman at night, they would be fine since the killer wouldn’t be able to see them with their natural camouflage and the white beacon drawing the killer’s eyes.

My black friends like to call this move the, “Aw hell naw gurl. Don’t you use ma black ass as camouflage for yo white ass by running in front of me. You fight him! Throw those damn pointy high heels at his eyes girl! What do you mean they’re Gucci?! Hell, are they more expensive than yo life? Dis gurl be hella dumb! Oh shiot! Girl, right behind yo ass! Turn around! Turn around! Aww hell naw. She dead. She real dead.”

As for why it had such a long name, perhaps I’ll never know. I’ll probably also never know why it was such an oddly specific name either. One can only ponder the deeper meaning of such a great black mind; to think that there could be a person so brilliant that they could come up with a name with such profound depth and intent. 

It was truly a title that I could call a masterpiece if turned into a song. Speaking of music, the present state of the music industry, where did it go wrong anyways. When titles of this level could still be birthed into this world, why couldn’t music maintain such high standards? Perhaps it was Musical.ly’s and Tiktok’s fault that kids without any sort of musical talent made it big by simply lip-syncing.

I digress though, I’m really just salty about how crappy music has become lately. Whenever I think about all the snot-nosed spoiled brats, still wet behind the ears, that think they’re suddenly gangsters when they’ve been pampered all their lives and have never truly worked a hard day in their life, it really gets me a bit heated up.

Though In all honesty, throwing this cute girl under the bus wouldn’t be a problem at all in my eyes. As for why that may be the case, well… that would be for the simple fact that I heard the rancid music made by those very same snot-nosed spoiled brats, with the vocabulary of two-year-olds on full blast from her wireless earbuds.

Thus, I followed directly behind her into the stairwell and sprinted up the stairs positioning myself in front of her. In the event any spooky ghost girl showed up behind us, I’d kick her the stairs in reverse and hightail it out of here. If she appeared in front of us, I’d simply run back down the stairs, trip her on my way down and offer her up on a silver platter all while I exited the building safely. 

Despite my malicious plans, It was truly lucky for her that nothing strange happened and I successfully made it to the 14th floor safely.

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When I confirmed the coast was clear, I made my way to the end of the corridor on the 14th floor where Rick’s unit was located. Deep down I was relieved as nothing creepy or off-putting popped up out of nowhere in the corridor as I got closer to his unit. It was just a normal corridor with nothing out of place. That was when I realized that I’d made another mistake. Any time something looks too normal was when things normally hit the fan.

Upon being struck by that realization I braced myself mentally for the worst. When I was outside the door leading into Rick’s unit, I took in a deep breath and knocked thrice for good measure.

After a minute of waiting in silence, there wasn’t a response. I knocked again and this time placed my ear against the door to listen for any sort of movement. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear anything moving behind the door and I thought that he might really just be out at the moment. Before I left, I turned the doorknob with my sleeve to verify that he hadn’t left it unlocked. One may ask, why with my sleeve? Well, doorknobs were a breathing ground for germs and it was a force of habit that I opened them with my sleeve to avoid direct contact. Just thinking about public restrooms with door knobs and handles always grossed me out a bit.

As I expected, the door was locked and it really appeared he wasn’t around. Rick told me that he often left his door unlocked when he was at home. He was the careless type, but he mentioned he was on good terms with his neighbors who often crashed at his place to party. He often left his door unlocked so he wouldn’t have to waste his energy getting up to open the door for visitors every time they came to visit.

With that in mind, I was fairly certain he had to be out at the moment. Since that was the case I resolved myself to depart, but the moment I did, I heard the slow eerie creek of a door opening to my side. Naturally, I froze up at the stereotypical development that transpired; yet, despite knowing better, I still turned to take a look to visually confirm what I’d heard was real despite knowing it would surely lead me down a rabbit hole.

There was no way a locked door would just magically open up on its own like that. I looked upwards starting from the ground in a straight line and discovered the door was slightly ajar with the chain hooked on the door from the other side. With that serving as evidence, I was now convinced that my coworker, or at least... somebody, had to be home right now.

How else would the chain be latched right now if not for that?

“Hey, Rick, come on man. This isn’t funny. Why are you being all freaky about this right now?”

Unfortunately, nobody answered me. We’d tried to call Rick earlier today, but we didn’t get any answer. If Rick really was home, surely he should have his smartphone on him, right?

I took out my smartphone, so I wouldn’t feel so alone and freaked out by everything, I asked my AI comrade in arms, “Siri, call Rick, mobile.”

“Calling Rick mobile.”

Thankfully it was the normal robotic voice I was accustomed to hearing and not some freaky deaky glitch girl shit. A few seconds after my phone started ringing, Ligeti’s Requiem started playing from behind the door.

“Rick, this isn’t funny man. I know you’re there. What’s with your spooky ringtone dude? This is not cool man!”