"Come on MJ!" demanded Anne.
"The Mona Lisa wasn't built in a day!" MJ rebuked.

---

Meanwhile...

Frank returned from the shops. He could hear the new neighbour upstairs making laughter noises with his two friends. He unloaded the goods in his kitchen. Food for the week. The same old vegetables, eggs, and dairy products. Every week was the same. A continuation of nothing. That's all there seemed to be. Nothingness, and no joy. It was the same same same. Every fucking day. His heart lacked meaning. It lacked purpose. Nothing moved him. Not even the Parmigiano-Reggiano he was going to use to make ultimate omelettes.
"..." he sighed.
He wanted to put his fist through the wall, just to feel something, anything. But then he would lose his rental deposit.
Hatred began to bubble up from his deepest depths at the sound of the laughter from upstairs. Jealousy? Atomisation? What was this incessant unrelenting feeling? What would it take to repair his heart?
Frank went into his bedroom and picked up a shoe box from under his bed. He placed it on the kitchen table next to the Parmigiano-Reggiano. It was so hard to find Parmigiano-Reggiano. What was wrong with the world? Could a man enjoy nothing without toiling to attain it?
He opened the shoe box and picked up the gun.
"Soon..." Frank whispered while stroking the barrel.

He stared at the gun for several minutes, before jumping and throwing it back into the box with so much force that it fell onto the floor. Thankfully the gun didn't go off. Someone was peering in. He awkwardly shuffled as he stuffed the box back under his bed before answering the door.
"Yes!?" Frank shouted.
He looked up to see that it was two babes from another dimension. One was a tall beautiful Amazonian goddess of a woman wearing high heels, hot pants, and a low hanging dress. The other was a country Queen with a wholesome vibe.
"WOW! Sorry!" Frank amended.
"Emm... sorry we are looking for Alan" Anne explained.
"Ah... that must be the new guy upstairs?"
"Oh okay, I'm sorry if we disturbed you, nice to meet you"
Anne and MJ introduced themselves as they shook Frank's hand.
"Nice to meet you too" Frank said smiling and nodding.
They left him and went upstairs. Frank had forgotten to introduce himself. He would normally feel awkward as, but instead all he could think was Did they see the gun?
"FUCK!" he slammed his fist into the table.

---

"The Babes!" Mark answered the door with glee.
MJ slapped him right on the cheek with ease from her tall vantage point of high heels. She would always slap him when she got the chance. It was a mutual enjoyment thing.
"Oh! Why so cold!" Mark replied with a semi as he held his cheek.
"So this is the new place?" Anne said as she kissed Alan on his cheek.
"Yeah babe" Alan cheekily replied to his girlfriend hoping to also get a slap.
"It's haunted you know..." Steve cut to the chase.
"Whaaa?!" MJ asked intrigued.
Alan explained what he saw. He claimed to have seen a ghostly figure in the middle of the hall, which disappeared into the guestroom. It was like an outline of a person, shaded in. Some sort of shade... like a three dimensional person projected in shadow form from the shoulders up.
None of them really thought much of it. For Alan it was a "cool" experience. Anne was more concerned with the weirdo who lived downstairs, although MJ thought he was hot in a distant one thousand mile stare kind of way.

The five bantered and had fun, enjoying casual drinks, and a blunt here and there. MJ and Steve shared a cab home. Eventually it was midnight, and only Alan, Anne, and Mark remained.
"I'm just going to crash in the spare room" a half drunk half stoned Mark said as he wobbled off.
"Shall we christen the place" Anne said raising her eyebrows up and down.
"BABE!" Alan said as he picked her up, almost stumbling and falling as he carried her to the master bedroom.

---

Mark woke up at about 2 A.M. to use the bathroom. His piss was long and arduous, like an early morning marathon.
"What's that?" he questioned back, turning around.
But there was no one there. He had thought someone had whispered or called out to him. It was probably just the weed in his system. He walked back to the spare room listening to the sound of his beating heart. Everything else was dead quiet. The master room door was closed, so it was probably his imagination.
Mark didn't want to go to the underground. Whatever that meant...

He lay in bed trying to return to the land of slumber, but he couldn't. Something sharp excited the air. The room felt cold. Mark rolled over and looked at the window to see if was open. The curtains weren't moving, but it looked like something was standing behind the curtains.

Fear

Fear struck Mark right in his heart. But then he remembered Alan's golfing stuff he never uses. He saw Alan put it and the excess stuff away in the spare room for storage.
"Phew!"
He rolled over, but then he looked back. The curtains were now flat, with nothing protruding. There was nothing behind them...
Just his imagination... the deep inward callous sounding rattling breathing coming from nowhere...
It was just fear taking over. There was nothing but him in the room. It was just the weed from earlier making him hear things. Mark scanned the room until he was sure of it. He rolled back onto the bed and jumped up with fright.
"FFF..."
For a second he thought the other pillow was a face. It had just creased that way. Random...
He was overreacting to nothing, and would tell everyone about it the next day. The breathing sound quieted down. It was probably his own breath.
Mark took a deep breath before resigning himself to sleep...

He woke up to that sound of breathing he thought he had previously heard. The breaths were long and raspy. Rattling away like a dying man's breath. Mark sprung to life and onto his feet. It was probably Steve or Alan playing a prank on him. He was clenching a pillow in one hand. Trembling.
The breathing grew closer and closer. In a desperate attempt to keep still a single whimper escaped his mouth, and the breathing stopped.
Mark was shaking, almost frightened to death. Minutes passed and Mark began to think that perhaps it was just his imagination playing tricks on him.
He looked around the room frantically after turning the light on, for signs of anything. There was nothing there. It was just a cold unfamiliar room with some boxes and other things yet to be unpacked. There was nothing.
Mark turned the light off and approached the bed when a suitcase half slid out from under the bed.

He jumped back in fright and hit the light switch within a millisecond. Mark's breathing became heavy as he resolved to look under the bed. He wouldn't be able to sleep quietly without peace of mind. That suitcase definitely moved. He knew it! But there was definitely a reasonable explanation. Maybe something fell and knocked it.
He slowly lowered himself onto his knees and peered under the bed. It was too dark underneath the bed to clearly make anything out. But he did see that something was watching him... staring at him...

A pale dead white arm stretched out from beneath the bed. Its hand engulfed Mark's face before he had a chance to react. He was pulled under the bed. All was silent. The room was empty. And Mark was somewhere else, screaming with no mouth.

TBC....

Chapter 1
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5

@RiskDebonair
Irish Writer, Poet, & Lover