Not Alone.

Chapter 5

Every time heard someone's phone ringing, he would react to it, jumpy the way a scared animal reacts whenever they feel the danger around.

And bad for him, the office phone was ringing nonstop from one department to another.

Ethan had put his phone deep inside his desk.

When he opened the desk to take out some folder, his eye fall on the device, the screen was black. A black screen was showing with no new notification pop up, not even of the spam mails. Out of curiosity, he picked it up and tapped the screen for it to open.

Nothing happened. The screen remained black.

After clicking on the power button, he saw a red flash coming from the phone notification bar. It meant, No battery.

His phone was dead.

It was a little late, he didn't realize that his phone was not capable of functioning as it was dead.

In the morning haste, he had forgotten to bring the charger with him.

So when he knew that his phone was not be going to ring, he released the breath Ethan didn't realize he was holding and felt like he finally was out of the unknown danger, his fear subsidized.

For the first time in his life, he was happy and not at all angry about his forgetful mindset.

Finally, with no thoughts accompanying and occupying his mind, he started focussing on the files.

With a relaxed mindset, he worked more efficiently. He worked on finishing the file work and had to submit it before the deadline. If he keeps getting distracted like that, the last date will pass, and then he would have to experience a lot of pain and stress that will come from the above authorities.

He immersed himself into the work, and after that, the day passed gracefully.

Even though in the early hours in the office, he had a moment of a minor panic attack (which was not that minor, not at all), Ethan would like to mark his first day as a very vulnerable and nerve recking but overall productive day,

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( time skip to the evening)

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Satisfied but exhausted, his day ended finally.

Ethan instructed the cab driver to stop in front of his house, paying him and thanking him he walked toward it.

Opening the lock of the door, he shrugged off his bag and beelined across the boxes to go straight to the bathroom for the hot shower.

Ethan was at ease standing under the shower. A satisfied 'hmm' left his lips and had a blissful expression on his face as a stream of hot water touched his skin. While lathering the soap, standing under the stream of hot water, all the exhaustion left his body, he felt like a living being again.

After freshening up, humming the tunes of some new song he heard playing while he was in the cab, scrolling to find an easy recipe to make his meal. He wanted to cook some homemade food. Not feeling sleepy, more energized, Ethan thought of utilizing that positive energy towards cleaning and arranging stuff.

He arranged the cutlery items into their specific drawers while the noodles cooked.

While putting the bowls in the upper compartments, his mind got diverted towards the empty living room wall, and an idea struck in his mind.

He decided that he was going to mount his guitar on that wall of the living room. He loved that guitar and was planning to play his hobby after he has done with his dinner.

After doing some more chores like arranging the bookshelves, emptying his suitcases, and cleaning up the dust, he decided to take a breather.

The thought of taking a break was welcoming. Brought out the beer from the fridge, proceeded to sit on the sofa to relax muscles and stretch the legs.

His habit of getting lost in his work made him forgot how much time had passed and when he realized that he was working for 5 hours straight, and he was sweaty again.

He felt great for himself that he had been able to ignore the creepy vibes and able to walk past the weird series of events that happened in the morning.

He was happy that he was focussing more on himself than his surroundings. But it kept nagging him on the back of his mind ever so often. But ignoring it looked like it was working.

But for how long?

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In the next month of him living in that apartment, he experienced some very peculiar things which made his life very suffocating.

With time he started thinking that he was going insane. His mental health was becoming worse.

But unexplained activities keep happening inside the house.

In the dead silence of the house, he could hear knocking sounds coming from the ground floor or just from outside his room.

It started with him hearing the soft sound of footsteps, walking down on the floor. Every time he checked, he couldn't find any evidence.

With time the sound begins to become louder and louder.

Whenever he tried to sleep, he could hear the loud banging of doors opening and shutting. Sometimes, he heard metal scratching noises coming from inside the room (he named it an evil room).

Opening or pushing doorknobs squicky noises had become the most common phenomenon in the house.

At those time, He only wanted one thing,

To stop hearing them.

Shaking and trembling, he just curled inside his blanket and prayed for it to get over.

The most heart wreaking thing to him was that he was alone. All alone.

He was becoming more lethargic and paranoid. It was also taking a toll on his health.

To stay away from the house, he started taking extra work, volunteered for the overnight shifts. He just kept loading himself with so much work that he could stay in the office building for as long as it was possible.

But he does need to sleep, and he could not sleep in his office cubicle.

That was against the rule.

He had befriended his colleagues of the same project, so sometimes he tried to do a sleepover with them. Everyone could see that he was stressed. Ethan tried to hint quite a few times about the situation happening in his apartment but never get any supportive response, so he stopped trying to explain and just kept it to himself.

But no matter how much he tried to ignore it, he had to return.

Had to.

And whenever he returned home after a long time,

All kind of hell break loses upon him.

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Ethan was in his bedroom above when he heard a loud thud noise like something heavy falling off downstairs.

When he got to the base of the stairs, he witnessed truly terrifying things. He was not able to believe his own eyes.

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He saw his guitar swaying left-right in the air from where it was mounted on the wall.

A non-living object can't move until and unless some type of energy passed to it and if he had to believe his eyes, he was not able to see anyone standing near the guitar yet it moved.

Nothing was making sense.

All kinds of logical reasoning were failing.

Like, the air inside the house can't be that strong. The air condition can't be that strong that it could move the whole guitar in such away.

Following the pattern, curtains and fans also started moving on their own.

How could one possibly ignore that and blame it as just coincidental?

That was an eye-opening experience for him as he realized he was not alone. Also, the other resident was no human, much like an evil spirit.

He didn't know what that spirit wanted from him, but one thing was clear that it wanted to be known, wanted Ethan to be aware of its presence.

All his fears and creepy intuitions were right.

It was just so bizarre.

He was scared, lonely as it was a new city for him. Ethan had no real close friends and his family was far away from where he was.

Anger started bubbling inside his mind.

"What is happening here!" He screamed and collapsed into fits of crying.

All alone, he was slowly falling into depression. The more scared he got, the frequency of phenomenons increased too.

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He was sick and tired of being scared and wanted nothing more than some peace.

"Enough is enough" Ethan decided that the spirit residing there can go to hell.

No one can manipulate him. No more.

That's why he decided to buy and install some CCTV cameras inside the house where he experienced most of the strange activities, the active spots.

No more game of hiding.