Chicago.

I sit in my living room on the cold wooden floor, facing the ceiling and looking around the inside of my house. This will definitely be the last time I’ll be here, sadly. Boxes are stacked at one side and the truck is already here. I sigh.

Time to get moving.

Mom and Dad help bring the boxes into the moving truck and bags into our car and the truck. Everything about this hurts. I never wanted to move. Nor did my parents.

My father had a job offering in Chicago. The company he was currently working for sucked so he thought, why not? But of course, a part of me thought that my parents didn’t care about the environmental changes I had to go through. My older brother, Ben, of course, didn’t care a bit. Probably because he was in his ‘emo-poet’ phase.

Ben is already in the car, headphones on and looking outside the window, away from me, my parents and everyone else. The sky is cloudy and grey and looks as if it’ll be raining soon. I can’t help but feel as if the sky’s giving a dramatic effect on all of this.

“You ready, kiddo?” I hear my dad says as he puts an arm around my shoulder. I glance up at him and give him a plastic smile. “Yeah,” I whisper, walking away from him and getting into the car with Ben. He has a bag of chips beside him. He glances at me and pushes the bag of chips towards me as an offering. I push them back and he nods.

“Bad day?” He asks, taking off his headphones and for the first time in a few weeks, he actually looks like his old handsome self. Thick brown hair covering his emerald green eyes that make his skin look attractively pale.

“Kinda.” I answer, taking the chips this time. He grins and offers me his phone and headphones. Despite the fact that he changes phases almost every month, we’ll always have something in common which is our love for music. I smile and take his phone and headphones from him. I don’t use them yet though.

“How do you feel about moving?” I ask him. We’re still alone in the car so whatever we say now wouldn’t be heard my mom or dad.

“Like it’s the stupidest decision mom and dad have ever made,” Ben says without thinking. He takes a handful of chips and stuffs them into his mouth, looking out the window again.

“Why do you think so?” I ask, despite the fact that I too felt the same way.

Ben looks at me in this surprised way. By now, he’s dropping the emo phase but I don’t know about the poetic phase.

“Firstly, dad’s just going to be working for the same company that’ll give him the same amount of payment every month and will most probably be treated like trash. Secondly, have you seen the house? Or should I say apartment? It’s a 3 room apartment with a very small living room that’d be better off as a playground for our hamsters. Thirdly, have you seen our new school? From the looks of it, it seems like juvy!” Ben pours his heart out. We’ve always done this since I had problems to talk about. The first time I told Ben I wanted to talk to him about my problems, I remember him wiping an invisible tear from his eye and saying, ‘Ah, my little Grace is finally ready to talk to me about her hormonal problems.’

That, of course, was when he was in his dramatic phase. Since then, we’d always hang out in his room after midnight, lying on his carpet side by side and talk to each other about our problems.

“Is that over dramatization or just really how our new life is going to be like?” I ask warily. Ben takes a handful of chips, shakes his head at me and looks out the window.

“What do I gain from lying to you, Grace Knightley?” Ben says under his breath, loud enough for me to hear. I nod and understand what he means behind this. I put on the headphones and play my playlist of songs on Spotify. Letting the music carry my worries away.

Mom and dad climb into the car and glance back at me and Ben. We’re both looking out the window. Mom and dad look away and to each other. Dad starts the car.

“Are we making the right choice?” I hear mom say. Great, now you want to discuss about that?

“Natalie, humans never make the perfect and right choices,” Dad tells her. The engine purrs and soon, we’re moving.

…

We arrive at our new house at night and the streets look very eerie. Ben wakes me up and apparently, I’ve been listening to my offline Spotify playlist on repeat for 5 times now and Ben was nice enough not to take his phone and headphones away from me.

“Thanks, Ben.” I say, giving him the first hug I’ve given him in a few weeks. He hugs me back, surprisingly and pulls away.

“I wanted to take them away from you but you were listening to She Will be Loved by Maroon 5 and I thought, ‘that’s a song she deserves to listen.’” Ben tells me. I half smile and Ben taps my shoulder, pointing to a building behind me. Mom and dad climb out of the car, followed by me and Ben.

“You’re right,” I say, my gaze at the worn out looking building. I glance at Ben and he’s snapping a picture. I look at what he’s doing over his shoulder and he’s sending the picture to a friend. Usually he’d shake me off and tell me to mind my own business but lately (since I got into the car), he’s been… nicer? I think?

Welcome to ghost town, Ben types swiftly. He’s always been a fast typer. He’s sending it to Ezra Bale, a friend of his. I know Ezra. He’s the exact opposite of Ben. He has a fix character while Ben’s is all messy, uncertain, mysterious; intriguing. Nevertheless, they get along well.

The three dots appear as a sign that Ezra’s typing. I wish you luck, Lieutenant Knightley, Ezra answers.

Yeah, no kidding, Ben replies. He stuffs his phone in the pocket of his black leather jacket.

The building in front of us looks old, creepy and eerie. The bright cream paint has begun to peel off and the building smells funny once you get closer. Mom and dad begin to ascend the steps and open the door with a key. I turn back, expecting the truck to be behind our car but it wasn’t.

“Where’s the truck?” I ask.

“It’ll be here tomorrow morning,” Dad answers. He’s already a few steps in the building with Ben trailing behind him. Ben lets out a hand for me to take. I take it and we walk in together.

Our apartment is on level 4 (I counted) and boy was it a climb. The stairs were creaky and covered in a soggy red carpet.

Dad unlocks the door to our apartment and once it’s opened, a whiff of something funny hits my nose and I cough. Ben scrunches his face and coughs as well, fanning his nose.

“Jeez, dad what is that?!” Ben asks loudly. The cries of a baby start to erupt from the opposite room. Perhaps it was woken up by Ben’s yelling.

“You’ll get used to it,” Mom says, walking into the apartment behind dad. Ben walks behind me and soon, dad turns the lights on. It’s dim but enough to light up the place and for me and Ben to judge it.

“The place smells funny.” Ben whispers to me

“I know.”

“The curtains are torn,” I whisper, pointing to the curtains that were meant to cover the window. Somehow, it didn’t look like an animal scratched it but it looked like… something else had.

“I know.”

The series of judging whispers keep on going between us as Mom and Dad walk around the place. The place is ultimately ugly, and I know it sounds mean and arrogant but it’s true.

We spend our first night in the living room with a carpet beneath us. We all huddle up together as the night was a very mean and cold one. Ben and I sleep next to each other, his arm pillowing my head.

I’m the only person awake, I’m sure of it. I hear mom’s soft and controlled breathing, dad’s soft snores and Ben is obviously sleeping. I lie awake, thinking about my future here in Chicago.

That’s when I hear it. Scratching.

I jump and Ben almost awakens but he doesn’t. My heart beats like a drum and I try to convince myself that it was just in my head. That’s when I hear it again. It’s closer this time. And louder.

I close my eyes and when I open them again, the curtains have been scratched, and there are words carved on it.

ROOM 4.

Weren’t there only 3 rooms? I ask myself. I get up and walk until I’m in a mini-hallway in the apartment that has 3 doors along it. That’s when I see it.

A glowing door, standing at the end of the hallway. My hair stands on end. Do I walk to it?

Something pushes me.

I’m shoved into it.

The door opens with a creak.

There’s something there.

To be continued in: ROOM 4.