Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25458443-20190329084135

My apartment had a bar on the 9th floor, which for a while I’d go to every day. One day in that bar, I saw a man with paper skin that looked like it would bleed if you touched it, and seemed to move with the current of the air. He had strange green eyes that were like perfect circles, and hands which looked and bent like grass. I didn’t say a word to him, no, never. I never got close to him at all, at first. But as I was sitting across the bar, occasionally glancing at him and his heavy coat and hat that looked too heavy for him to even carry, I could have sworn he was looking straight at me, once. Round eyes staring through the gaps between patrons heads, a glass sitting in front of his chest filled to the brim. I don’t think he took a single sip the whole night, and when it came time to leave, everybody left but him. I waited outside, watching for him, but he never came out.

The next morning I went back to the bar. There was almost nobody there, save a few other patrons, and him. He sat in the same exact seat, staring at the drink, still full, in front of him with a grave expression. I didn’t approach him that day either, and as more people came into the bar and the talking all got louder, I nearly forgot he was there. But as it came time to leave, and I left last, he stayed behind in the bar. “Just give me a moment,” I heard him say, looking straight at me as I glanced back. “These old legs just need a moment.

The next day he was still in the bar. His glass was full as usual and he was still in the same seat. I mustered the will to approach him, and meant to say something. Anything. As usual, no words came. He stared forward at his glass, never looking up to acknowledge me, until I walked away. I left the bar then.

But the man was still there in the same spot the next day.

“Is there a story with that man?” I asked the bartender.

“No story,” he responded. “Is there a story with you?”

I told him I didn’t understand the question, but he seemed irritated. I ordered something and drank it, and tried not to look at the man, who was holding his still-full glass and sitting in the same seat as always. He looked pale as teeth, and his face was long.

I left the apartment after that, only partly, I’ll admit, for practical reasons, and didn’t return until years later. Life has a way of circling back on itself. For a while after moving back in, I never went to the 9th floor. Something about it creeped me out, but I couldn’t remember what it was. When I eventually checked it out, I found that the bar up there was no more. It was replaced with a gym.

There were no accessible staircases anymore either. The old ones I remembered were still there, but were now locked behind a door armed with a fire alarm, and marked as for use exclusively in the case of a fire. The elevator was the only way up there, but for some reason it felt like the ride up took longer than before. And when I checked the floor buttons, it looked like there were less buttons than I remembered.

It was all easy to write off, until one day there was a fire. You aren’t supposed to use the elevators during a fire and so I ran for the stairs, which were flooded with people running down. Only instead of running down, I felt a strange compulsion to run up.

And up, and up, and up.

To the 6th floor. And to the 7th floor. And to the 8th floor. And to the…

And there it was. The metal door to the 9th floor. Unlocked.

The whole building felt warm, and my muscles screamed at me to run back down the stairs, but I opened the door and stepped in.

All the lights were out, and the walls were covered in ash. I stepped through the hallway and turned right, to where the bar used to be, and there it was. I slowly pushed open the painted over glass on the metal door, and stepped into the somehow icy cold bar. The walls were all covered in black and there water on the floor. And there in the same seat as always was the man, holding his glass.

I think he looked up at me. 