Empty (First Go)

My mother and I had been fighting and she had locked herself in the bedroom in our tiny one bedroom apartment. Having nowhere else to sleep I grabbed a blanket from the hallway closet and laid down on the couch watching TV. I must have passed out because it felt like I had blinked when I heard a knock at the door.

Thump thump thump.

Knowing my mother had visitors at strange hours nothing seemed strange about this so I answered the door. No words were exchanged as I saw the stranger standing there at the doorway. Nothing stood out about this strange man, except that his face was covered by shadow. Hours seemed to pass as I waited for him to say anything.

“You’re here for my mother aren’t you?” I asked the strange man with a tired, almost exhausted look on my face.

The stranger just stands there with his head pointed downward at me and says nothing so I slammed the door in his face and lay back down when I notice the time on the VCR 3:14.

I refuse to sleep in the living room the next night and convince my mother, even though we were fighting, to stay in the living room while I sleep in the bed, safe from the door, safe from the stranger.

I fall asleep quickly very comfortable under the comforter, with my comfortable pillows surrounding my young head. Seemingly right after I close my eyes I hear a tapping at the window. I bolt right up out of my sleep in a cold sweat knowing exactly what I would find. Being the terrified young child I was at the time I was afraid to open the curtain and see what was tapping on the pane of glass.

Tap. Tap. Tap. The sound is ringing in my ears and no matter how tightly I pack my fingers into my ears. I give up and stand up on the bed, trembling. I open the curtain and see the faceless figure. Terrified I freeze for what seemed like forever. This time I began noticing things I hadn’t last time in my exhausted state. He was wearing a hoodie and a truckers cap, which occluded his eyes and left all but his nose and mouth covered in shadow. His unmoving mouth not saying a single word just remained closed and chapped. Being nothing but a frightened young child I was unable to do anything frozen in fear until the clock radio in the corner of the room went off blaring unbearable static. I turned around to turn off the radio but when I looked back at the window the man was no longer there. The clock on the radio read 3:14.

This went on for weeks, night after night, waking up to a knock. That same knock, from the same man in the hoodie and the jeans startling me awake from the deepest sleep, the most marvelous dreams. I would shake in terror afraid to open the door, or look outside of the window. The same wordless stretch of endless examination that always ended with something startling me and snapping me back to reality at exactly 3:14.

I had to escape. I couldn’t face the fear any longer. I talked my mother into letting me spend the night at my friends house. But not even that was able to keep him at bay. I woke up to something standing over me staring at me with his piercing glare. Unable to move, all I could do was stare upwards into the shadow created by his hat.

“How did you get here? How did you get inside when the door is locked?” I asked, with the first words spoken between us since that first night. To which the only answer I got was a grin from his normally frozen mouth. I jumped as my friend yelled at me.

“Who are you talking to?”

And with that he was gone. I didn’t even have to look at the time. I told my friend I must have been talking in my sleep and to go back to bed. That was the last time I saw him for years. I was just a child then, no older than ten.

I saw him once more, just recently, a week after my twenty-fourth birthday. I had forgotten him, pushed those weeks of terror deep into my brain never to be recovered. It was the only way to maintain any sort of sanity. When out of nowhere, there is a knock on the window of my fifth floor apartment, and that moment I remembered everything. Every last detail flooded me as I was that scared ten year old quivering under my blankets. The smell of my old apartment filled the air, the stench of dirty dishes and alcohol. I stood up and wrapped a blanket around myself then opened the curtain. There was nothing there. I stood quizzically for a minute before I shook it off as nothing more than paranoia.

I turned around to lay back down in my soft comfortable bed when there he was standing there no more than four feet away from me wearing the same hoodie and pants with the same blank expression on his face.

“The rest are gone now.”

“What do you mean the rest are gone?”

“You’re the only one left.” Saying nothing more he simply turns around and walks out through my bedroom door.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?” I scream out frantically. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’M THE ONLY ONE!?”

I rush down the hall to my roommate’s room and bash my knuckles against his door. Without waiting for a reply I open his door to find nobody there. I then ran down stairs and into the street to find everything was deserted. No animals, no people. I was truly alone.

That was two weeks ago and I’m about to go insane I’m writing this in case there is anybody else around. I’m about to run out of power, there hasn’t been electricity in four days. I hope this reaches somebody, anybody. I just want there to be someone out there. I can’t do this. There has to be something out there. I don’t want to be alone anymore. Everywhere I go thinking there would be survivors there isn’t. Nothing but silence, deafening silence.