The leather groaned like a dying animal. Not the sexy kind of groan I usually associated with tangled sheets and bitten lips, this was the sound of tendons stretching beyond their limit. Bev’s antique bedframe, all wrought iron curlicues and cold indifference, held him fast. My wrists, slick with sweat, chafed against the unforgiving cuffs. Above me, the water stain on the ceiling pulsed. It hadn’t been a screaming mouth an hour ago. Just a stain. Now, its open mouth seemed to silently echo the panic tightening my own throat.
I had no idea that it would turn out this way. I wanted this I had thought. I chased this. Craved it. Eighteen felt like a key turning in a lock I’d been rattling since I was thirteen, staring at the tired, knowing eyes of Mrs. Kensworth down the street as she bent over her garden, the curve of her backside straining against fabric. Back then, it was fantasy. Now? Now it was possible. More legal and less morally grey. A world of older women, of experience, of *control*, flung wide open.
I love hookup culture. If there is a God out there, I thank him and any other deity for creating the female form. I love the way they look, feel, smell, taste, and sound. The curves and the lips are to die for. Feeling them is the best though, especially in bed. Sex wasn't just fun for me; it was oxygen. I used whatever methods I could to obtain it. Seducing, using my charm, flirting, you name it. Dating apps were like online shopping for me, swiping left and right on which ones I wanted to hookup with.
I guess you could call me a bit of a player or a philander. I just simply love hooking up with girls. Love isn’t something I have ever really chased, if it even actually exists. ‘Dating’ takes so much time, awkward conversations that mold into commitment and then would most likely end up in a breakup. The thrill of hooking up is so much better, just jumping straight into intercourse with no dedication required. One night stands and getting laid are much more realistic than some fantasy love life.
Back in sophomore year, when most guys were sweating through awkward hand-holding attempts at the movies, I was already mapping constellations onto the ceiling tiles above girls beds. Not constellations of stars, but constellations of conquests. It got me the nickname, 'Alex Brown the Playboy.' Sara Plubel behind the bleachers after the homecoming game, her braces clicking against my teeth as we kissed. Janet Barkington when her mother was out late at work. Mrs. Feter – *Carolyn*, she insisted – the biology teacher with the nervous tremor in her hands and the desperate hunger in her eyes during those illicit after-school "tutoring" sessions. That one ended messily when her husband found a gym sock I had accidentally left behind in her bedroom. I was just sixteen during that one, I was a bit more careless. The thrill wasn't just the sex though; it was the sheer pleasure I received from it.
I hooked up with many girls of all ages from young to old, but I always seemed to prefer older women. Maybe it was because of the power dynamics behind it that gave it that extra push of taboo pleasure. Or maybe it was because they were more experienced, more mature and full. I’ve conquered dozens maybe even close to hundreds of MILFS since I’ve now became eighteen. Husbands in my neighborhood should really start hiding their wives from me, don’t they know how lonely housewives can get? I’ve had my fair share of experiences with them as I already mentioned.
Bev had been another older girl I had become attracted to. Found her on that app where desperation wore expensive perfume. Her profile pic screamed "boardroom by day, dungeon by night" and she was a beauty – sharp jawline, eyes like chips of glacial ice, a smirk that promised exquisite torment. She was maybe thirty? Maybe pushing it, but the dominance radiating from the pixels bypassed my usual MILF preference even if she was younger than the average MILF. I always had a thing for wanting to explore femdom dynamics and BDSM and she seemed to be glowing in that type of aura. The type where women dominate the bedroom. It was pure voltage. Our texts crackled with innuendo thick enough to choke on. She spelled out exactly what she wanted: submission, restraint, the complete surrender of my so called youthful arrogance to her seasoned command. I was practically vibrating with anticipation. This wasn't Mrs. Feter’s fumbling gratitude; this was professional-grade control by a girl who could take charge. We arranged a meetup date and it was all settled.
As I drove up, her apartment building loomed like a decaying molar. I walked up to the entrance and Bev buzzed me in. Flickering hall lights cast long, dancing shadows that seemed to flinch away from the peeling Art Deco plasterwork. The air tasted stale, thick with dust and something vaguely metallic. I took the elevator up seven stories to where she told me her apartment was. After knocking, Bev answered the door wrapped in silk the color of dried blood. She was as beautiful as her pictures, glad I hadn’t been catfished. Her smile was a predator’s. Once inside her apartment the scent hit me immediately.
"Cherry blossoms and ozone," Bev murmured, tracing a sharp nail along my jawline. "And me."
Her apartment was simple enough. The entranceway was a living room and a kitchen, followed by a hall that led to her bedroom. The two of us talked and flirted back and forth and Bev asked if I was interested in face-sitting. I had eaten out my fair share before but I’ve never actually had a girl sit on my face. I was eager to try the new experience. After all, you never know unless you try it.
She didn't waste time after I told her I would love to experiment with her, she pulled me through the hall passed her living room and dragged me into her bedroom. Plain black walls with some peeling wallpaper. A single window shined some gloomy yellow daylight from outside through blinds. Besides a bed in the far corner, it was basically empty. It was a gloomy dark aura of a room, nothing fancy. The silk robe pooled on the threadbare rug. Beneath, she wore only sheer black lace, the curve of her hips and the swell of her rear impossibly pronounced in the gloom of the dark room. My breath caught when seeing what was her predatory grace. She stripped me herself, unbuckling my pants and lifting my shirt up and off. She pushed me onto the bed with a kiss. She then moved my arms and hands to the cold iron bars of the bed frame. The cuffs snapped shut with a finality that vibrated through my bones. Leather straps, thick and unforgiving. She broke the kiss and moved to restrain my legs. I was spread-eagled, vulnerable, my thin underwear suddenly feeling absurdly inadequate against the chill of the room and the heat of my own arousal.
"Comfortable?" Bev purred, her voice a low thrum that bypassed my ears and went straight to my spine. Her fingers trailed down my chest, over my now trembling stomach, stopping just above the waistband. "Good. Stay."
I could only turn my head a bit. On the ceiling above me was a strange wet stain. She climbed onto the bed, smooth legs bracketing my head. The view was dizzying: the dark lace stretched taut, the intimate heat radiating against my face. Her buttocks hovered just above my face, now partially blocking the ceiling stain. Then she lowered herself. Not slowly, not teasingly. With deliberate, grinding pressure. The lace became a damp, suffocating veil over my mouth and nose. Her scent intensified exponentially – not just cherry blossoms and ozone now, but the deep, musky tang of her arousal, layered with sweat and something else, something cloying and chemical that seemed to seep into the fabric. Was this normally what a girls butt smelled like up close? Or was this her just a scent unique to her? Again, this was the first time I had ever tried this sex position. I figured the chemical smell was maybe her laundry detergent, I did not want to call her stinky while she was riding me of course.
I gasped, instinctively trying to turn my head, to find clean air. But Bev pressed down harder, pinning me. "Breathe," she commanded, her voice muffled but sharp. "Through me."
I tried. Oh god, I tried. I sucked air through the lace, filling my lungs with *her*. The sweetness curdled. The ozone sharpened into something acrid, like burnt wiring. The musk thickened, became oppressive, a physical weight pressing in my chest. Bev moaned loudly and rocked against my face, a relentless rhythm that felt less like pleasure and more like punishment. The bed groaned beneath us, the iron joints shrieking in protest. Each downward thrust forced more of her scent into me, a suffocating tide.
"Good boy," Bev sighed, her voice thick with exertion. "Such a good boy for me." Her hands gripped my hair behind her, pulling my face tighter against her. The lace rasped against my skin. I could taste salt, sweat, the faint metallic tang of her arousal, and beneath it all, that persistent chemical note, sharp and unnatural. It coated my tongue, clung to the back of my throat. My vision swam. Through her butt cheeks, up above, the ornate ceiling plaster seemed to ripple. The water stain pulsed again, a dark, wet eye opening and closing. My eyes must be playing tricks on him due to the lack of air I was receiving. Did some guys actually like this type of sex? It was brutal asphyxiation.
Her thighs clamped around my head, a vise of flesh and silk. The world narrowed to the dark cave beneath her, the rhythmic grind of her hips, the thunderous pounding of my own pulse in my ears. She rode with relentless purpose, seeking pleasure against my face.
"Yesss," she hissed, her voice thick, distant. Her fingers tightened in my hair, hurting me, pulling my skull deeper into the yielding warmth. My jaw ached. My lungs burned. The lace scratched my nostrils.
Bev’s movements grew frantic. Her rocking became a violent bucking, slamming my head against the thin mattress. The bedposts rattled violently. "Oh god, oh god," she gasped, the words thick and wet, muffled by her own exertion. Her thighs trembled against my temples. The grinding pressure intensified, pinning my nose completely flat.
I felt the wet heat bloom through the lace fabric. A sharp, involuntary groan escaped me, vibrating against her flesh. It seemed to trigger something deeper in her. Her back arched sharply, a rigid bowstring pulled taut. A strangled cry tore from her throat, not pleasure, but something raw and guttural, almost pained. Her entire body locked, shuddering violently against my poor face. The rhythmic rocking ceased, replaced by deep, convulsive tremors that vibrated through her thighs and into my skull. The scent thickened unbearably, a suffocating wave of concentrated musk and something vaguely ammoniacal, sharpening that chemical bite into something acrid and alarming.
Then, abruptly, the tension snapped. Bev shifted. Not much, just enough to lift her hips a fraction, releasing the seal from my mouth. Air – stale, thick, still saturated with her scent – rushed into my still burning lungs. I gasped, sucking in ragged breaths that scraped my now raw throat.
Bev groaned softly, a sound thick with exhaustion and satisfaction. She pushed herself up slowly, her movements heavy, uncoordinated. Her thighs trembled as she swung one leg off the bed, then the other. She stood for a moment, swaying slightly, her back to me. The sheer lace clung to her skin, damp and darkened in patches. She ran a hand through her tangled hair, sighing deeply.
I lay utterly spent beneath her, my jaw throbbed. My cheeks felt abraded. Sweat plastered my hair to my forehead and soaked my thin underwear.
I watched her, dazed. She turned, leaning back against the edge of the bed. Her eyes, usually chips of glacial ice, were hooded, unfocused. A faint flush bloomed high on her cheekbones. Her lips curved into a slow, satisfied smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She looked utterly spent, yet still radiated a predatory aura, like a lioness after a kill. I guess I played my role well.
"Damn," she breathed, her voice husky, rough. She wiped a bead of sweat from her temple with the back of her hand. Her gaze drifted down my body.
I managed a weak grin. "Told you I could handle it." My voice was shredded, barely audible.
She chuckled, a low, rasping sound. "Handle it?" Her finger, cool despite the room's warmth, trailed a slow, deliberate path down my sternum, over the slick plane of my stomach. It stopped just above the soaked waistband of my underwear. "You survived it. Barely."
Her eyes, still unfocused, held mine. The glacial ice was melted, replaced by a deep, satisfied languor.
"Stay," she murmured, her thumb brushing the sensitive skin just below my navel. The command was soft, yet brooked no argument. "Don't move a muscle. Not even a twitch. I’ll be right back." Her nail scraped gently, possessively. "I need water. And maybe..." Her lips curved into that slow, predatory smile again. "...something else. To celebrate your endurance." She leaned down, her breath warm against my ear, carrying the lingering musk of her exertion, sharpened by that faint, underlying chemical tang. "Keep that boner ready for me, Alex. Don't let it flag."
She straightened slowly, swaying slightly as if drunk on power or exhaustion – or both. Her legs seemed unsteady beneath her. She padded towards the bedroom door, her bare feet silent on the worn rug. The sheer lace clung damply to her skin, the swell of her buttocks shifting with each step, a mesmerizing, hypnotic motion in the gloom. The dim light from the hallway sliced into the room as she pulled the door open just wide enough to slip through. She was then gone. The door closed behind her, it didn't latch. It hung ajar, maybe two inches.
Darkness flooded back into the bedroom, thicker and heavier than before. Silence pressed in, broken only by the frantic drumming of my own heartbeat against my ribs and the ragged rasp of my breathing. The air still hung thick with Bev’s scent. It felt less like an aroma and more like a physical presence, a viscous film clinging to my skin and lungs. My jaw ached fiercely. I hoped the pain would go away by the time she returned. I suppose I enjoyed the face-sitting as much as I could but I guess didn’t think of how my face would feel afterwards. Hindsight's 20/20 I guess.
I waited in the dark. My wrists began to throb where the leather bit into them, a dull counterpoint to the sharper ache in my jaw.
She'll be back soon. The thought surfaced like a life raft. Bev. Bev returning. Bev climbing back onto the bed. Bev straddling me properly this time, sliding down onto my erection, still tenting my damp underwear. The sheer memory of her silhouette vanishing through the door – the hypnotic sway of her hips beneath that damp lace, the powerful curve of her ass catching the sliver of hallway light – sent a fresh jolt of anticipation through me with blood flowing to my groin. Forget the jaw pain. Forget the raw skin. That ass… god, that ass was worth every second of suffocation. Sculpted, commanding, a weapon of mass arousal. The visual alone tightened my stomach. The sex *would* be good. Explosive. She’d promised celebration. My endurance deserved a reward like she said. Maybe she’d uncuff me. Maybe she wouldn't. Either way, I had a feeling this was going be a hookup to remember.
A grin tugged at my sore lips. Yeah. Worth it. Totally worth it. Dominance distilled. This was the pinnacle.
I thought I heard something break, like a window shattering from a thrown baseball. Figured it must have been nothing. My gaze drifted upwards, seeking distraction from the throb in my jaw and wrists. The ceiling stain. Bev’s departure had shifted the dim light filtering through the cracked door, and the stain looked different. Less like a screaming face, more like… spilled ink. Guess I really was seeing things from that suffocation. A Rorschach blotch on cracked plaster. Water damage, probably. Old plumbing in this decrepit building. Nothing sinister. Just urban decay. My eyes traced its edges – ragged, amoebic. It seemed darker than before. Maybe my vision was still adjusting after being buried beneath her.
Silence stretched. Thick. Heavy.
I shifted slightly, the leather cutting into my limbs. The sliver of hallway light through the cracked door painted a sharp, unwavering line across the worn rug. Dust motes drifted through it, aimless and unhurried. I could smell that smell, it didn’t waver. Bev grinding on my face like that must have really imprinted her scent into me.
It felt like 5 minutes had passed by. This girl was seriously taking her time. Perhaps she was getting some toys also? That would be fun to try for a first time. I began thinking of ways to pass the time and to make sure my stiffy didn’t go limp. I thought of all the MILFs I had conquered. One of the hottest ones had been one of friends moms….or I guess I should say ex friend. He was not a happy camper when he found out about that one. Eh, I always kinda disliked him anyways. His mom was really hot though, maybe that’s why I originally became his friend in the first place. Huh…
I shifted my wrists slightly, trying to find a position that didn’t feel like the leather straps were trying to flay me alive. I licked my lips and tasted a bitter salty taste. More time passed by. I heard nothing but silence.
Okay, I thought. *She said she’d be right back. What’s "right back"?* I know girls like to take their sweet time with things but how long could it possibly take to get a drink of water? I decided to count seconds. I started silently: *One… two… three…*
The numbers marched through my head, a steady rhythm against the silence. I counted them out loud, in a whisper: *One hundred seventeen… one hundred eighteen…* The leather straps felt like heated wires against my skin now. Where was she? Getting water shouldn’t take this long. Maybe she’d gotten distracted? Maybe she was preparing something elaborate. The thought sent another pulse of anticipation through me, momentarily overriding the discomfort. That ass deserved a grand entrance.
*Two hundred three… two hundred four…* The silence thickened, becoming a physical weight pressing down on my chest. Not just silence—absence. The kind of quiet that follows a slammed door in an empty house. My grin faltered. Where was the clink of a glass? The rush of a tap? The murmur of her voice, even if just humming? Nothing. Only the relentless thud of my own pulse against my temples and the low, insistent groan of the ancient bedframe settling deeper into its joints. The sliver of hallway light remained unchanged—a stark, unwavering line cutting through the gloom. No shadow passed it. No footstep creaked beyond the door.
Optimism curdled. The anticipation twisting my gut shifted, becoming something colder, sharper. Discontentedly, I tugged against the cuffs again. Leather bit deeper, the pain a bright, grounding flare against the encroaching unease. "Bev?" My voice sounded alien in the stillness—hoarse, shredded from her suffocating embrace. Too soft. Barely a whisper. I cleared my throat, wincing at the raw scrape. "Hey! Bev! You getting lost out there?" Louder this time. Forceful. The tone I used when Mrs. Feter took too long fetching the wine, the one that hinted at impatience masking entitlement.
Silence swallowed the words whole. Not even an echo. Just the oppressive quiet of the room and the frantic drum solo inside my ribcage. The sliver of hallway light remained undisturbed. No answering call. Just that unwavering line of sickly yellow cutting the darkness. Had she forgotten about me or something? I had met some pretty stupid girls in my day, mostly blondes, but Bev had seemed like a woman who didn’t have a goldfish memory. She seemed more intelligent with her dominating aura. Maybe she had just walked out to get something.
Or maybe this waiting game was supposed to be part of the femdom experience. I read about this type of thing on sex forums before I think. Yeah, a bored/ignoring kink I think. A consensual roleplay scenario in which a submissive person is ignored or disregarded by their dominant partner or something? I have no idea why someone would be into that, maybe it was the objectification of it? I had never consented to being ignored like this though, we had only agreed on the face-sitting just today while talking about bondage over text.
*Okay, fine. Play it cool.* I swallowed against the dryness in my throat. The "ignoring" kink. Right. Bev was probably leaning against the kitchen counter right now, smirking to herself, listening to my breathing hitch. Testing my resolve. Seeing how long I'd last before begging. Classic power move. I could play that game. I’d played worse. I didn’t want to come off as a wimp or loser after all. I settled deeper into the thin mattress, deliberately relaxing my shoulders, slowing my breathing. *Bring it on, lady.*
The silence stretched. Became elastic. Then snapped taut.
My earlier counting dissolved into meaningless static. Minutes bled together. The sliver of light remained unchanged—a stagnant yellow gash in the gloom. No sound penetrated the door. Not the clatter of a glass, not the sigh of a refrigerator opening, not the sound of a television. Just the oppressive silence, broken only by the rhythmic groan of the bedframe settling and the frantic percussion of my own heart.
Bev’s scent, once a potent aphrodisiac, had turned cloying, sour. It clung to the back of my throat, thick with that persistent chemical undertone that now seemed less like detergent and more like… solvent? Antifreeze? Maybe the smell wasn’t even hers and it was just the smell of the room that was beneath her smell. It was like rotten eggs. Sewer gas maybe? This building was kinda old. The thought of sewage put me off a bit. Maybe the stain was what was causing the stench of chemical? Had it been a sewage problem? Probably.
I was beginning to get a bit thirsty and hungry now. My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten since before noon, only a small breakfast. I also felt like I had to use the bathroom and take a piss. It had to be getting close to 3:00 PM right about now. I wasn’t sure as there was of course no way for me to tell the time without a clock of any kind.
I think it was time to end this kinky game or at least put it on hold until later. “Bev!” I called out even louder this time. “Bev, hey, you out there!? I need to use the bathroom and grab a drink! I’m dying of thirst in here!”
The silence pressed harder. Not just silence—a vacuum. The kind that swallows sound before it can form. My earlier bravado shriveled. *Ignoring kink.* The thought felt flimsy now, a child’s blanket against a gathering storm. This was far beyond any type of kink. It had been about 40 minutes now, probably more since I had only started counting seconds not until a while after she had left the room.
My wrists burned where the leather sawed into them. The flagpole Bev had demanded I maintain? It was gone now. Shriveled by the cold dread pooling in my gut. My throat was parched, sandpaper scraping against itself each time I swallowed. The silence wasn't just empty; it was *consuming*. It pressed down, thick and suffocating, worse than her weight had been. That chemical tang beneath her musk that still lingered in my nose and on my face, was it really sewage water from the stain? It was sharper. Meaner. Like the solvents Mr. Brocko, the engineer teacher, used in the auto shop in my current class with him. Or… formaldehyde? The thought slithered in, cold and unwelcome.
*Organ traffickers.* The phrase surfaced from some late-night true crime binge I’d half-watched while scrolling through MILF profiles. Criminals who kidnap unsuspecting victims and the next thing they know, the victims wake up in a bathtub filled with ice and have a kidney or two removed. They targeted the vulnerable. The isolated. The *bound*. Bev hadn't just cuffed me; she'd pinned me like a butterfly. Spread-eagled. Helpless. My phone was in my jeans, discarded somewhere on the floor. Miles away out of reach figuratively speaking. She knew that. She’d stripped me herself.
Yeah, it’s not like I even knew Bev’s last name. I don’t know her at all, I know basically nothing about her. We’d swapped messages thick with innuendo and demands, then I had met her here for this hookup. Her apartment felt like a stage set. The Art Deco decay, the flickering lights, the sparse furniture – all props. Perfect for hiding… what? A freezer full of ice? Surgical tools? Closets full of bloody organs waiting to be shipped out to foreign countries? My mind, usually preoccupied with conquests and conquests only, spun into dark, unfamiliar territory. I began to think the worst of worst intentions. Serial killers. Organ harvesters. Alone in a decaying building where no one would hear screams. Where the only scent lingering was the chemical tang of betrayal and chloroform. Was this building even occupied by other residents? Bev was the only person I saw in here since I arrived.
She probably had four male goons hiding in the bathroom when I arrived, waiting for the signal. Bev had been the bait. The lure. That ass, a weapon, yes, but not for arousal. For entrapment. The chemical smell? Chloroform residue. Or embalming fluid. My stomach clenched, threatening to expel nothing but bile and terror.
"BEV!" The name tore from my throat, raw and ragged. Not playful now. Not impatient. Pure, undiluted panic. I didn’t care if I looked like a lame fool anymore, this was serious. "ANSWER ME! THIS ISN’T FUNNY!"
Silence. Thick. Suffocating. The sliver of light from the hallway remained utterly still, a stagnant yellow line cutting the darkness. My scream hadn’t even disturbed the small specs of dust drifting through its beam. The organ trafficker theory solidified, cold and heavy, in my gut. Bev wasn’t ignoring me. Bev wasn’t *there*. Did she go to get her organ harvester boss? Maybe they weren’t waiting in the bathroom, maybe they were in another apartment entirely.
"HELP!" The word ripped out, raw and desperate, shredding the quiet. "SOMEONE! ANYONE!" My voice bounced off the peeling wallpaper, mocking and hollow. No footsteps pounded in the hallway outside the cracked door. No concerned neighbor shouted back. Just that unwavering sliver of sickly yellow light, cutting the gloom like a wound that wouldn't bleed. The silence wasn't empty; it was a suffocating presence, thick and dark. My screams dissolved into it, swallowed whole.
I screamed and called out to anyone who could hear me, if anyone was even there. Surely even if the building was empty, my voice would be able to travel through the glass window and someone outside could hear. I was however of course on the seventh floor, reality hit my gut like a train. Another hour or went by. I stopped counting.
I thrashed, my wrists and ankles now raw from the restraints that bound me. I thrashed and thrashed and thrashed. Not the testing tugs from earlier, but a full-bodied, panicked convulsion that sent the ancient bedframe shrieking against the floorboards. Iron joints ground, leather straps bit deep, breaking skin, drawing warm beads of blood that slicked the restraints. "HELP! SOMEBODY! I CAN’T MOVE, HELP ME! I’M TRAPPED!" The words tore my throat raw, each syllable echoing dully in the small room before dying against the peeling wallpaper. Silence rushed back in, heavier than before. A tomb of silence. The sliver of hallway light remained undisturbed, a stagnant yellow line of daylight cutting the gloom. No footsteps. No answering shouts. Just the frantic hammering of my own heart against my ribs, a drumbeat of mounting terror.
I screamed until I ran out of breath, my throat still sore became even more so. I tried to catch my breath, my gaze drifted upwards, forced to look back up at the ceiling with how I was positioned. That Rorschach blotch on the cracked plaster. It wasn't ink anymore. It wasn't even a vague face. It was a mouth. Wide. Distorted. Screaming. And it wasn't static. it rippled and pulsed. The edges seemed to writhe, the dark center deepening into a void that pulsed in time with the frantic hammering in my chest. The scream it mimicked was silent, yet it vibrated through the very air, a pressure against my eardrums that wasn't sound, but pure, distilled terror. My own ragged gasps sounded obscenely loud in comparison, a pathetic counterpoint to that silent, monstrous howl etched onto the ceiling. I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut until colors burst behind my lids. *Not real. Not real. Just a stain. Just hypoxia. Just panic.* But when I opened my eyes again, the screaming mouth was still there, wider now, the plaster began to shift into a screaming smile. I yelled a raw shout.
My head snapped away in a sweaty panic, desperate for anything else to fixate on. The peeling wallpaper beside the bed. The dark black colored walls with roses. Decaying red roses that almost looked brown in color. Wait… Roses? Were the roses… moving? They were moving. Not swaying. Not shifting with the light. They weren’t roses at all. No, no, no. That’s not it. There never were roses on the wall before. There hadn’t been roses on the wall. There were no roses. There was no rose pattern on the walls when I entered here! Why are there roses!? Why in the name of God were there roses!? Where did they come from!? The floral patterns blurred, their edges dissolving into a churning mass of brown carapaces and twitching antennae. Roaches. Hundreds of them. Thousands. They poured from the seams where the wallpaper met the ceiling, a living, undulating river of filth cascading down the wall towards the bed. Their tiny legs scraped against the plaster, a sound like dry rice pouring onto concrete, relentless and growing louder.
"No," I choked, the word a wet bubble of denial. "No, no, *no*!" My head whipped side to side, a frantic metronome against the pillow slick with sweat and the lingering chemical musk. The roaches weren't real. Couldn't be. They just couldn’t be. Bev’s apartment was not the best, sure, but not *infested* this badly. Not like this. This was impossible. A trick of the low light, surely, the darkness playing tricks on my weakened mind and starving body. It had to be.
Most of the roaches crawled beneath the cracks of the wall as they climbed down the wall and reached the floor. Some of the roaches climbed up the bed though. I saw one crawl towards my restrained torso. I squeezed my eyes shut, hard enough to see phosphenes explode like dying stars against my eyelids. *Not real. Not real. Just panic. Just hunger. Just...*
My eyelids flew open. The roach beside me. It’s disgusting antennae twitched against by side. I felt it. It was real. They weren’t fake. This was real. The roach at the side of my torso began to crawl up onto my stomach. Its legs were like needles. I screamed, a raw, animal sound that tore my throat. My body bucked and twisted against the restraints, the leather straps biting into my raw wrists and ankles with fresh agony. Blood slicked the cuffs, making the leather squelch horribly with each frantic jerk. The roach paused, antennae flicking, then continued its deliberate ascent over the trembling plane of my abdomen. Another joined it. Then another. On my feet. On my legs. Down my arms they crawled.
They emerged from the shadows beneath the bed, a slow, churning tide of glossy brown carapaces. One crawled along my face. I screamed and thrashed for help but it was no use. I could feel their itchy ticklish legs move on my skin. Every crawl felt like a tingling prick of disgust.
I turned my head to try and scare the roaches off of my face by shaking my head violently. The roach that was crawling on my face fell off and onto the bed on its back, its legs flailing in the air. I kept shaking my head until the roaches that were on my face were gone. The bugs continued to crawl upon my body though. Scratching and probing and crawling. They moved to my restrained bloody wrists and angles. I shook helplessly. I then looked back up at the ceiling stain mid shake. The mouth was still screaming while smiling, it moved.
The stain began to change. It wasn't just a screaming mouth anymore. The edges blurred and elongated, forming a shape like a distorted head. The open mouth widened impossibly, stretching across the plaster until it seemed to occupy half the ceiling. From that gaping maw, something dark began to well up. It began to drool saliva. Blackish red drops dripped down. Drip drip drop. One hit me on my forehead while the other hit my cheek. It smelled a bad smell. Something foul and awful. More roaches than before crawled onto my head now. In my hair, on my neck. I squirmed and screamed, my voice cracking into a hoarse rasp. My head twisted violently, trying to dislodge the crawling horrors. One roach skittered across my eyelid. I squeezed my eyes shut, trapping it against my lashes. Its frantic scrabbling felt like sandpaper on my skin. I screamed again, a soundless, airless thing that tore at my throat. The roaches crawled into my ears. I felt them crawl inside. Their legs tickled my ear canal. I screamed louder and louder and louder. The drool dripped more. More drops hit my face. The stain was drooling on me. It dripped onto my forehead and cheeks and lips. I tasted it. Copper and something rotten. Like spoiled meat. I gagged. The roaches crawled into my mouth. I felt their legs inside my mouth. I screamed again and spit them out. Their legs scratched my tongue. I spat and spat.
The roaches kept crawling. They were everywhere. On my chest, my arms, my legs. Crawling. Always crawling. The drool kept dripping. The stain kept screaming. My wrists burned where the leather sawed deeper. The blood was sticky now, tacky against the restraints. My ankles throbbed. My throat felt raw, shredded. I couldn't scream anymore. Only whimper. A low, animal sound. The roaches crawled over my lips. I kept my mouth clamped shut. Tears streamed down my face, mixing with the foul drool and sweat. I couldn't move. Couldn't escape. Trapped. Alone. The silence pressed down. Heavy. Suffocating. The roaches crawled. The stain screamed. The drool dripped.
Then, a sound. Not the scrape of roach legs. Not the drip of phantom drool. A creak. Wood protesting under sudden weight. From the hallway.
My head snapped toward the sliver of light. The roaches seemingly scattered away, quickly vanishing out of sight and off of me as if popping like bubbles.
A figure stood in the doorway but I couldn’t make out any features. Hope, sharp and jagged, pierced the fog of terror. this nightmare was finally over. "Bev?" My voice was a ruined whisper, barely audible. "Bev, is that you?" The words scraped like gravel in my raw throat. Maybe she’d heard my screams after all. Maybe she wasn’t going to try and rip out my organs.
The silhouette didn’t move. It simply occupied the threshold, blocking most of the hallway’s sickly yellow light. My eyes adjusted…. It was wrong. Terribly wrong. It looked like Bev. It had her face, her curves, her clothes….But it was taller than Bev—too tall. Impossibly elongated, its head nearly brushing the top of the doorframe. The proportions were grotesque, limbs stretched and knob-jointed like a spider’s legs forced into a humanoid shape. Shoulders hunched forward at an unnatural angle, one arm hanging limp, the other bent sharply backward at the elbow. It didn't breathe. Didn't shift. It simply stared into the room with Bev’s eyes—eyes that were now wide, vacant pools reflecting the dim light like polished obsidian.
"Bev?" The whisper died in my throat, a pathetic croak swallowed by the suffocating silence that was.
The thing in the doorway didn't answer. It didn't move. It simply *was*, occupying the space where Bev should have been, wearing her skin stretched over a frame of impossible angles. Its elongated neck craned forward, head tilted sideways like a broken doll’s, making the tendons stand out like taut cables beneath the pallid skin. Those obsidian eyes, Bev’s eyes emptied of everything human, fixed on me. They didn't blink. Didn't reflect the flickering hallway light anymore; they seemed to absorb it, leaving twin pits of absolute void.
Then, the stillness shattered.
A sound ripped from its throat—not Bev’s smoky purr, but a wet, tearing screech, like metal shearing bone. It echoed off the peeling wallpaper, drowning out the phantom rustle of roaches. The distorted limbs snapped into motion with jerky, insectile speed. That backward-bent elbow cracked forward unnaturally, fingers splaying into claws tipped with ragged, yellowed nails. Its other arm, hanging limp a moment before, whipped up, fingers curling inward like broken talons.
It launched itself forward. Not a run—a lurching, multi-jointed scramble. Its elongated legs pistoned, knees bending sideways and forward in impossible configurations, propelling it across the room in three sickening strides. That wet screech tore the air again, a physical assault against my eardrums. Bev’s face, stretched taut over the impossible skull beneath, was a mask of vacant hunger, lips peeled back from teeth that seemed too numerous, too sharp. The clawed hand whipped forward, aiming straight for my face.
I screamed. Not a word, not a plea, just pure, unadulterated terror ripped from the deepest pit of my gut. It shredded my already ruined throat, a raw, animal sound that echoed the thing’s own screech. I slammed my eyes shut, squeezing them tight against the horror hurtling towards me. My entire body locked rigid against the restraints, muscles screaming in protest, tendons threatening to snap. The leather straps bit into my bleeding wrists and ankles, a distant, secondary agony drowned by the primal certainty of tearing claws and crushing bone. *This is it. This is how I die. Ripped apart by Bev’s corpse-thing.* I braced for impact and waited for the end, hoping my death wouldn’t be that painful…..
I waited. And waited. But….nothing happened……nothing but silence.
Not the silence of absence, but the silence of… cessation. Like a needle lifted abruptly from a record. The wet screech vanished. The frantic scrape of clawed feet on wood vanished. The oppressive wave of predatory menace… vanished. Only the dripping of the stains saliva onto my face and the frantic drumming of my own heart remained, pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird trying to escape a cage of bone. My eyelids felt welded shut, fused by terror and the sticky residue of whatever foulness had dripped from the ceiling. Opening them felt like peeling skin.
Slowly, agonizingly, I forced a sliver of vision while I breathed heavily.
The room was exactly as it had been before the… thing… had opened the door. The peeling wallpaper, the emptiness, the sliver of light creaking in through the partially opened door. The walking mangled corpse thing was nowhere in sight. Had I imagined it? No. I must be going insane. It scared away the roaches. It was definitely real. But if it was real, why is the door back to how it was before?
The door was left open ajar just like how Bev…the real Bev left it when she left me here hours ago. No no no….How is this possible? Did the thing leave after it made a dash towards me? Did it really even exist? No no no…. I’m not crazy. I can’t be crazy. It must have been a dream. I must have fallen asleep from feeling so weakened and now I’m awake. Yes that seems like a realistic conclusion. The roaches must have been a dream too… It felt so real though. Was it really just a dream? I know I’m not insane. I’m not! I’m just not!
The silence pressed down once again, as thick and viscous as before. My ragging breathing came in heavy as I swallowed hard. I felt sick. The fear I had felt was real, the sense of danger I had just felt was real. The disgusting smell was I was still smelling was real. My stomach clenched violently. The crawling sensation intensified, merging with the moldy wetness of the dripping goo from the ceiling. A wave of pure revulsion surged up my throat – hot, sour, and utterly uncontrollable. I retched, my body convulsing against the restraints. Bile, acrid and burning, erupted from my mouth. It splattered across my bare chest, warm and viscous, mingling with the cold sweat and the crawling insects. The stench of the breakfast I had earlier was now vomit on my chest. The acidic tang filled my nostrils, overwhelming the lingering chemical musk and the phantom scent of rot. I choked, coughing violently, each spasm sending fresh pain through my raw throat and pulling the leather straps deeper into my bleeding wrists and ankles. Tears streamed down my face, mixing with the vomit and the foul ceiling drool. I was trapped in a cage of my own filth and terror.
Then, the whispers began.
Not from the hallway. Not from the door. From *behind* me. From in the wall the bed was shoved against.
Low, insidious murmurs, slithering out of the peeling wallpaper like venomous serpents. They weren't words, not exactly. More like fragmented thoughts, distorted voices pressed directly against my eardrums from inside the plaster. They told me I should kill myself, they whispered secrets that only I should know of. They talked about some of the women I hooked up with. They knew things they shouldn’t. Things only I should know about those women that I never told anyone. Their favorite things. Their favorite meeting spots. The colors of panties that they wore. How well they kissed. The smell of their flesh. How good they felt to be inside.
They knew the pleasures I’d hoarded. The whispers intensified, overlapping, arguing amongst themselves. They became a physical pressure inside my skull, a drilling, screeching cacophony threatening to crack bone. I squeezed my eyes shut. *Make it stop. Make it stop!*
"HELP!" The scream tore from my ruined throat, ragged and desperate, barely louder than a whisper. It echoed uselessly in the cramped room, swallowed instantly by the oppressive stillness. "SOMEBODY! PLEASE!" The plea dissolved into a wet, choking groan. My voice was gone, shredded by hours of screaming. Only a raw, animal sound remained, a low, guttural groan of pure despair that seemed to vibrate in my chest. "HELP ME... CAN'T MOVE... CAN'T..." The words dissolved into another groan, weaker this time. I strained against the cuffs, the leather biting into fresh wounds, the iron bedposts groaning in protest. Blood slicked the restraints anew, warm against my skin. The effort was exhausting. My muscles screamed. My vision swam. I looked back up again, the screaming face on the ceiling seemed to pulse in time with my frantic heartbeat, its silent howl vibrating through the air.
The groan died in my throat. Silence rushed back, heavier than ever. Deafening. Suffocating. Then, a new sound sliced through it. Scratching sound of sorts. Like metal dragging on wood.
Slow. Deliberate. Coming in short segments from the hallway.
My head snapped towards the door once more. The dim light behind the door was darker now thanks to the setting sun. The sliver of that darkness seemed even deeper now though, thicker. An oil slick pooling at the threshold. The scratching sound continued—long, slow drags, punctuated by sharp clicks. My breath froze in my lungs. The vomit on my chest felt icy. The phantom itch of roach legs crawled beneath my skin as goosebumps formed.
The scratching stopped.
Silence slammed down.
Then, the door creaked.
It swung into the room, slowly opening. The hinges protested with a low, rusty moan. The sliver of darkness yawned wider, swallowing more of the sickly yellow hallway light. It wasn’t just dark. It was *absence*. A void where light went to die. Nothing moved within it. No silhouette. No shape. Just… emptiness. An invitation to oblivion. My eyes strained, pupils dilating painfully, trying to pierce the gloom. Was something *in* the darkness? Or was the darkness itself alive? Watching? Breathing? The silence pressed against my eardrums, a physical weight. My own heartbeat thundered in my skull like a frantic drum solo.
Then, they came into view.
Two orbs of light. No, not actual light, that was being emitted. It was reflecting the dim light coming from my rooms window. They were red. Deep, arterial red. They glowed with a sickly internal luminescence, like dying coals smoldering in a banked fire. Not bright, but piercing.
Those eyes floated in the absolute darkness of the hallway beyond the door. They didn't blink. They simply hung there, suspended in the void, fixing me with an alien, predatory intelligence. The scratching sound had stopped completely. The silence wasn't empty anymore; it was charged, humming with the presence of whatever owned those eyes.
Slowly, ponderously, the creature emerged from the oily darkness. It didn't step forward so much as *unfold* itself into the dim light filtering from my prison. Its form was a nightmare collage of malformed biology.
Emaciated didn't cover it. Its frame was skeletal, ribs starkly visible beneath skin stretched tight like desiccated leather. The skin itself was a horror show – mottled patches of greyish-black and a sickly, bruised purple, interrupted in places by coarse tufts of wiry, black fur that sprouted randomly like diseased weeds. It stood upright on powerful, digitigrade hind legs ending in clawed feet that scraped softly on the wooden floorboards. Its posture was hunched, shoulders rolling forward with unnatural tension.
The arms were grotesquely mismatched. The long right arm hung limp and withered, ending in a clawed hand that had its knuckles scraping the floor. The left arm, however, was thicker, corded with sinew beneath the patchy skin, ending in a massive, taloned hand with claws like curved shards of deep obsidian. Its head was a distorted oval, dominated by that round, wet snout, a puckered, fleshy orifice that quivered slightly with each silent breath. Above the snout, those burning red eyes remained fixed on me. It had the furry ears of that similar to a wolf. Its lipless mouth was a horizontal slit beneath the snout, revealing glimpses of needle-sharp teeth stained yellow-brown.
It paused at the threshold, fully framed in the doorway now. Its massive head tilted slowly to one side, the movement unnervingly deliberate, like a predator examining unfamiliar prey. The wet snout wrinkled slightly, sniffing the air thick with my vomit, sweat, terror, and the lingering chemical stench. A low, wet gurgle emanated from deep within its chest, vibrating the air.
I whimpered. The sound escaped my ruined throat as a pathetic, airless rasp. It wasn't conscious; it was pure animal fear leaking out. My bladder released, adding the sharp tang of urine to the horrific cocktail of smells soaking the sheets beneath me. The cold wetness spread across my thighs, a fresh humiliation atop the terror. I couldn't look away from those eyes. They held me pinned as effectively as the leather straps. I was in shock at what I was seeing.
The creature didn't advance or move from its spot. Not yet. Its massive head tilted the other way, the red coals narrowing slightly. Its gaze seemed to linger on me.
Then, slowly, deliberately, it raised its left arm. The thick, taloned hand lifted towards its own face. The index claw, longer and sharper than the others, extended. It didn't touch its lipless mouth. Instead, it pressed the razor tip against the wet, puckered flesh of its snout.
And it made a sound.
Not a growl. Not a hiss. It was a sound like dry bones dragged slowly over rough stone. A grating, rasping vibration that seemed to originate deep within its chest cavity and scrape its way out through that unnatural snout. It wasn't loud, but it filled the room, pushing against the silence like a physical force.
- "Shhhhhhhhhhhhh..."*
The sound stretched out, impossibly long, vibrating in my skull, in my teeth. It wasn't a human shush; it carried no comfort, no attempt to soothe. It felt ancient, predatory, utterly devoid of empathy. It scraped across every raw nerve ending I possessed.
The red eyes never left mine during that dreadful sound. They bored into me.
The sound finally trailed off into a wet click deep in its throat. The silence that followed was heavier, charged with the echo of that bone-grating sound. The creature remained motionless for another agonizing heartbeat, its tilted head, its burning gaze, the claw still pressed against its snout before it lowered its hand back down.
It walked backwards, back into the hall. With its long right arm, it reached out, scratching its claw into the door to grip it, and pulled the door shut with a soft click. I heard it’s steps and more scratching as it moved back down the hall it had come from. Then the sound faded.
Silence crashed back. I lay there, completely frozen in fear. I started hyperventilating. Helplessly, I stared at the now fully closed door. I now hoped that it wouldn’t open again.
Minutes crawled. Or hours. Time had dissolved into a meaningless slurry. There was nothing I could do but pray. I did not wish to make another sound that might attract that grotesque monster back.
The dripping from the ceiling continued all throughout. Onto my forehead, mingling with sweat and tears. It felt thicker now. Slimier. Almost gelatinous. It smelled of death. I just kept my sight on the door.
My skin crawled with dried filth and phantom itches.
Then, cutting through the silence, a new sound. Faint. Distant. Unmistakable.
A siren.
Faint at first, distant, almost indistinguishable from the tinnitus ringing in my ears after hours of screaming. But it grew. Pierced the suffocating silence like a needle puncturing a balloon. A high, oscillating wail, climbing, falling, climbing again. Distant. But unmistakable. A siren. A sharp urgent shriek of fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars. Multiple. Growing louder. Maybe there was a fire or a car chase going on? If only I could move to look out the window.
The sirens swelled, filling the air outside the grimy window, vibrating the thin glass panes. They weren't passing by. They were converging.
Why were they here? Surely not for me. I had stopped screaming hours ago. If someone were to call the cops because of my screaming, they wouldn’t have taken so long to arrive.
I waited for anything. The silence of the room now long gone because of the ongoing sound of sirens outside.
Minutes bled into a strange, suspended agony. The sirens settled into a stationary roar directly below. Shouts rose from the street, muffled by the window and by me being 7 stories high. I was surprised I could hear shouting from outside at all.
The ceiling continued to drool on me. My eyes remained on the door through the darkened gloom of the room, not wanting to see the mouth above me again. Then yet again, another new sound was heard. Heavy footsteps. Something slamming into a wall in the distance multiple times. The footsteps sounded like they were faint, outside of Bev’s apartment and in the hall?
The footsteps grew louder. Multiple pairs of boots. Heavy. Purposeful. Thudding against the hallway floorboards outside Bev’s front door. Closer. Closer. They stopped right outside the door. My breath seized. Was it *it*? That monster? Had it returned? Those heavy, dragging steps… No. This was different.
A muffled voice barked orders outside. Words indistinct, distorted by walls and panic. Then, the sharp, splintering crack of wood as Bev’s front door surrendered. A violent shudder ran through the apartment walls. I then saw the lights turn on from beneath the bottom gap of the door. More muffled voices I could barely hear. The footsteps resumed, closer now, thundering down the short hallway towards the bedroom door. My heart hammered against my ribs like a frantic bird trapped in a cage. The door handle rattled. Twisted. The door flew open, slamming against the wall with a force that shook dust from the frame.
They filled the doorway. Not one, but three. Hulking figures encased in bright yellow plastic that gleamed sickly in the gloom. Hazmat suits. Bulky, anonymous, making them look like astronauts stranded in a toxic sea. Their faces were hidden behind rounded visors within bulbous gas masks, the eyepieces reflecting the dim light in flat, insectile discs. Filter canisters protruded grotesquely where mouths should be. They radiated an aura of sterile, impersonal urgency.
One figure surged forward, boots heavy on the wooden floor. The light from the hallway behind them silhouetted them, turning them into looming, featureless giants. Their gloved hand reached out, not towards the restraints, but towards my face. I flinched violently, a fresh wave of terror crashing over me. *It’s back. It changed shape. It tricked me.* The memory of the creature’s lipless slit, the bone-grating shush, flooded my senses. The stink of vomit, urine, and that underlying chemical rot intensified.
"DEMON!" The scream ripped from my shredded throat, raw and guttural, barely recognizable as human. It was pure, unadulterated animal terror. "GET AWAY!” I thrashed with the last dregs of my strength, bucking against the leather straps. The bed frame groaned in protest. Fresh agony lanced through my wrists and ankles as the restraints tore deeper into raw flesh. Blood slicked the leather. "NO! DON'T TOUCH ME! STAY AWAY! PLEASE! NO!"
The lead figure didn't hesitate. Didn't speak. Strong hands, encased in thick, rubberized gloves, clamped down on my shoulders with bruising force, pinning me flat against the filthy mattress. Another figure moved to my legs, applying similar pressure. Their grip was implacable, industrial. The smell of clean rubber and filtered air cut through the miasma of the room, alien and jarring. I writhed, screaming incoherently, spittle flying, eyes wide and wild, fixed on the blank, reflective visor inches from my face. Behind the visor, I saw only a distorted reflection of my own terror-stricken face, pale and streaked with filth.
The gloved hands didn't relent. My screams dissolved into choked, wet gasps, my lungs burning. They pressed a clear mask on my face, it clamped over my nose and mouth. I sucked in air – cold, filtered, sterile. It tasted like nothing. Like absence. Like the void beyond Bev’s door. Panic flared anew. *They’re suffocating me! It’s gas! The demon’s gas!* I bucked again, a feeble spasm against their iron grip.
I heard their voices, muffled by their masks as they spoke.
One of them produced a needle and stabbed me with it. A sharp pinch stabbed through the haze of terror in my thigh. Coldness spread rapidly up my leg, a creeping numbness that fought against the frantic hammering of my heart. My thrashing weakened. The edges of my vision blurred, the harsh yellow of the hazmat suits bleeding into the grimy gloom of the room. The screaming face on the ceiling softened, its features melting like wax. The persistent drool on my forehead dripped down again. My breathing softened.
Hands moved with swift, practiced motions. The cold bite of metal touched my wrists, not claws, but a key. A precise *click-click* echoed in the muffled space beneath the gas mask. The leather straps fell away. The sudden release of pressure left raw skin screaming, blood rushing back into numb hands. My ankles were freed next, the sensation like phantom limbs returning.
Hands slid under my back and thighs, lifting me with impersonal strength. The transfer to the stretcher was a jolt of vertigo. Canvas straps snaked across my chest and hips, securing me.
They wheeled me out. The bedroom doorframe passed overhead, then the narrow hallway.
Then, a pivot. The stretcher angled sharply as they maneuvered towards the shattered front door. My unfocused gaze swept across the cramped kitchenette, illuminated by the lights they had turned on earlier. The harsh fluorescents revealed Bev’s form sprawled face-down on the kitchen tiled floor. She wore only the sheer black lace she’d had on earlier. Her limbs were splayed outwards, unnaturally still. One arm was flung outwards, fingers curled loosely near the jagged shards of a broken glass cup. The water that once occupied the broken glass had evaporated many hours ago.
The hazmat figures continued to move the stretcher out of Bev’s apartment and into the buildings hall. I shortly blacked out afterwards.
Consciousness returned in violent stutters. I shot up with my eyes wide open, gasping like a drowning man breaching surface. The air that rushed into my lungs was clean, fresh air, sterile. I was outside. No, I was in an ambulance, with its doors open. We were right outside Bev’s apartment. It was night now. Outside the gaping ambulance doors, I saw blue and red lights strobing silently across the street where over a dozen ambulances and cop cars were with only two firetrucks in the back.
My wrists throbbed. Raw rings of fire where the leather had bitten deep. They were bandaged up now. An IV line was taped to my forearm I was wearing a thin hospital gown with a shock blanket around my back that felt like lead, trapping cold sweat against clammy skin. A clear mask was still over my mouth and nose.
A paramedic leaned in. Young guy, maybe mid-twenties, with eyes that held the weary calm of someone who’d seen too many nights like this. He smelled faintly of stale coffee. His name tag read ‘EVAN’. "Hey you. You’re finally awake. Good. Easy there."
His voice was low, matter-of-fact, cutting through the lingering haze of terror still clinging to me.
"Just breathe normally. You're safe now." He adjusted the nasal cannula feeding oxygen into my nostrils. The plastic tubing felt alien against my skin.
The cold air outside was a shock after the cloying heat of Bev’s apartment. My gaze drifted past Evan’s shoulder. Beyond the open ambulance doors, the scene was chaos frozen in strobing blue and red. Police tape cordoned off the decaying Art Deco building. Figures in uniforms moved with grim purpose. More hazmat suits clustered near the main entrance. A stretcher bearing a black body bag was being loaded into another ambulance further down the street.
"What…?" My voice was a sandpaper rasp. "What happened?"
Evan didn’t flinch. He checked the pulse oximeter clipped to my finger. "Slow breaths, Alex. Focus on the oxygen. You’ve been through a severe toxic exposure." He spoke calmly, clinically, like he was explaining a car repair. "Massive gas leak in the building. Started sometime yesterday afternoon, we think. Faulty main line deep in the basement, corroded clean through. Sewer gas mixed with methane, methane’s odorless, you know? That’ was the bad one. Silent killer."
He paused, glancing towards the building.
"Most didn't make it," he continued, his tone flat, devoid of judgment. "Whole building saturated. Odorless methane displaces oxygen, see? Suffocates you quietly. The sewer gas? Hydrogen sulfide. Nasty stuff. Low doses mess with your head. Higher doses…" He trailed off, nodding towards the distant body bag being loaded. "Paralyzes your breathing. Kills quick."
A gas leak? …..A fucking gas leak? That explains the chemical smell that never seemed to leave my senses alone.
The sterile oxygen burned my nostrils. Evan’s explanation hung in the ambulance air as he explained to be solemnly what happened. He told me Bev most likely succumbed minutes after leaving the bedroom. Minutes. Her apartment having no windows open may have quickened her death. While I lay cuffed, heart pounding with anticipation, she was already collapsed onto those kitchen tiles. The thought punched through the lingering fog of terror. She hadn’t abandoned me. She’d died. Gone. Just like that. Because of rotten pipes hidden inside decaying walls.
I began frantically explaining to Evan all that happened and all that I experienced. The voices, the stain, the walking corpse of Bev, all of it.
Evan listened patiently, his expression neutral behind his mask. When I finished, panting, he didn't dismiss it. He didn't call me crazy. He just nodded slowly.
"Yeah," he said, his voice muffled slightly by his own mask. "That tracks. Hydrogen sulfide, even in low doses... it does things to the brain. Messes with perception. Hypoxia – oxygen deprivation – on top of that? Recipe for psychosis. Vivid hallucinations. Auditory, visual, tactile. The whole nightmare package." He tapped the side of his head. "Your brain, starved and poisoned, starts firing on misfiring cylinders. It fills in the terrifying blanks with whatever primal fears are lurking in the shadows. None of what you saw or even felt was real. It was all in your head."
"This might be a bit grim to swallow. If you are light headed, I don’t have to tell you….” He spoke.
I told him I wanted to know everything.
He hesitated then gestured vaguely towards the building. “The stain that was ‘drooling’ on you? Guy upstairs. Older gentleman, lived alone. He died of the gas exposure, probably collapsed right onto the porcelain sink in his bathroom. Cracked his skull open. The ‘drool’ you mentioned… that was his blood soaking through the floorboards.” Evan’s voice remained detached. Professional. “Your bedroom door was not fully open you said, right? That gap might have just saved your life. Diluted the fumes just enough to keep you breathing, barely. Enough to poison your brain instead of stopping your heart.”
The sterile oxygen through the mask tasted blasphemously clean. My mind scrabbled for purchase. Bev’s corpse crawling towards me. The whispers.
Hallucinations? The word felt thick. It wasn’t a dream but it also wasn’t real? It was really just all hallucinations?
Evan watched me absorb this. The flashing ambulance lights painted streaks of blue and red across his tired face. "Yeah," he said softly, a crack appearing in his professional veneer. "Horrible way to go. I'm... sorry about your loss. About…” He checked his notes, “Bev. Must be rough."
The apology hung between us like a misplaced wreath.
"Rough?" I forced a fake laugh that scraped raw against the ambulance walls. It sounded brittle. "We just met today."
I felt bad for Bev’s passing but I didn’t want to fake knowing her that well, that would make things awkward. Being honest seemed like the right choice.
Evan blinked, his professional mask slipping for a split second. A flicker of surprise. “Ah, okay I see.” He shifted his weight, the ambulance floor creaking faintly beneath his boots. The flashing lights outside painted shifting patterns on his face – blue, then red, then blue again. “Still. Doesn’t matter how long you knew them. It sticks.” His voice held a practiced neutrality, but beneath it ran a current of weary understanding.
He and I talked some more as he checked my vitals. In the back of my mind, I thought about my how my love for casual sex almost got me killed today and how I might take a hiatus on hooking up with strangers for a week or two.
Evan busied himself checking the IV line taped to my forearm, the cold saline drip, a slow counterpoint to the frantic pulse still hammering in my bandaged wrists. The sterile smell of the ambulance, the clean oxygen, felt like a violation after the cloying decay of Bev’s apartment. Like scrubbing raw flesh with bleach.
“Ah. One more thing,” Evan said, his tone shifting slightly. Less clinical, more… curious? He looked back at his notes. “I know you said you didn’t know her very well. But maybe you noticed something. Did Bev own pets? A cat, maybe?”
A cat? No, I don’t think she did. I certainly never saw one I thought to myself.
“I’m asking because the search and rescue team that got you out of there noted that they found small scratches on the bedroom door of her apartment that definitely weren’t human,” Evan stated. “Fresh scratch marks on the floor as well. They swept the entire apartment but didn’t find a single animal or even the corpse of one.”
I froze hearing his words. Despite the shock blanket on my back, a cold prickle started at the base of my skull, spreading down my spine…