Not Alone.
Chapter 4
Too warm, too bright.
That was the first thought Ethan had when he felt the sunlight grazing his face, squinting his eyes and again changing the position. He was holding a baseball bat. The phone was on the table displaying the time.
" eight o'clock " To change the position, he was half in the air when it hit.
" EIGHT ALREADY!"
Before he could go to sleep again, he realized that he has to make a run and freshen up at lightning speed as the time displayed on his phone's clock told him that it was eight in the morning.
Ethan woke up late, so late that he only had half an hour of the time to make himself presentable for the new workstation, that is, his office.
He just threw the bat out in the side, not minding the loud thud noise it made when it crashed on the land.
He had put the suitcases in the cupboard of his room above, facing the neighbors as he found that room coziest compared to others.
Ethan then grabbed a suit randomly that he saw inside the suitcase first. He just grabbed it, put the clothes on the bed and picked his small bag of toiletries, and entered the bathroom.
No time for a bath he just washed his face and arms in the sink and came out.
.
.
.
"Only 15 minutes left...let's hope Denver's Uber service is quick enough to take me to my destination at the time" He sighed when while standing in the living room, rearranging all the files and important documents to take to the office.
The urge to look at the room to his left was eating him.
To open it, check every inch and crevice, to calculate the height difference of the window to the ground, and most importantly, to prove to himself that whatever happened yesterday late at night was not a dream.
Only if he had woken up earlier at the morning had the time to ponder upon it.
As he was waiting for the cab to come around, he surveyed his surroundings.
No change. Nothing was misplaced or seemed was moved.
" What a freaking way of welcoming me, huh, my new house." Ethan had a habit of talking to animated objects. Well, he didn't expect to get a response back.
The moment he spoke, he saw a shadow figure at the reflection from the windows in front of him.
He whipped his head backward,
.
No one.
.
The figure, which was previously there, looked like it just vanished in thin air as it just walked into the wall.
As he was still looking at the wall, approaching it.
Hands splayed in front of him, touching the wall with fingers.
The wall was rigid as they always were, peeping towards the sides to caught the glimpse again.
.
His phone ringed again.
.
His soul came out of his body. It felt like that to Ethan, due to how fast his heart was beating, having a heart attack-like situation.
With sweaty hands, he picked up the phone hastily, without even reading the number.
.
.
"ARRRGHHHH...GHGRREEEEE HUMPHH"
Static.
"Hello?" Ethan asked timidly.
"BEEP BEEP BEE.....arrggghhh" and then, cut.
Phone just got cut by itself.
.
No network issue.
His phone was showing full bars with a good speed network.
Then, what happened?
He looked at the phone like it was some alien technology and not his phone, which he was using for at least two years.
The situation was too strange to even comprehend it and understand it fully.
.
But as always, he didn't get the chance to process it as his phone rang again.
The ringtone made him come back to his senses but with that, the fear also came back. Evening thinking of experiencing the horrific static voices again was making him skeptical to accept the call.
This time he checked the caller's number and
He was just the cab driver.
A wave of relief passed over his whole body.
No time to ponder more about it as he was already late, just picked up his files and essential items like wallet, keys and just ran out.
Locked the door while walking towards the cab, he instructed the driver to start the engine already.
"Please drive as fast as you can. The first day and already on the verge of getting fired, " Ethan said, he was hyperventilating.
The driver just chuckled and just nodded and didn't think much of how pale and scared his customer was looking.
" He must be too stressed about his job," The driver thought.
It might be the reason.
But Ethan knew the real reason.
No matter how much he denies, the real reason has much more depth to it than that.
It was that feeling, that constant feeling of being not being alone in his apartment
was the real reason for him being how he was in the cab.
.
.
.
The first day was all about getting familiar with the environment and introducing himself to dozen of people.
Office work was going smoothly in contrast to how his day started.
It worked as a good buffer for him as he got no time to even think about the incident happened.
Half of the day was about him going to other departments other half was about him dealing with his office formality work.
He did get warned and lectured about the coming on time if he wanted to continue working in that company.
If he ignores the death glare his boss gave him when he rushed inside his office, everyone seemed friendly enough to survive there.
For some crazy reason, no matter how hard he tried, Ethan was not able to forget about those broken static voices that came through the device.
He started expecting that he will yet again get that type of call.
He even started thinking about so much that he decided that he would like to get it again. To justify himself that he was alright and not going insane.
If he ignores how afraid he was off his phone, he might consider himself being alright.
But that doesn't mean that the anticipation of it will make the listening of that broken voices get less scary.
If he could look fine, then he might become fine.