[6]: Night Invader (1)

Chapter 6: Night Invader (1)

After waking his senses and his body was fully functioning, Marco got off the bed's soft comforts. His eyesight was still hazy when he started fixing the bed. His bluish-gray irises lack melanin, so he tends to be flustered whenever light gleams and needs to adjust to the brightness.

Marco reached for a pillow while blinking rapidly, flickering his eyelashes. Just as he was about to pick it up, he felt a sudden jolt of pain in his bent back, causing him to pause. It was the aftereffect of his off landing or, better to say, crash on that rocky cliff.

His lips twinge into a grimace as he held his waist. He knew the pain would persist but didn't expect it to be this achy. 'It's probably because of the excruciating task of cleaning the area downstairs yesterday.'

After a few minutes, Marco was finally done fixing the bed while enduring his body pains. He heaved a deep, displeased sigh and sat at the edge of the bed. His elbows rest atop his knees, and his right hand clutched the wrist of the other.

Although he was still within the room's embrace, his mind drifted away from consciousness because of the tranquil feeling that the ambiance of this place was giving off. It was calm and peaceful. That was until a loud thud ruined it all, and that brought him back to himself.

Marco thought everything would be back to being 'calm and peaceful' but was wrong.

Screeching static noise enveloped the once-quiet place and was followed by an annoyingly played, high-pitched electric guitar. Marco concluded that it was being played with speakers because he can strongly feel the vibrations from the building.

The newly awakened, tired, and sore lad resisted the urge to put plugs on his ears and just ruffled his hair in annoyance. He was coaxing himself that that would be the end of it and it couldn't get any worse, but then again, he was wrong.

The screeching and overly high-pitched noise were followed by an inhuman shrieking or possibly singing. If screaming without any proper tone with a quite decent melody was considered as one.

It was ear bleeding and teeth aching. One might even want to turn deaf than to hear such an auditory abomination.

'This must be what the old man warned me about yesterday,' Marco thought, recalling Charles' reminder yesterday evening.

The young lad could help but frown with the noise threatening to burst his eardrums but still tried to adjust his hearing to get used to it.

He sighed for the nth time and stood up, deciding it was better to take a bath than suffer from hearing loss.

'I guess I'm not meant to have a serene morning after all.'

---

Halfway through removing his shirt, Marco already took notice of the reddish marks on his back through the mirror. He grimaced at the vile sight and stripped off his shirt to have a better outlook.

Marco positioned his body sideways to the mirror so he could see his bareback better. He saw his newly acquired bruises. It didn't have a certain area but was rather scattered, there were only red marks on his lower waist, but the severe bruises were right on his upper back. It's almost covered with this patches of dark shade of bluish-green color.

'I think it would turn purple after a while,' Marco thought, grimacing once more at the unpleasant sight.

He heaved a deep sigh while stepping to bathe and then proceeded to turn on the shower, hanging his head low. Letting the cold water run down his head, and his wet hair eventually covered his sight.

When Marco went out of the bath with a towel on his damp hair, the screeching and shrieking noises hadn't stopped. The young man finds it frustratingly irritating but chose to ignore it. Not that he could do anything about it. He could only rub his ink hair with the towel.

Marco had just finished clothing when he realized something. His eyes somewhat widen before turning to a resentful look. He was aggrievedly eyeing his huge backpack with a frown, scrutinizing his gaze to the exposed clothes and other items.

"Huh. I'm really an eijit, aren't I?" Marco monotonously cursed himself, amused with his own stupidity.

He remembered the cold and shivering moments he had spent last night. He completely forgot about his bag containing clothes that could have saved him from the breeze. The young man chuckled with his recollection.

Marco left the room after doing what a human needs to do to be presentable. And as well as neatly arranging his stuff and making sure that everything else was clean. He went to what he presumed was Mr. Charles' workplace, which is the ground floor he just cleaned last night, to check what was happening.

The noise is getting much louder as he descends the stairs. Marco fought the urge to cover his ears and curse out loud.

'It's a pain in the ears.'

Although the lyrics were quite incomprehensible because of the singer's talent, Marco knew it all too well. He was far too familiar with this song.

'I never thought that mellow rock music can be this infuriating and worse than a hard metal jam.' This song is one of Marco's favorites, but now, he can just blight it rather easily. 'The arrangement of this song is just a piece of crap.'

The annoyed young lad sighed for the umpteenth time to calm himself up.

'I have no right to vent out my annoyance because, to begin with, I'm just here with the kindness of old man Charles. Prolonging the length of my patience is the least I can do.'

"I AIN'T FINE, BUT I'LL TRY TO SURVIVE IN THIS RUEFUL WORLD ~

BECAUSE NO ONE CAN HELP ME BUT MYSELF ~save me~

I'LL STAND TALL IN THE HIGHER GROUNDS ~

NO ONE CAN PULL ME DOWN!!! ~save me~

NO ONE CAN STOP ME NOW!!!"

Marco stopped halfway down the staircase, staring amusedly at a man who was holding an actual microphone connected to the amplifier. The intensity of his singing was overwhelmingly negative.

The young man's brunette hair swings as he bangs his head to the beat. He was moving his tall and a bit tan figure incoherently around, almost stumbling with things.

"SANGUINITY IS ALL I HAVE LEFT IN MY HOLLOWED VESSEL ~

IT'S ALIVE AND BREATHING BUT LONG BEEN LIFELESS ~save me~

STRUGGLING TO BREAK FREE FROM THESE WALLS OF MINE ~

NO ONE CAN SAVE ME OTHER THAN ME, MYSELF, AND I!!!

SAVE ME, MYSELF, AND I!!!"

The man was having a blast concert with himself. He even held a broom at some point and used it like a guitar during the instrumental part, totally immersed in the song.

'Where did that even pop up from?' Marco wondered to himself, slightly narrowing his gaze to the broom but shrugged it off immediately. He shouldn't be worried about that now.

Leaning on the stairs' railings, Marco planned to watch and be the audience of the enthusiastic singer wannabe, but it seemed like it wouldn't be fulfilled. Everything happened so fast at one point, the tall-tan man was enjoying his concert, and then the next thing, he was already one with the cemented floor.

No one knew what had happened except for the one who did the act, and the only watcher, Marco himself.

Too immersed in the song, the tan singer didn't notice how the ramp-up opened, and a lone figure entered the scene, but the bystander saw it clearly; how a slipper flew fast and hit the tan youngster's back of the head with enough force for him to fall.

'That must've hurt,' Marco sympathized with the fallen lad.

The loud music stopped in an instant. Once the amplifier was unplugged from the socket, a loud nagging took over.

"You're at it again! How many times do I have to tell you that your voice sucks and you're basically torturing everyone's ears?" The newly arrived person reprimanded the tanned man, who was still on the floor while resting his left hand on his waist.

"You're just a meanie who knew nothing about good music! You can't even appreciate my terrific voice!" The brunette-haired man stood up, defending his pride and glory.

"Terrific? Really? You wish!" The shorter young man scoffed, "Your voice is utterly terrible, terrifying, turbulence, tornado, tsunami… whatever. Any of those would suit it better."

"Hey! That's too much!" the tanned man complained.

The shorter young man crossed his arms over his chest and smirked, "I can give a hundred more comparisons to your unpleasantly cramped voice."

"Okay, stop insulting me! I get it, so now shut up!"

The shorter young man with auburn hair just scoffed at the belligerent brunette youngster. He rolled his dark brown orbs in annoyance, then scanned the room while scrutinizing his eyes, seemingly inspecting.

Marco watched their little banter as if watching a comedy skit and chuckled to himself. It was soundless, but his shoulders were visibly quivering. He jerked and stretched his neck to the side, his hand massaging it to lessen the sudden pain.

"Hey, Dacron," the once feisty young man called out, turning to the taller lad, "You're the last to leave yesterday, right? Did you clean the shop? That was pretty unusual of you."

"What unusual are you saying?! You really think that it's unusual for me to clean?" Dacron, the tanned youngster, angrily asked in disbelief.

The other man just stared wearily at him, making him feel uncomfortable. He scratched his left cheek and diffidently answered, "Actually, nope. I left in a hurry yesterday. I forgot."

"In a hurry, my ass…" the auburn-haired lad whispered and huffed, "Then, why is it so spotless here? Even the toolboxes were rearranged and neatly placed."

"Now that you mentioned it…" Dacron trailed off while glancing all over the place. He shuddered, "Damn, it's creepy."

---

The tan young man entered through the side door early in the morning, using his spare key, and was too lethargic to pay attention to the state of their workstation.

The sun had just barely shown over the horizon, and being productive at this hour wasn't getting into him.

The day was still early, and he wants nothing but to slump down on a cushion and relax. He knew he shouldn't, though. Since it's Saturday, that means he has a job.

Dacron decided to awaken his senses by playing some songs with the speakers. It snapped him out of his trance, and an idea entered his mind.

He quickly searched the cabinet under the countertop and found a microphone standing out from the pile of electrical wires and other mechanical pieces of equipment. He excitedly plugged the microphone into the amplifier, and his auditory abomination started.