The Figure

Chapter Two - Being Nineteen

I sat down in my living room, enjoying the silence and thinking about the last few years of my life. I walked to my bathroom to take a bath. I lit some little tea light candles so I would not have to deal with the harshness of the ceiling light and I sank into the almost boiling water. The hot water would give me some reprieve from the emotions I was feeling inside. I put my hand on my neck feeling for my cross necklace and leaned back to enjoy my feeling of my muscles being relaxed in an almost barbaric way.

I was now nineteen. Lucky me. A year when people my age would usually be going to university and enjoying life with their friends or boyfriends. And here I was, lying in the bathtub, torturing myself with hot water, away from all who knew me.

I left my family. Not out of spite but we no longer had anything in common. I helped my mum through her grief after losing my nana. I looked after the kids and some how completed my exams while I was waiting for my mum to be ready to be a mother again. I stayed around for a bit to make sure I did not leave a hole in the family. But in the end, I felt I only caused stress and arguments so I took it as my time to leave.

Sometimes I would get a text from my little brother and he would visit occasionally but I had practically ostracized myself so I could grieve on my own. I did not want my little brother, Teddy, to see me like this.

I had fallen into quite a routine. I would get up after a few hours of sleep, go to work for anywhere between eight and sixteen hours and then return home where I would pig out on very unhealthy foods and return to bed, where I would lie awake for hours before succumbing to darkness.

I lived in a little apartment building. It was simple and cheep and no one bothered me. I would occasionally get the chills and feel as if I was being watched but I presumed it was the old feel of the building. I would occasionally put my detective hat on and make sure there were no peep holes people could see me through but I knew I was just being paranoid. Being an avid believer in the supernatural tended to give me paranoid thoughts whenever I would hear the slightest of noises. It was usually just my neighbours knocking into a wall or arguing or moving furniture.

I still managed to be quite observant in this little flat by myself since I could hear everything around me. I knew that a youngish girl and her partner lived next door. An old woman lived across the hall and a very grumpy middle-aged gentleman lived on the other side of my flat. He would bang on the wall if I played piano so I had to move it.

Today was a good day for me. It was my day off. I rarely had days off now. I was usually asked to work because they knew I would say yes. I did not particularly enjoy my work but I enjoyed being occupied. I was a carer for people with disabilities. Something that distracted me from my own pathetic woes and allowed me to be myself around others. A lot of the time they just wanted to have another person’s company. I was happy to see their faces light up when they would see me. The residents knew that I would take time and talk to them if they wanted me to. It was a place where I felt wanted even if the work itself was not the nicest.

The staff were the same as my fellow high school students. Their eyes would follow me with hate and I would get the worst of jobs to do and was usually kept busy as a way of them punishing me for just being me. Little did they know I enjoyed being busy and would rather be cleaning toilets than sat chatting to them about their insignificant relationships and the bills they didn’t pay because they wanted a certain designer handbag. I would become exasperated with them fairly easily so I had to stay out of their way to hold my tongue. On my break I would sit and read my books about the supernatural and bask in the possibilities of creatures and ghouls could roam this world. Of course, I knew they didn’t but it was another scenario to busy my mind.

As I returned home the next night after a fourteen hour shift I slipped into my flat, hoping not to disturb any of the neighbours. Sometimes if I made noise the old lady across from me, Betty, would ask me to assist her which would last hours. She would be up until the middle of the night chatting away to me which I knew was not the best for her health. She was in her eighties at least and had no family. I would pop by every so often if I went to the coffee shop and bring her an americano, her favourite.

As soon as I entered my flat, I was met with a chilly and brutal atmosphere. The air felt like hate and loneliness. I put the TV on and made my way through the flat to put the heating on in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. I hated it when this would happen. The cold almost felt deliberate. As if some one was trying to tell me something with it, making their presence known.

I lit some candles and went to get changed into some comfortable sleep wear.

When I went back through to the living room the candles were out and the TV was off. This also happened fairly regularly. I would leave the room and return to darkness with everything turned off. I was not shaken by this anymore. I put it down to faulty wiring since the building was so old. I slowly turned the tv back on and re-lit the candles. I parked myself on the couch with one of my fluffy blankets and searched through Netflix for something to watch. I don’t know why I bothered most days because it would just end up being background noise as I would become too engrossed in a book I was reading.

It was almost midnight and I could hear the faint sounds of shouting and banging as if someone was arguing. It became louder to the point where I could hear exact words being exchanged.

“Luca, you need to leave! I will call the police!” this was followed by more banging and the sound of a loud shriek. On instinct, I ran out of my door and saw my two neighbours having a domestic by their doorway in the hall. The woman was crying a looked to be in pain while he just seemed to harbour anger. He turned his attention to me and gave me a threatening glare. I think I was supposed to be scared at this point but I felt this woman needed me in some way. She almost looked ill.

She looked at me with pleading eyes but I was lost for words. I did not have a clue what to say to distract this man with the atrocious temper. So I just stood still. Watching the both of them as they watched me. The male kept eye contact with me the entire time as if he was trying to size up my courage. After what felt like hours he huffed and ran towards me. Again, I stood completely still. I was almost calm. What was the worst he could do? He stood in front of me. His chest heaving up and down with his anger. The female began to tremble and shake her head as if to tell me something bad was going to happen. He eventually stepped around me and left. After I heard the door of the apartment building closed the woman in front of me fell to the floor trembling. Her breaths almost non-existent as she let out all of her inner emotions.

I ran to where she was and kneeled on the floor with her. She practically climbed up my body with her hands as she pulled us into a strong embrace. I held her and let her cry. It reminded me that it had been years since I held someone like this and heard them cry. This kind of comfort almost felt intimate with the amount of emotion that was coming from this woman.

She eventually began to catch her breath and I helped her up off the floor. Her door looked broken and she just signed in what seemed to be defeat.

“Come on, I will make you a cup of hot chocolate” I said to my neighbour. She looked up at me and smiled slightly. I led her to the couch where she sat still shaking. I came through with two big mugs of hot chocolate with whipped cream. She looked up at me and began to speak.

“I cannot thank you enough for what you did back there. He is usually bad, but never that bad” she said, raising her eyebrows at the end. She looked at me waiting for me to reply

“I did not really do much but you’re welcome. Are you feeling ok? I have some pain killers if you need them”. She looked at me contemplating what I said. She just smiled softly.

“I’m Lara by the way. That was my ass of an ex-boyfriend Lucas. I let him continue to live with me after we broke up but his temper got worse. I changed the locks but his boot helped him get back in”

She explained what had happened between the two of them. I thought she was crazy for letting him stay there after some of the things he put her through. She would find him on the couch with other women and was expected to put up with his temper.

She later rang the police from my phone and headed back over to her flat when the police arrived. What an eventful night. When I looked at the clock it was two in the morning. This was usually the time that I would be heading off to sleep but something told me I was not going to get any sleep tonight.

I was lucky really. I was not at work for another two weeks as they were forcing me to take some holidays. I hadn’t taken any holidays in over a year and managed to get away with it so once they realise they gave me a big lecture on how if I make a mistake because I am too tired and they see how long it has been since I have had some time off, they will get in trouble.

I understood what they were saying but I was always tired. Work was the little bit of reprieve I had from my own thoughts.

I decided to take a walk to the 24 hour coffee shop down the road and pick up a sandwich. I stayed in my sleep wear and put some boots on and a hoody. What a sight I was.

I was on my way back up the road and that same eery feeling I get in the flat was creeping up on me. I looked around and saw nothing. Just the flickering street lamps and the odd cat running across the road. I continued my journey. I reached the door of my building and stopped still in my tracks.

I saw a dark figure in the corner of my eye. I slowly twisted my head to look in that direction. The figure was across the street, just stood there, motionless. I could not see a face but something about it was making me feel nervous. I stayed staring for a while before deciding it was safe to enter the building. I turned away from the figure and headed up the stairs of my building. I glanced down to the glass door and I could have sworn I saw the bottom half of the figure coming into view. I quickened my pace and hurriedly locked my door once I had slipped quietly inside.

I felt uneasy. I stayed by my door for a while and watched out of the peep hole to see if I was followed up the stairs. I heard footsteps approaching the door. To which I stopped breathing. I almost felt as if they would be able to sense I was by the door watching them. Sure enough the figure came into my view. The figure stopped between mine and Betty’s door, almost as if the person was listening for a sign of life. I was not getting a good vibe from this individual. I could almost see the danger dripping from their dark cloak.

As if on cue, I could hear chatter from further up the hall and the figure slowly turned and made its way out of the building. I watched out of my window as it walked into the darkness without looking back. The feeling of nervousness was finally disappearing and I decided it was time I head to bed.

My sleep was short lived as my mind circled back to the figure, my nana’s funeral, that cold night when I was 13, the memory of the weight of the figures arms that embraced me that night is evidence to me that I did not imagine it all.