Haunted House

The building looked just like the rumors said it would; haunted and decrepit. Like a prop for a horror movie.

The tooth of time had clearly found its favorite chew toy, and while you could see attempts at repairing things here and there, it hadn’t been enough to combat the building’s slow decay. Nor could it chase away the strangely unsettling feeling that surrounded this place.

The only upside was that it was so cheap it was ridiculous, and after getting away from your old home, leaving a terrible relationship behind, you could not afford to be picky.

It was just for a little while, you told yourself as you dragged your suitcase up the stairs. Your duffle bag was so heavy its strap across your shoulder dug in painfully, and you looked forward to setting it down and relieving yourself of its weight.

The stairs had chipped edges and stains you didn’t even want an explanation for, and the same went for the hallway. The floor looked like it had sustained some sort of damage over the years and was in dire need of some professional cleaning and renovating.

You’d just stay here long enough to get back on your feet so you could move into a home that didn’t look like it might carry diseases from forgotten times.

You had read plenty of rumors online about this place, especially on the site where you had looked through available apartments.

People had ripped this building to shreds in the comment section, talking about moaning and screeching at night, feeling stalked and watched. That things vanished only to reappear elsewhere.

They talked about bloody footprints left outside in the hallways and a neighbor gone, never to be seen again despite all their belongings having been left behind. Some also complained that the landlord didn’t bother to fix anything unless someone hounded him relentlessly beforehand.

When you had called the man, asking if any apartments were still available, the landlord had been downright ecstatic, reassuring you that you had numerous apartments to choose from, since there were almost no residents.

It seemed people only came here if they were down on their luck, and even the desperate ones didn’t stay long.

There also wasn’t an elevator because this building was really damn old and had never gotten any sort of significant overhaul or upgrade. Those who couldn’t take the stairs had to choose one of the apartments on the first floor.

You reached your apartment and dug out the key the landlord had given you upon your arrival. It looked a little bit rusted around the edges, and faint scratches covered the surface. It smelled strongly of wet iron despite being perfectly dry.

Unlocking the door, you braced yourself for mold in the corners and the smell of damp oldness or even something worse, only to pause.

The inside looked surprisingly... fine. It was nothing fancy, and there were discolorations along the walls since no one had bothered to give the place a new coat of paint in a couple of years at the very least.

But there was no mold, no rot, no water damage, and it didn’t smell bad. You had expected far worse, if you were being honest.

The floorboards creaked gently under your feet as you set down your luggage by the door. As you cautiously explored your new home, you were pleasantly surprised to find that everything worked as intended.

Sure, the faucet squeaked like it had never seen a day of care in its life, and the water rushing through the pipes was loud, but the light bulbs didn’t flicker, and the little oven and stove in the kitchen worked just fine.

It was, all in all, not as bad as you had expected.

It didn’t take long at all, however, until you felt it. A presence in the air, invisible and unseen, and yet, you swore someone, something, was there.

You stood still, your suitcase and duffle bag just set down in the empty living room, and you downright held your breath as you waited.

Nothing happened as the minutes ticked by, though the feeling of a presence remained. You slowly started to move again, cautiously and stiffly, like you were trying to avoid provoking something bigger and far, far more dangerous than anyone could ever hope to be.

It felt like razor sharp teeth were holding your entire apartment between its jaws, debating if you should be crushed or not.

Before long, you started to play some music on your phone to try to combat the oppressive silence.

It worked, to a degree. The presence didn’t vanish, but it seemed to... settle, for lack of a better word, like it was listening.

It almost felt like having someone in the apartment with you, in another room, and neither of you were speaking. Someone who, you knew down to your very core, could shred you like flimsy paper.

It wasn’t quite as... bad after a while. The feeling remained unsettling and creepy, sure, but you’d rather endure this chilling presence than go back to your ex. Your life would only turn into a guaranteed hell if you did.

Since this place had a small, if very old, kitchen installed, you left briefly to get some groceries for dinner.

While you were out, you bought an air mattress on a discount a few streets away, along with some blankets and paper plates to tide you over.

You had left with only your most important possessions and savings, your life squished into your luggage until nothing else had fit inside anymore. With the apartment empty aside from the kitchen and bathroom, you’d have to figure out how to live until you got back on your feet again.

You ate a quick, cold dinner, eyeing the sinking sun worriedly. In the slowly spreading darkness of the approaching night, the creepiness of the whole building grew like dark paint getting poured over an untouched canvas.

At night, things really did get a lot worse. You could hear it, the scratching and moaning seemingly in the entire building, sometimes close and sometimes far.

Doors creaked as they got opened and then slammed shut, sometimes right in your apartment and sometimes somewhere a floor below. You swore you even heard something move in the hallway right outside your bedroom door.

You curled up tight under your blankets and you played the music on your phone a little louder, and slowly, as the hours passed, the apartment building seemed to settle again.

The noise grew softer until you could pretend it was just an annoying neighbor who was banging around their cabinets and generally being noisy.

Your sleep was still fitful and restless since you barely dared to doze off, feeling frightened by the building itself. Whatever was going on here, it was awful, and you deeply wished you had other options, but you were stuck here for now.

You were exhausted when your alarm rang, and you dragged yourself out of bed, your head aching. You blearily got ready for the job interview you had today, and by the time you were good to go, you had managed to wake yourself up enough that you felt as ready as you could be.

You took a calming breath, and then you felt it again, a little bit of a chill in the air and that presence creeping through your apartment once more.

You stared at yourself in the spotty mirror in the bathroom that had been left behind by a previous tenant, and you told yourself that you hadn’t gotten away from one horror only to cower at the feet of another.

However, you also weren’t foolish enough to think that you could actually chase away whatever lived here.

This thing had been here before you, and it was something... otherworldly. You had no idea if it was a ghost or some kind of eldritch creature or whatever else, but you had no desire to find out, either. You just hoped you’d be able to play nice with it enough to stay alive until you could move out of here.

"There’re crackers in the cupboard if you want any," you said, putting on a brave face as you talked to the air around you. "I’d appreciate it if we could get along, if you don’t mind. I’ll be off to find work now, wish me luck."

It felt like the presence paused, and you felt watched as you left, a sensation that only vanished when you walked down the street and around a corner, disappearing from sight.

You were, indeed, lucky today, for the interview did go very well, and to your relieved surprise, you were hired on the spot.

Not many people moved into this area, however, and you were willing to bet that it had to do with the creepy apartment building that seemed to drench the entire block with its presence, spine-chilling and shiver-inducing.

You were very relieved about your success when you returned to your new home with a small, celebratory dinner bought with some of your savings.

When you entered your new apartment, that presence was in the air once more, almost anticipatory, lurking above and around you all at once.

"I got lucky," you told your apartment and a small, hesitant smile appeared on your face despite the prickle of unease that tickled at your neck. "You must be my good luck charm."

Stepping into the kitchen, you saw the empty cracker box in the trash and blinked in surprise. Huh, whatever was here already had more manners than your rotten ex did.

"Thanks for cleaning up after yourself," you told the apartment, and you started to get your dinner ready. You hesitated for a moment, before setting aside an extra serving. "For you, if you like."

By the time you finished eating, the extra food had vanished, and you blinked when you saw the paper plate in the trash. You hadn’t even heard anything.

You cleaned up after yourself, talking to the air about your day both to combat the unease that still clung to you, that made you feel small and squishy and like prey, and because you hadn’t really had anyone listen to you for a long while.

Your ex boyfriend had managed to isolate you completely from your friends and family, and you were too ashamed to try to reach out to them again. A part of you was also convinced that they wouldn’t want to hear from you, that you had caused them enough grief already.

You fell quiet at that thought, and you silently went into the bathroom to wash the stress of the day and night away, the stress of leaving your old life behind. One look at the old bathroom, however, immediately made you decide that there was no way you were going to take a bath without thoroughly cleaning everything.

"Be back in a bit," you told the apartment as you left, heading to buy cleaning products at the very same store that had just hired you.

Returning with your small haul, you set to scrubbing every inch of the bathroom, and you felt the presence hover over your shoulder all the while.

"I will not get sick from old ick," you told the air as you scrubbed the bathtub. "Do you know how long it takes to get rid of foot fungus? I am absolutely not risking that."

Once you were done cleaning to your satisfaction, you were covered in sweat and exhausted. You realized that you’d have to ask the presence to leave because there was no way you were going to bathe while feeling watched.

"Would you mind waiting outside?" you asked the air. "I want to do this in private."

There was a long, heavy second of stillness, as though something around you was thinking, and then you felt the presence pull back. You only realized how tense you had been when your breath rushed out of you with relief.

"Thank you," you called with a raised voice, only to jump when you heard scratching down the outside of the bathroom door.

You scrubbed down swiftly only to realize that you hadn’t brought a change of clothes.

"Uh, would you mind not looking as I get dressed?" you called out into the hallway and weirdly enough, you got the impression that something was turning away from you. Still there, but not paying you any attention.

You scurried down the hall to get dressed, and as soon as you called out that you were done, the feeling of something looming over your shoulder was back.

"Want to watch something on my phone with me?" you asked after a long moment of heavy silence that ended up feeling a little awkward and quite tense.

You settled down on the air mattress, and you swore the shadows around you darkened. From the corner of your eye, you saw some sort of large, clawed shadow-hand creeping over the edge of your mattress, and you resolutely ignored it, even as your stomach clenched uneasily.

Your exhaustion caught up to you halfway through the third movie, and you woke up to moaning and scratching and doors creaking open and banging closed again.

"What’s wrong?" you blearily asked, still hazy with sleep, and the noise quieted for a moment before it felt like something was leaning over you, all darkness and numerous eyes and razor sharp teeth. You didn’t dare open your own eyes to look back at it.

It seemed to stare and wait until you fitfully fell asleep again, and while you jerked awake a few times throughout the night, the unsettling noise was distant, like a drunk asshat two doors down acting like a dick.

In the morning you got ready for your first shift and you told the creature that surely owned this place more than the landlord could ever hope to, that you’d be gone for a while and that you’d bring back dinner.

While you had hoped to find distraction at work, it felt as though everyone knew you lived in the haunted building and wanted to talk about it. It seemed you couldn’t get away from the thing you shared your home with even now.

While you had been unsettled but not completely frightened before, you now heard more stories about people turning up dead in that building. Most died in very bloody, gruesome ways.

"A man was torn to shreds just last month," an older woman told you as you bagged her purchase, and she sighed, "You look after yourself, that’s no way to die."

Indeed, it wasn’t, but it wasn’t like you could go anywhere else, either. Your savings wouldn’t allow for anything better and you were not going to go back to your ex.

You bought the food you had promised to bring after your shift, and you grabbed one of the cheap books set up on the shelf on the side as well. The kind that your grandpa had referred to as dime novels, smiling in victory whenever he had found one for your grandma who loved them to bits. The cheesier, the better.

You really missed them.

You felt the presence settle around you the moment you set foot onto the property, the apartment building itself looming ahead, and you returned to your dingy little flat, finding it undisturbed. Nothing had vanished, and nothing had gotten destroyed.

You cooked another meal for yourself and whatever monster lived here, and you set the novel down beside the extra serving you had plated.

"In case you get bored," you told it and you only looked away for a moment, but the food and novel were both gone when you glanced back, the paper plate once more neatly put into the trash.

As you ate, you thought that your unexpected companion was a bearable houseguest. Sure, it’s night-time manners and activities were atrocious, but otherwise... it could have been worse.

Especially since you couldn’t get rid of it, anyway. You might as well figure out how to live with it, instead.

You and the monster slowly settled into a cautious sort of new normal. It started to keep the racket down when you slept until you weren’t even bothered by the noise it made anymore. In return, you left food out for it, and it always cleaned up after itself.

None of your stuff ever vanished, you had no weird, bloody footprints in the hallway, and while there were sometimes scratches left on doors, they weren’t so deep as to ruin the wood.

Though, in all fairness, those were a little scary.

You weren’t quite yet used to feeling your neck prickle whenever the monster was around you, but you were cautiously hopeful that you could survive your time here.

You had nightmares, however, a weird blend of your new and old home. Sometimes, you dreamed of the monster swallowing you whole despite your pleas, and sometimes, you dreamed about your ex finding you, chasing you through the halls, and the monster opening doors for him while keeping you captive within the building.

The monster noticed your nightmares, and one night when you jerked awake, sitting up with a gasp, you felt something tug on your blanket. You stilled, feeling frozen in place, your heart leaping to beat painfully hard in your chest, the fright of the nightmare bleeding over into your unsettling reality.

Slowly, that touch along your blanket seemed to grow, like more and more hands joined, and it took you a moment to catch on to what it wanted. Lying back down, you found yourself tucked back in, shadows slithering across your legs like a weird cat was getting comfortable.

The monster stayed there until you fell asleep, and as another nightmare started to unfold, you felt its presence beside you in the dream, eating the nightmare, devouring it whole, and leaving you in deep, calm darkness.

You had no more nightmares after that, no matter how restless you were when you went to sleep. You actually started to feel rested when you woke up in the morning, the exhaustion along your face slowly easing away.

Right up until you woke up feeling sick. A chill had filled the air overnight, and it had nothing to do with the monster and everything to do with the fact that the heating had broken down sometime in the night.

You were shivering, your head felt like someone was pressing down on it, and your throat was scratchy.

You called the landlord but only reached his voice mail, and you stood in your living room, bleary and cold, and you just wanted to crawl into a proper, warm bed and sleep the day away. But you couldn’t exactly afford to take a day off.

For the first time, the monster made itself truly known beyond the wailing at night and tucking you in... in the most unsettling manner possible. The front door, when you tried to leave for work, wouldn’t budge.

A different kind of fear gripped you then, tasting of the past, of memories of a large hand keeping the door closed, a body leaning over yours. You really, really didn’t like this. You would prefer the moaning and screaming at full volume over being locked in.

"Please, stop," you rasped, feeling shaky. "I have to go. I can’t stay here if I don’t work."

You winced, flinching back when a rumble seemed to go through the entire building, something dark and suffocating rising into the air, full of a warning that transcended everything you knew. Something that was utterly otherworldly.

Fear snapped through your like a hungry hound chasing down a hare, your heart racing, and you were cowering before you knew it.

The dangerous rumble slowly died down like the monster was forcibly reigning itself back in. Then the front door clicked open, and you rushed outside, head ducked and your body singing with fright and adrenaline, the instinct to flee kicking in forcefully.

Work was draining, and your manager was eyeing you with a frown, like he was worried you were going to ask for time off, but you stayed. In fact, you were reluctant to go home.

It was one thing to know that the thing that lived in the building was powerful and otherworldly, that it was something you had absolutely no chance against.

It was quite another to have such a frightening reminder of it.

But you had to go home because it was just as dangerous to loiter on these streets in the dark.

The apartment was utterly silent when you returned. You slowly inched your way past the door and while you sensed the monster in the air, it was faint. Subdued.

When you entered the kitchen, you saw tea and a little cake waiting for you. You had no idea where the monster had gotten it – it probably stolen this from someone else. Unless it was capable of leaving this building, though even then, you struggled with imagining it going shopping.

There was something cautiously apologetic in the air, something careful, and you knew this was its attempt to apologize for this morning.

"Don’t ever lock me in again," you rasped and the kitchen around you groaned softly, a mournful moan. "If you agree to that, I accept your apology."

A hum went through the air, and the fridge swung open, revealing takeout from a popular place on the other side of town. You had only heard about it in passing, never ordered from it yourself.

You frowned a little in confusion. "Did you order takeout?"

Takeout was... kind of an expense you had wanted to avoid, but it wasn’t like the monster seemed aware of the concept of money.

You heard a rustle from the hallway, and a moment later, an advertisement fluttered into the kitchen, as though dropped from the ceiling. You picked it up and then you ducked into your bedroom to check how much of your money was gone. Weirdly, it was all still there.

"How did you pay for the food?" you asked, and the air grew still in a confused way.

You couldn’t help but think about some poor delivery kid getting terrified out of his wits, dropping the food, and running, when your monster roommate answered the door.

"I think I need to explain money to you," you said as you returned to the kitchen to see the food now placed neatly on the table.

The tea cup slid forward as though by an invisible hand, the hot liquid inside sloshing, as though the monster was insistent you take it.

Curiously, it seemed to be aware that tea helped with sickness.

As you sat down, the tea soothing your sore throat, and you reached for the food, you explained things to the monster. Why you left every day, what you had to do to be able to live here, and you let slip that the heating had broken and you couldn’t reach the landlord.

You had no idea how much the monster understood, but something seemed to get through, you thought.

That night, as you laid shivering under your blankets, you felt more than just its presence.

Like it was oozing out of the walls, the floorboards creaking under a weight that hadn’t previously been there. There was more to it now than the press of shadows you felt back when you had had that nightmare.

You felt something like claws lightly touch your leg over the blanket, and when you didn’t flinch, didn’t twitch away, it ever-so-slowly shifted forward.

With great care and caution, the monster was soon curled around you and partially on top of you, and the cold seemed to get swallowed up.

You fell asleep, slowly warming up, and the weight was unexpectedly calming. There was no way for anything to get at you if the monster was there.

In the morning, you woke to frantic knocking at the door and a very pale, very sweaty landlord shakily telling you that the heating had gotten fixed. There was a fine tremble in his limbs, and his gaze darted around nervously.

Behind you, the monster felt so darkly smug you wouldn’t have been surprised to find out it had hunted down the landlord. It likely had, dragging him out of his home and to the cellar, holding him captive until everything had gotten repaired.

"Thank you," you said when you closed the door, and the building rumbled like a very satisfied dragon, puffing up with pride. This time, it wasn’t scary at all.

Under the monster’s surprisingly attentive care you recovered in next to no time. It became downright normal now to have it wrapped around you as you slept. Your nightmares were gone, and it was nice to not be alone, so you didn’t protest.

The monster didn’t quite stop haunting the building, but now it was up to no good during the day rather than largely at night.

It even started to talk back when you chatted with it, and you began to parse apart the meaning behind its moans and groans and growls and rumbles, especially since it could fill the air with its intent.

The other residents, few as they were, were glad about this change. You even managed to chat with them a little here and there now that they were no longer scurrying out of the building and to work as quickly as possible each day.

And then the door to your flat didn’t work anymore, the lock refusing to engage, and the monster had to help you get into your apartment. When you tried to call the landlord you couldn’t reach him.

The next day however, there he was, trembling and overly eager to be of help. You stared at your swiftly repaired door and as soon as the landlord fled, you turned to where the shadows gathered in an unnatural way.

"Say, do you mind if we fix a few more things around here?" you asked. The monster seemed curious, so you explained what you meant, and the last thing you felt was its dark glee in the air before it rushed away.

The landlord, who had hurried down the hall to get back to his home as fast as possible, screamed so loudly it was audible even through the closed door of your apartment.

When you returned from your work, you saw the landlord working feverishly on fixing the plumping, and he reassured you that he would repair anything else that he could.

Back in your apartment, you jokingly told the monster that you should pay it rent rather than the landlord.

Within a month, the landlord was so terrified that he abandoned the building entirely and was unable to pawn it off to anyone else. Anyone who showed up to look at the building left shaking and trembling within half an hour.

At last, the monster brought you the papers of ownership like a satisfied cat who had dragged a dead bird home. You had no idea what to do with those papers. It was hardly legal, after all, wasn't it? Also, you really didn’t have the sort of money that was necessary for taking care of this place. Never mind fixing it.

The monster seemed baffled about your refusal, and while the deed of the building got stuffed into a drawer in your now mostly furnished apartment, you no longer paid rent. The landlord had insisted on being paid in cash, and no one knew where he was now, and the monster didn’t want money.

It did want food, though, and as people left offerings, the building started to change. Cracked windows slowly grew whole again, the chipped stairs started to smooth out, and discolored walls slowly started to clear.

It didn’t look new, it probably never would, and the yard with its decrepit playground remained dead, but it was better. A lot better. The pipes weren’t even groaning anymore whenever you took a long shower.

As everything around you got better, you slowly stopped thinking about leaving. It was downright nice here now. You also didn’t have to pay rent, which was a boon you’d find nowhere else.

One day, about half a year after you moved in and the monster had decided that it would be your unofficial roommate, a young woman with a toddler appeared.

You gave her a key to an empty apartment, since there were plenty available and the monster had given you access to everything the landlord had left behind.

Looking at her you were reminded of yourself back when you had decided to run away. She looked hunted, tense and exhausted and worried, and there were bruises on her that were too familiar for your liking.

"Someone hurt her," you told the monster quietly after returning to your apartment, and the air around you grew very still. "Would you mind keeping an eye on her? Make sure no one comes to hurt her or her kid?"

There was a low, dangerous rumble, not aimed at you but at a yet-unknown threat. You felt shadows brush your ankle as the monster seeped out of your apartment. For days afterwards, its presence was thick in the hallways.

Patiently watching. Waiting.

Around a week after the young mother had appeared, you jolted awake in the middle of the night to screaming.

The sort of terror-filled, high-pitched screaming of a person getting killed by the most frightening thing they had ever seen.

You only realized you were shaking when the noise suddenly cut off and your apartment felt oppressively silent. A long moment later, the monster’s presence oozed back inside, radiating such dark satisfaction that you could almost taste it on your tongue.

"Someone tried to hurt her?" you whispered after long minutes of the monster waiting for you to calm down again. To go back to bed and close your eyes so it could join you, since it hadn’t let you see its physical presence even once yet.

It rumbled, like vengeance and pain paid back and like it had defended its home and the people within. Your breath rushed out of you, your shoulders sagging as exhaustion gripped you tightly in the sudden absence of tension.

"Thank you," you whispered and slumped back into your newly-bought bed, warm and soft and comfortable.

You closed your eyes and felt large, heavy claws as the monster joined you, big enough to curl entirely around your bed, a sizable head pressing down on the pillow close to yours.

You fell asleep to darkly sated purring, and as nightmares tried to rise, they were eaten with vicious protectiveness.

In the morning, you saw blood in the hallway like someone had gotten dragged away from the young mother’s front door all the way to yours. A part of you was morbidly glad that the monster hadn’t left any remains like a cat might leave mice for their owners.

Before you could head out and go to work, the young mother called out to you. There was a fresh bruise on her face, her lower lip swollen and bleeding. Whatever bit of worry had still remained within you over what had happened last night evaporated.

"That... thing that lives here. Did you ask it to help?" she asked, and you hesitated before offering a slightly wary nod, unsure how she’d react. She exhaled shakily and whispered, "Thank you."

That day, once you came back from work, she brought over a large cake that she had made from scratch for you to give to the monster as thanks. It devoured everything with lazy satisfaction.

"Is it possible for me to see you?" you asked as you washed your recently-bought plates.

This place was becoming your home more and more as you made it your own. You were getting your life back more and more, the shadows of your past lingering but no longer gripping onto you as tightly.

For the first time, the monster hesitated, pulling back slightly.

"I won’t be scared," you promised, though a part of you whispered "liar" in the back of your head. The animal part of you hissed that it was better to not see it. To not know exactly what lived here, haunting this building.

What had murdered an abuser last night because you had asked it to.

The monster shifted, and then slowly, like it was giving you plenty of time to back out, shadows gathered and grew, swallowing the light until it felt like midnight had arrived, your overhead lamp struggling to illuminate much at all.

It oozed out of the wall, and for a moment, your mind felt blank as you stared at the hulking thing of fur and tendrils and teeth and numerous eyes that glowed a faint, dark red. It was beyond anything and everything you had ever seen or even been able to imagine.

It stood very still, clearly waiting for your verdict.

"Huh," you managed to get out at last. "Well."

Apparently you sounded as apprehensive as you felt, for the monster looked ready to disappear again, and you forced yourself to move, holding out a hand, your heart beating faster and stronger in your chest, a small kick of adrenaline in your system.

"May I?" you asked, and a moment later, the dark mass shifted forward slightly, and a clawed hand as large as your head lifted to brush against your fingertips with such care that the little bit of trembling fear within you relaxed at once.

You reached out to take its hand, giving it a small shake as you said, "It’s nice to meet you."

It rumbled, and then a mouth cracked open too far off to the side, and a deep voice answered, so rumbling you could feel it in the air, the floor beneath your sock-clad feed vibrating faintly. "Safe with me."

"I know," you answered, and it was the truth now that it held your hand so gently there was no doubt left in your mind. "Want to help me cook?"

It did, and where you had expected it to be a tight fit in your small kitchen, somehow the shadows you were about to bump up against were always intangible, feeling more like you were passing through smoke. Other times, the monster was solid, strong, and almost warm.

You ate together, for once, though the monster was kind of just dumping everything into its maw and then it licked the plate clean before washing the used dishes and settling in to wait until you were done.

It stayed around while you watched TV, as well and when you went to bed, you reached out, carefully taking its hand again.

It joined you in your bedroom, curling around your bed like it had in the past, but this time you could watch it settle in, closing its many eyes.

Hesitantly, you reached out to give its massive hand a pat. It coiled closer with a rumble that sounded like purring, and you slowly fell asleep, a feeling of calm and protection filling the air around you.

Any nightmare that might have tried to find you that night got swallowed by your monster.

Your life slowly settled into a new normal after that. The monster was always out and about whenever you were home, keeping you company, and while it still wasn’t particularly verbose, it started asking you questions and properly answered some of yours with words instead of noises.

It had no idea where it had come from, only that one day, it had simply existed. It could leave the building, but it had no desire to. This was its home, its territory.

It did mention that, before you had arrived here, it had been... bored. Kind of lonely. Apparently, you were the only one who had tried to talk to it and make friends with it past a handful of shaky first attempts. Some of the previous residents had tried, but ultimately, they had been too scared to continue. They had been too scared to stay.

In the meantime, the young mother with her toddler settled in well and you and she slowly started to become friends. Your monster was especially curious about the little one, and once the young mother gave it her tentative permission to play with her baby, she had a free babysitter whenever she needed one.

You weren’t surprised that the change in the building and the residents, who no longer looked hunted and severely sleep deprived, was noticeable to the neighbors.

You fielded many questions at work, saying that things had calmed down since the landlord had left and another had taken over. Though the unsettling feeling of the monster remained, lingering over everything.

You had kind of gotten used to it, you had to admit. Sometimes, you still felt a chill down your spine, but knowing who it came from and that it usually meant the monster felt particularly mischievous, you shrugged it off.

It did surprise you, however, when one evening, someone rang your doorbell, and you found two young teens standing outside. One had his chin lifted bravely, even though you could see that he felt unsettled by the surroundings and the other held himself like he wanted to disappear.

The second kid had bags at his feet and refused to meet your eyes.

"Can my friend stay here?" the first kid asked, looking like he was trying really hard to act all proper and polite and like an adult. "Just for a couple of days. I have money; is this enough?"

He held out a fist of crumbled notes, clearly the plundered innards of a piggy bank. You felt your monster’s presence in the air, lingering and watching, and the two teens seemed to shrink in on themselves further.

"Of course," you said just as the second kid opened his mouth, looking as though he was going to protest and excuse himself and his buddy. "Come on, I’ll show you to an empty place."

As the monster handed you a key, the two kids flinching back at the shadows that shifted and moved behind you, one curling over your shoulder to give you a brief, reassuring squeeze.

"It’s alright," you tried to reassure them. "This is just the... guardian of the building."

You felt your monster puff up, ready to take on its new moniker and also gleeful at the implications. Protectors dealt with threats, after all, and it really liked eating bad people, especially since you had indicated that you didn’t mind that at all.

It made you wonder if the people who had died here previously had been terrible.

You showed the kids around the empty apartment a couple of doors down and you knew the monster had just tried to quickly tidy up, since it looked nicer than other apartments did.

You glanced at the kid with the bags a few times as he and his friend carefully looked at everything. He looked too thin, there was a barely-noticeable limp in his steps, and the way he held himself made you guess at bruised ribs.

"You can stay as long as you want," you told them. "We don’t take money as rent, just leave some food out, and you’re good."

They stared like they hadn’t expected that then nodded. You left them to their devices, and you felt shadows coil down to brush your shoulders when you walked through the hallway, the light getting nearly choked out of existence as your monster manifested part of itself.

"Give them some space," you said quietly. "I’m willing to bet that kid comes from a bad home."

The building around you rumbled ever so faintly, and you reached out to give a shadowy tendril a calming squeeze. It squeezed back gently, curling around your fingers, before it turned somewhat see-through, your touch gliding through it, and then it pulled back to vanish, the light returning to the hallway.

The kid stayed, his friend visiting pretty much every day, and you found yourself dropping by to check up on him as well.

The young mother did the same once she realized what the situation was, her expression kind and determined. Between the two of you and the monster keeping watch, the kid seemed to cautiously settle in okay.

When the grumpy old man a floor above started to bring food around for the boy, as well, you found yourself smiling a little.

The kid’s parents showed up only once, full of puffed-up, offended righteousness and a vicious hunger to regain complete and utter control of the kid.

They approached you with fast steps when they spotted you returning from work, only for their energy to turn wary and almost scared as soon as they entered the building.

When they tried to shout at you for kidnapping their kid, to hand him back over, your monster got very angry.

You felt frozen in place, the animal part of you quivering a little as the light dimmed drastically all at once. Large mouths tore open along the walls and glowing, blood red eyes the size of windows ripped open.

Darkness oozed all over the floor as tendrils spilled forth to reach for the parents.

They managed to get away just barely in time, and a part of you knew it was only because the monster didn’t want to kill in front of you. You had once admitted to being squeamish about injuries.

The monster coiled around you, full of dark satisfaction, while you exhaled shakily. It stroked your shoulders until the last shiver left your frame, and you sagged a bit against it.

"I’m fine," you said quietly. It rumbled softly, a tendril brushing your temple, full of gentle affection. "Let’s talk to the kid."

The kid was shaken, but among the fear and worry was a budding of relief as well.

"You’re safe here," you told him. "If you ever need anything, the building will help you."

"Is it, um, yours?" he asked and you paused. You had never said so out loud, even as you had started to think of the monster as yours. Considering how its presence gained a very eager edge, it really liked that idea.

"Yes," you answered and felt a rumble-purr in the air. "So, don’t worry, alright? Nothing will happen to you here."

Your monster remained deeply satisfied for the rest of the day, and you couldn’t help but smile. It gave off the same air as someone skipping down the street in joy.

That night, when you invited it onto the couch to watch TV with you, you fell asleep cuddled up in its tendrils, two of them giving you the best back rub of your life.

Before you knew it, the kid arrived with someone else from his school, asking if another apartment was available for his friend. He looked a little nervous and worried during his request, as though he feared being told no.

You handed over another key and asked if they needed help with anything. They didn’t, but the boy gave you a grateful, relieved little smile as they left.

A week after that, the young mother arrived with an exhausted father of twins. The man visibly had to blink back tears when you handed over a key and told him that there was no rent to pay. He only had to leave out some food.

Your monster really liked the new additions, and you realized that it wanted to protect the people in its home. That it very much enjoyed the thought of eating anyone dangerous who appeared to try and harm them.

It was a dark, gleeful sort of protectiveness, one half born out of an eager hunger for more dark hearts to eat and half born out of a genuine desire to have people around.

Slowly, bit by bit, as more months passed and the apartment filled with people in need, people running from painful pasts or from people who mistreated them, you realized that you didn’t want to leave. At all.

You liked it here too much by now. The whole building had slowly regained some of its old shine, to the point where it was charmingly rustic instead of just a rundown hole of desperation and despair.

You also really liked your monster. You had never slept as well as when shadows-made-flesh curled around you, your nightmares getting eaten by something that really liked dark and terrible things.

If you came home feeling exhausted or frustrated after a bad day at work, your monster made you sit down in front of the TV and brought you dinner, and when you woke up in the morning, the entire apartment had gotten cleaned overnight.

You never forgot your ex, but as time passed, he mattered less and less. You were safe here, and he had no idea where you had gone in the first place. You did miss your family and old friends, however.

It was the mother who you had befriended who gave you the push needed to reach out to them again. Your monster held your hand, letting you squeeze and fiddle with a tendril as you called your grandparents, nervousness and hope tangling together in your chest.

They were so happy to hear from you again that they started to cry, and you found yourself full-on sobbing, your monster curling close and wrapping around you and rumbling reassuringly.

They visited you as soon as they could, and while you could tell they felt as unsettled as you had at first, your grandparents were happy to see you doing well for yourself. They hugged you tightly, shedding a few more tears, and they sat quietly with you as you told them everything that had happened.

Your monster lingered at the edges of your apartment and you sensed its protective anger in the air as it listened to your story.

While it had felt darkly eager with other people’s pasts, with you, there was just dark rage on your behalf. You swore you could feel its teeth growing sharper in the walls.

Your grandparents stayed the night, and your monster was exceptionally well-behaved. There wasn’t a single moan or cry or scratch. Instead, it held you close and nuzzled your temple and rumbled as though to press the promise of safety into your very flesh.

"Are you sure you want to stay here?" your grandmother asked when you saw them off the next day, accompanying them to the train station. "I can’t help but feel like that building is a little..."

"Creepy," your grandfather cut in dryly, ruining your grandmother’s attempts to be diplomatic.

"I know," you answered with a little huff of amusement. "But I promise, I couldn’t be safer."

They said goodbye with the promise to visit again the next weekend, and you returned home with a spring in your step.

Your monster had food waiting for you, and when you asked it to come out, you lunged at it to hug it. It felt both like holding someone solid and someone made of the softest things in the universe at the same time.

It cuddled you back, pulling you on top of it, and you spent the rest of the afternoon like that, feeling warm and happy and safe.

Your old friends were next, and while some were too upset at you ghosting them to talk to you, others were deeply relieved to hear from you again.

You organized a big get-together for the following month and you felt like your life was finally back on track again. You had an okay-paying job with a nice-enough boss, and you had a lovely home with a wonderful... partner. The monster felt like more than a simple roommate, that was for sure.

You felt good.

You should have known that that was when your past would catch up to you. After work, the setting sun at your back, you caught a glimpse of your ex at the corner of the street. You were running without a second thought, and you heard his fast steps slapping onto the pavement behind you.

The unsettling feeling of your home was more than welcome as you downright slammed against the front door.

It opened just as you fished around for the key, and you felt the monster right there, concern and confusion filling the air.

You made a low, desperate noise, hands reaching forward, and the shadows grew solid, wrapping around you and pulling you inside, the last of the lingering daylight getting choked out by its presence.

You hid your face into shadows, holding on tightly and shaking as you gasped out that your ex was after you. Your feet left the ground as the monster picked you up.

One massive hand settled over your head, tendrils wrapping tighter around you.

Distantly, like it was keeping the noise away from you, you heard your ex shout your name as his hand grabbed the closing front door barely in time to yank it back open so he could rush inside after you.

The screams of terror and death that followed were even more muffled, and you couldn’t help but cry in a mixture of horror and relief. And then, silence.

Your monster patted you, gently squeezing you closer, and you got the faint impression of it moving before it settled again. It waited patiently until you managed to lift your head again, and you blinked in numb surprise to see that you were in your apartment.

Your monster radiated a bloodthirsty, dark satisfaction and you knew your ex was dead. Eaten or shredded or absorbed by the shadows. You had no idea what exactly had happened, nor did you want to know.

"Thank you," you whispered, still shaking, and the monster kept holding you as you slumped against it, closing your eyes. "Thank you."

It rumbled back, full of reassurance and comfort, and slowly, the trembling shaking eased out of you. Still, you stayed curled up in the monster’s embrace for a while longer.

"Safe," it rumbled, the word a promise. "I’ll eat whatever scares you."

You couldn’t help but release a slightly watery laugh, closing your eyes and slumping fully against it, trusting it with your weight. "Alright, deal."

It ate all your nightmares that night and in the nights that followed, hovering close during the day, a shadowy tendril wrapped around you the moment you reached out to it. It was reassuring as you slowly settled back into your skin, into your life.

The threat was gone, and when you finally met up with your old friends again, you felt mostly normal once more.

"I’m glad you got rid of him," your oldest friend sniffed as she handed you a celebratory gift, insisting that you take it. "I hope he dies in a ditch and rots."

You couldn’t help but laugh, the last of the lingering tension seeping out of you, and your friend looked very satisfied. She was one of the few who didn’t seem bothered by the creepy apartment that you lived in and after the party was over, she promised to drop by more often in the future.

When you went to bed, your monster curled around you, and you turned over to cuddle close to it. It happily and readily welcomed you, and you felt a massive, clawed hand settle against your back, holding you gently.

Your heart was filled with affection to the point that it felt like it was overflowing.

"Hey," you whispered, and it rumbled in answer, some of its blood-red eyes sliding open to peer down at you. "I love you."

It blinked, and the next moment you found yourself ensconced in darkness, in massive arms and tendrils as its mouth cracked open, grinning horror-wide.

"Love you too," it answered and added, "I’m yours."

You tried to hug it back as much as you could, hiding a giggle against it. "Good and I’m yours, too. And this is our home."

"Ours," it agreed, a little laugh slipping out with the word that made the whole building rumble faintly.

The laugh sounded too deep too be even remotely natural and was edged in a strangeness that no human throat would be able to produce. But that was perfectly fine with you. It was your monster, after all.

You fell asleep with a smile, and in the morning, your monster cuddled you until you had to get up or you’d be late to work.

You never moved out of the apartment like you had planned in the very beginning. Instead, you made it yours fully and completely.

You ended up painting the walls, and your monster helped eagerly, bleeding color over everything, and in return, the hallways got a strange, dark-gold shimmer, like its happiness affected everything it touched.

Slowly, the very last of the empty apartments were taken by others in need. Some of the folks who had gotten back on their feet left again, freeing up space for other desperate souls.

The kids moved on to college the next year, promising to come home during the holidays, and your friends and grandparents kept visiting.

You left a few times to visit your family and friends, in return, and to see some sights that you had always wanted to see, traveling for a week here and there, but you always came back.

And always, you were greeted by the monster that loved you so dearly and that you loved dearly in return.

It was a good life, even if occasionally you woke up to blood in the hallways and your monster purring like a sated beast. But that blood meant someone else got to live, that one less dark heart was beating, so you couldn’t bring yourself to feel regret.

Sometimes, a shiver still crawled down your spine, but your monster was always there to chase it away with a hug, mouth cracked open too wide as it grinned at you with too-sharp teeth, its too many eyes squinting slightly in joy.

Yeah, it was a good life, and you wouldn’t trade it for anything. Not when you felt so very much at home, so very comfortable.

Not when you were finally, truly happy.