Remi was now stuck in darkness. The sides of the closet pressing against his shoulders as he hid.
The man was outside.
He could hear his ragged inhales and his slow exhales. Through the crack between the doors, Remi caught glimpses of the man— his movements slow as he prowled around the room, a predator searching for his prey. Drowning in two large leather coats that hid his feeble body, the man was hunched over in the corner. His pants were ripped, and he had tattered old steel toe boots. A squatter— he should’ ve expected so. He watched the man through the crack, who studied the glass on the floor before looking around. His face was covered in dirt, and he had a long, black curly beard. His cold, Atlantic eyes were wide, his pupils slightly dilated. Remi’ s heart raced as the man continued to search the room, looking for the intruder— Remi. He prowled around the room, humming a strangled tune.“ Come out, come out wherever you are.” The man sang in a scratchy voice, as if his throat was made of sandpaper. He continued to sing, creepily stalking around the room searching for Remi. Whispering inaudible words to himself as he creeped around the lounge, knocking cups onto the floor and cursing at roaches. The man spun around towards a wall, he mumbled to himself before reeling back an arm and delivering a powerful punch to the wall. Remi froze as the drywall crumbled, a cold sweat wetting his palms and trickling down his forehead. He watched the crazed man stare at the hole he created for seconds, before he began to stalk around the room again. The man scanned the room, inspecting every detail of the lounge before they landed on the old oak closet. Remi’ s heart dropped, his blood slowly freezing as the man stepped forward. He could no longer see the squatter’ s face. Instead, he saw the tattered shirt of the man and the bony ribs poking out from underneath. The man began to bend down, his greying beard coming into view before Remi was staring into the man’ s dull sapphire eyes. With him so close, Remi could now see the grotesque grey film over the man’ s dilated pupil. He shivered as the cold glare of the man peered into the darkness of the closet. The squatter’ s heavy exhales were now loud in Remi’ s ears as he struggled to quiet his own shaking breath. Suddenly, it became quiet, and Remi wondered if the man would finally leave. His shoulders relaxed with the thought, but his sudden peace was quickly interrupted as the man gripped the handle of the closet. The squatter took a deep breath. Remi clamped a hand over his mouth as the closet began to violently shake, the motion tossing him into the walls.“ Come out, come out wherever you are!” The door shook dangerously as the man struggled.
Soon, it became quiet again. Eerily silent. Remi peeked through the crack once more, now met with the cold, crazed eye of the man. Pools of blue covered in the dulling grey film, like fog over an icy opaque lake, swirls of darkness seeping from the surface and floating into the air like plumes of smoke. The man’ s eyes were a grotesque, yet strangely beautiful, they would haunt Remi for years.
Remi buried his face in the sleeves of his hoodie, tears wetting the soft fabric as he silently sobbed. He wished the tears away with all of his power, but fear had crumbled his resolve.
After what felt like hours the man left, and Remi listened to his footsteps quiet as he walked down the corridor, beating in sync with his pounding heart. He hesitated, lingering in the new quietness of the room. The closet walls felt as if they had been closing in on him, slowly suffocating him as fear squeezed the air out of his lungs and he struggled against the