Oh, someone screamed behind the wall

Branzy moved into the apartment block an hour ago, a nice place not far from the outskirts of a large town, which didn’t bother him much, considering he studied remotely. The house was compact and cozy, hidden between lash gardens of unattended villas that surrounded it, a nice contrast with intimidatingly enormous glass and concrete skyscrapers back at home. The land lord — a young man with the confident smirk plastered on his face, wearing a colorful sweater and jeans — met him. “Parrot,” the man introduced himself, and wow, was that a weird name. “I hope you’ll settle down here nicely,” he said, handing over the shiny key from the door to Branzy. “I hope so too,” replied Branzy cheerfully, if still a bit anxious about the whole ordeal. “And one more thing, “ Parrot started casually, “while i’ve mentioned that on the application, I want to stress once again that your neighbor… dislikes noice a lot, so it’s essential that you don’t make too much noise. No parties, no piano practices, no loud karaoke.” That is certainly a dramatic way to make a request to keep quiet, thought Branzy. There was a faint tint of something unrecognizable in Parrot’s dark eyes as the man’s gaze slid over him for the last time before he hastily departed, muttering that he had other places to be. It went better than Branzy expected. The man — Parrot — was a bit eccentric, but he was far from the strangest person that Branzy met. So he pushed doubts into the back of his mind as he started to slowly unpack the boxes. Eventually, Branzy got so caught up in the process that he didn’t even notice that the evening came, until the rays of sun turned from golden to fiery red. He straightened up, back cracking after hours spent crouching over the boxes. He internally groaned from the feeling of dizziness in his head. When Branzy opened balcony, the strong gust of wind hit him, bringing the freshness of the evening air and the smell of pines, monumental, century-old trees, which were growing practically in the backyard. They were so close, that Branzy could see individual branches with the dark needles overlapping and creating surreal shapes. The enormous red disk of the evening sun was about to disappear behind the treetops. The young night bursted into life, scattering the stars that shined so bright on the sky, completely overshadowing crumbs that could be seen during the night at the polluted cities. It was eerily quiet, with only the gusts of wind breaking silence from time to time, which was unnerving Branzy. There was a road laying not that far away, but with how empty it was, it only fortified the menacing image of the scenery in front of him. If Rek was here, he would have said that this place was straight out of horror movie and that Branzy was an idiot for choosing to reside in this place. And this thought made something clench in his heart. Not only because he was already missing his best friend, but because the statement wouldn’t have been wrong. Logically speaking, there was probably nothing to be worried about, but memories of the house records came to his mind. The frequent bear attacks, leading to a couple of deadly encounters and most of the residents leaving about twenty years ago. Then, as suddenly as the began, the bear attacks stopped. However, most of the people never came back, selling their houses nearly for nothing or just leaving them to slowly decay. Nowadays, though still secluded, it seemed that the block wasn’t as isolated as it was back then, renovated buildings with the rental apartments, shops and supermarkets opening once again. Not that it didn’t put off Branzy at all, especially in the beginning, but with the lack of recent bear sightings and astoundingly low rent, the pros seemed to outweigh the cons. Rek, being the one who helped him to find out about the happenings, was completely against Branzy even coming close to the area so much, that they had a fight about it. As his best friend, he also knew that it was impossible to convince Branzy not to do something, if he set his mind to it. Suddenly, the train of thoughts come to a sudden stop, when Branzy noticed something red shining in the distance, right in the darkness created by trees. There were two barely distinguishable lights at the height of approximately three meters from the ground. Against what his mind, which sounded suspiciously like Rek, was screaming at him, Branzy squinted, leaning towards the balcony railing, trying to find the origins of the lights. Were there automatic lanterns hanging on the pines, perhaps hidden street lights? Shattering all of his previous assumptions, lights moved, cutting the distance between them and him, the realization hitting Branzy — oh heck — those were eyes. From the depth of the forest eyes were piercing him, and now that they nudged closer, he could make out the rest of the body. Oh, gosh, it was slim and inhumanly tall, its frame sharp and head adorned by two goat-like horns, head tilted, horrifyingly large smile on the face. Branzy’s heart was pounding loudly in his ears, the only sound he could hear now. He felt like a frozen animal caught in the headlights of a car, unable to move in front of his inevitable demise. It felt like the time he and the being glared at each other lasted forever, it was like he couldn’t tear his gaze away or even blink, captivated by two red lights that were burning through him. Then two things happened at once, first, it rushed forward, and how was it even able to be more frightening than when it was standing still?! Second, Branzy got back the control over his body, staggering back inside the flat and shutting the balcony door with the deafening ‘clang’ faster than he ever did before. Branzy pressed his back firmly against the cool surface, terror settling deep in his bones. What the heck was it? Oh man, he probably won’t live until the next morning… he should have listened to Rek, when his friend said something was fishy about this place. It was like he became a horror movie character, one that is killed off during the prologue. Is this how he would meet his end? Alone and afraid? No, that could not be all that there is to his life. Maybe all of this wasn’t real, he hopes it wasn’t… Then someone (or something) demandingly knocked on his door. Branzy slowly got up and steadily, step by step, came on the stiff legs to the door. “Who is there?” he asked and for a second he didn’t recognize his own voice, so unfamiliar and foreign has it sounded, so quiet and unsure. “Have you lost your car keys, by any chance?” Relief flooded Branzy, because the voice without a doubt belonged to Parrot (if the being didn’t have an ability to imitate people’s voices, then he was screwed). Branzy couldn’t believe he was thinking this, but he was actually happy to talk to anyone, even a landlord. He turned the lock cautiously, eyeing the person through the chink, ready to shut the heavy door, if the person on the other side wasn’t Parrot (or a person at all). But behind the door stood Parror, only he was so different from the person he met and conversed with earlier today, this Parrot was disheveled and strangely tired, his face so strikingly pale that it couldn’t be just a trick of the moonlight. The man crossed the threshold, getting closer to Branzy to reveal the car key on a ring, it looked rusty and it was hard to imagine that it still worked. It was probably an appropriate time to answer the question. “No, that’s not mine,” Branzy finally retaliated. And then they stood in awkward silence a bit more. Parrot was about to close the door, when Branzy gasped out quiet “Wait”. Branzy wanted to say something, but words got stuck in his throat, after all, what could he say. That he saw a 4-meter creature with creepy red eyes and horns? Who would believe him, aside Rek, a firm believer in paranormal. Some part of him screamed that Parrot had to know about it. But other part argued that maybe he didn’t, surely he would not have kept a secret that could have gotten Branzy killed, surely, if he knew there was a deadly monster nearby, he wouldn’t have come. So he kept his mouth shut about what really has occurred, instead saying: “I’ve heard some suspicious noises and then seen some animal in the woods, it looked pretty big, so I am, uhm, kinda worried?” Parrot’s ever present expression, which seemed to be an opposite of the resting bitch face, turned into a frown for a second, before going back to normal. “I’ll look into it,” he promised, putting on a smile that was supposed to be reassuring. “This place has quite the reputation, but it wasn’t a bear, don’t worry. Most likely a really large fox or someone’s run away Saint Bernard.” The man calmly wished Branzy farewell, closing the door behind himself with the soft click. The moment the lock turned, Parrot dropped the keys back inside the jeans pocket and threw his head back, groaning in frustration. Why was solving everyone’s problems always on him? Maybe because he himself was the only responsible person the landlord knew. If he did nothing right now and just swept the situation under the rug, pretending that nothing had happened, that guy could easily become the shortest (living) tenant. Clown just had to do his thing, huh.