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Description
The bulbs were spaced out unevenly by poor architectural design. As such the corridor was barely illuminated by a washed out yellow tone from those furthest from me while the nearest – the one just outside my apartment – flickered and threatened to go out. The enclosed space of the hallway was a miserable display of amber light being choked out by darkness. At times like these the shadows cast by a fledgling mass of intangible light was as comforting as eerie cries cast by bird or bug amidst a graveyard landscape.

Every wooden door was stained by ribbons of decay trickling down their surfaces while numerals set into dull brass marked every tomb in a cumulative order – though I suspected that while some tenants lived alone, other efficiencies housed families which skewed the numbers. Stepping through the narrow passage, I noticed like never before how the speckled stains thickened while nearing the ceiling. The rot cascading down the walls complimented an absence of light in such a fashion that I could not distinguish those patterns held within the black and maroon carpet beneath my feet.

While passing the flickering light just above and beyond the threshold of my home I could only hear the sway of my patch-worked coat and the swelling of my heart to an expected increase in rhythm. I was scared and reluctant with every right to be...

I knew not what to expect beyond the door leading to the stairwell, though I should have expected to stay away from the holes in the walls. I could feel toothy grins as they oozed a sinister bile not unlike venomous snakes baring sets of fangs dripping with poison. Empty sockets watched me from the place where their eyes should have been; they peered straight ahead through the openings in the walls as the broken-down corridor became portals through which they could observe me as if stationed within haphazard ramparts. I could feel the ungodly breath of animated husks extending beyond the faltering structure, wrapping its invisible coils of death around my face, neck, and hands.

The buzzing swarm of flies and the hum of the dying light nearly choked out the sound of my own feet as wooden floor-boards beneath the carpet creaked responsively to every step. I was dreadfully certain that they heard it all. It was chilling that while I only dared to witness them from the corner of my eye, I caught just enough of their still visages to continue my state of alarm. Gripping an axe tightly against my chest, I anticipated their actions – I expected them to rush closer with snapping maws and bestial talons – while prepared to retaliate and hack away at hideous appendages. I was somewhat shocked that they didn't. They mocked true life and I knew this only by the subtle movements and slight flinches, reminiscent of amateur mimes feigning statuesque charades.

My name is Noble. I'm the last living inhabitant of the Maddox Apartment building. I walk between the layers of reality as though they are deep and shallow waters – crossing in and out of the nightmares that took my neighbors and replaced them with bogeymen and night-gaunts. The one constant spread like a blanket over the bodies of both worlds is the stench – of ruin, of rot, of the festering evil bleeding into all that was once good.

Description
The bulbs were spaced out unevenly by poor architectural design. As such the corridor was barely illuminated by a washed out yellow tone from those furthest from me while the nearest – the one just outside my apartment – flickered and threatened to go out. The enclosed space of the hallway was a miserable display of amber light being choked out by darkness. At times like these the shadows cast by a fledgling mass of intangible light was as comforting as eerie cries cast by bird or bug amidst a graveyard landscape.

Every wooden door was stained by ribbons of decay trickling down their surfaces while numerals set into dull brass marked every tomb in a cumulative order – though I suspected that while some tenants lived alone, other efficiencies housed families which skewed the numbers. Stepping through the narrow passage, I noticed like never before how the speckled stains thickened while nearing the ceiling. The rot cascading down the walls complimented an absence of light in such a fashion that I could not distinguish those patterns held within the black and maroon carpet beneath my feet.

While passing the flickering light just above and beyond the threshold of my home I could only hear the sway of my patch-worked coat and the swelling of my heart to an expected increase in rhythm. I was scared and reluctant with every right to be...

I knew not what to expect beyond the door leading to the stairwell, though I should have expected to stay away from the holes in the walls. I could feel toothy grins as they oozed a sinister bile not unlike venomous snakes baring sets of fangs dripping with poison. Empty sockets watched me from the place where their eyes should have been; they peered straight ahead through the openings in the walls as the broken-down corridor became portals through which they could observe me as if stationed within haphazard ramparts. I could feel the ungodly breath of animated husks extending beyond the faltering structure, wrapping its invisible coils of death around my face, neck, and hands.

The buzzing swarm of flies and the hum of the dying light nearly choked out the sound of my own feet as wooden floor-boards beneath the carpet creaked responsively to every step. I was dreadfully certain that they heard it all. It was chilling that while I only dared to witness them from the corner of my eye, I caught just enough of their still visages to continue my state of alarm. Gripping an axe tightly against my chest, I anticipated their actions – I expected them to rush closer with snapping maws and bestial talons – while prepared to retaliate and hack away at hideous appendages. I was somewhat shocked that they didn't. They mocked true life and I knew this only by the subtle movements and slight flinches, reminiscent of amateur mimes feigning statuesque charades.

My name is Noble. I'm the last living inhabitant of the Maddox Apartment building. I walk between the layers of reality as though they are deep and shallow waters – crossing in and out of the nightmares that took my neighbors and replaced them with bogeymen and night-gaunts. The one constant spread like a blanket over the bodies of both worlds is the stench – of ruin, of rot, of the festering evil bleeding into all that was once good.