The flat isn't new anymore and I need a better guide.

It's been a long time since I moved into this flat, picked up that damn note from the tenant before me, and unlocked a world of demon window cleaners and vile, rat-like creatures that live in the communal lift.

I don't even really know how to begin this but I think I owe you all an apology. You warned me, gave me advice, and tried to stop me from making the biggest damn mistake of my life. I didn't listen. Instead, I let my emotional immaturity get the better of me. I really wish I'd listened.

I'm sorry I ghosted you all. I was embarrassed. I know I disappeared without a word and for that I really am sorry. I can't blame any of you for comparing me to Prudence.

The events following my moving into the block had me in such an emotional place. You have to understand, it was a lot to take in, no one can be truly equipped to live somewhere like this, it was bound to catch up with me eventually.

The months since I last updated you have been hellish and now I've found myself in further trouble. It wasn't long after my last post that I caught Jamie. I enticed him into the flat with cat food left out by the door. I ran the risk of being mauled alive by the remaining lift creatures to capture my monstrosity of a boyfriend.

He was smaller than I thought. I expected him to be much larger than Lyla because of the age difference, but he wasn't. Maybe as big as a large dog. Something I missed about Jamie more than anything was his once huge stature, an odd quality to consider, I know, but he was 6'3" and his cuddles felt like the safest place I'd ever been.

Looking at the small, deformed, humanoid creature, hunched over, crunching on cat biscuits with its sharp, jagged teeth tucked under a grotesque rodent nose made me feel sick. I instantly knew that I'd made a mistake, that the love of my life was gone for good, but that thing had Jamie's eyes, they were unmistakable.

Suddenly Prudence's need to keep Lyla around made sense. I could see an entire life in those eyes that had been ripped away from me and I was too selfish to let it go. I suppose in that respect I'm exactly like her. Exactly what you all think. A monster.

I fashioned a place to keep him hidden in the large built-in wardrobe of our bedroom. It wasn't like Lyla's cage was - cold and restrictive - it had space, lights, and photos of us before everything happened.

It was like a walk-in wardrobe, ironically it was something that originally attracted me to the flat. The only similarity to Lyla's tiny cage was the large padlock that secured it.

I tried everything to bring that little piece of Jamie left inside the creature out, I really did. I sat with him for hours, talking about our lives, reminiscing, and trying to feed him his favorite meals. He would make awful raspy noises when I spoke to him at first; grunting and wheezing as if he were struggling to breathe.

I received more than a few bites and scratches and he refused to eat anything that I gave him, opting for scraps instead.

I thought about killing him. A lot. It's a position I never thought I'd be in when we were searching for a home together and at some point, I realized I consider it daily. I've come close to attempting it more than a few times but every time I look at those damn eyes I can't. I'm weak.

So I've tried to cope. I've taken the best care of him that I can. I've gotten involved with my neighbors, I babysat Terri's twins twice a week at her place while she slept and I'm actively involved in the residents' committee.

I never told anyone what I did, aside from all of you. There are only two people I feel I could admit my mistakes to; one was locked in my wardrobe, whilst the other was seemingly gone forever.

Despite this, I kept the garden immaculate in the hope that one day Derek would return and it kept me sane. I even managed to revive one of the shrubs that Prudence tried to butcher during her attack, but no matter how much love I gave, it just wouldn't flourish and the bench remained empty.

All this whilst I kept my deepest shame in my bedroom cupboard.

Regardless of all the anguish this place has brought me, there's nowhere else in the world I would consider home anymore. I've never felt more connected to a place in my life. So I've stayed, I've coped, and I kept busy.

The tower block may be special, and its residents may often live in another world but we weren't completely immune to the outside. Government lockdown hit us recently, too. With lockdown came the loss of routine as we knew it.

The whole building went into chaos and I was no exception. Being trapped in the flat with him all day undid months' worth of self-distraction and denial in a matter of hours. I'd never been more aware of what an abhorrent thing I'd done than those first few weeks.

The other residents were going through their own crises. Terri hadn't slept in weeks, we FaceTimed regularly and I missed her and the kids terribly. Every time I spoke to her, she looked awful. There was wailing at night, banging at all hours of the day, and a whole building's worth of inhabitants struggling.

When they deemed window cleaning non-essential it sent that particular pest into chaos; he still appeared on the balconies but instead of the relentless niceties he just scratched desperately at the window. I tried not to open the curtains I finally got around to buying a few months ago, I couldn't take his pleading eyes.

The residents' committee tried to put things in place to keep the block going. We were running zoom meetings and a number of us started collecting essentials for the elderly and vulnerable residents of our floors, having socially distanced chats with them from the corridor as we drop off. To be honest, it was as much a lifeline for me as the elderly residents... anything to get out of the flat, away from him.

I was allocated three residents from my floor, living in flats 48, 51, and 43.

Percy and Sylvia live in flat 43, they're next door to me and generally very pleasant. Sylvia has a breathing problem so they had to isolate. They're older, but very independent, most of the time they just needed a few essentials and didn't want to chat.

Mr. Prentice from flat 48 was easy, too. He'd been an intensely private man since I'd known him and lockdown hadn't changed that. He did seem to make more of the animalistic noises I'd come to know him for, but I think being trapped inside would do that to anyone with his particular afflictions. Since he trampled Prudence, I'd been much more tolerant of the sounds anyway.

The only thing I really learned about him from doing his shopping is that he loves a drink and there's often a bottle of whiskey in the bag he carries home with his newspaper inside.

Once a week he asked me to drop off an envelope of cash to the pub he drinks in, The Pickled Gnome. He said that the owner is a good friend and he worries about her getting by financially with the pub shut at the moment. It warmed my heart. He's such a lovely man.

Flat 51 was different from the other two. I hadn't ever met the occupant, despite having lived here for almost a year now. I'd seen a young man going in and out occasionally but he never stayed long.

The flat was occupied by Ms. Esther Beckman, a blind, elderly widow. The man visiting was her son, who had his own profoundly disabled child and couldn't support his mother through the pandemic.

The first time I knocked on her door I was nervous. I wasn't sure why, I just felt uncomfortable trying to help someone I knew nothing about. I knocked and stood back, it took a few moments for Ms. Beckman to answer.

Esther had wild grayed hair, she hadn't cut it like most older ladies tend to, she'd allowed it to grow and it had formed spectacular waves. She was well-presented and I'm embarrassed to say I didn't expect that from a blind person. She wore a satin blue dressing gown over the top of a white day dress and had a pair of comfortable-looking slippers on, that perfectly matched the color of her dressing gown.

"Are you the girl Molly phoned about? I told her I'm fine but the interfering old bat insisted," she greeted me with, rummaging in the pocket of her dressing gown for a packet of cigarettes, I watched her open the pack and light the last one.

Her brash attitude didn't put me off, I liked people with a bit of tenacity and I wasn't particularly fond of the residents' committee's chairperson, Molly Thompson, either.

"I'm Kat. Although I'm sure Molly will have referred to me as Katherine... not my name by the way. Anyway, I'm happy to pick up anything that you need, and I'm here if you just want to chat," I stumbled a little as I spoke. Esther laughed.

"See, even interfering in something as personal as your name. I never liked that woman." She paused and took a few drags of her cigarette, hesitating before she continued.

"I don't need much. If you could grab me a pack of cigarettes and a microwave meal every day I'm fine. I don't like to ask, but my son can't come and without a smoke, I think I'd go potty." She took another long drag of her cigarette and reached into her pocket to pull out some change and a twenty-pound note. She winced a little as she asked for help, it clearly wasn't something she was used to.

"Throw me the packet, so I know which brand to get," I answered.

Ester threw me the empty carton after shoving her money inside and I barely caught it. She smoked the same brand I did so I reached into my pocket and pulled out 3 or 4 individual cigs and tossed them back. They hit the floor. Shit. She's blind, I thought, mortified.

"There's a few cigs on the floor in front of you... sorry... I didn't think. But they're the same as yours, they should keep you going until I get back." As I said that, she smiled properly for the first time.

"You're alright, aren't you? Thanks. Before you go, just a bit of advice for you. Take the route through the park instead of round," she answered.

I thought it was strange but everything in the tower was. I told her that I would and said my goodbyes. The stairs that constantly skipped weren't kind to me that trip, the 7 flights became 18 and by the time I reached the bottom my thighs were burning.

I exited the building and thought about Esther's suggestion. The route around the park was quicker, but I decided a pleasant wander through the trees would only keep me away from Jamie for longer so without any further hesitation I took her advice. My legs were sore from the stairs but it was a beautiful day.

About halfway through the park, I heard a loud crash and the screeching of car tires followed by screaming. I sped up and when I finally reached the exit, I turned the corner toward the shop and the source of the noise. It was utter carnage. A car had slammed into a motorbike at a zebra crossing and caused a devastating accident. Crowds gathered, with multiple people on the phone with emergency services.

I was shaken entering the shop, I couldn't stop thinking about the poor people involved in the crash. Esther's words echoed in my mind as I thought about the fact that had I taken the usual route I would have probably been crossing at the crash site as it happened.

The realization that Ms. Beckman's suggestion had saved my life sent my mind into overdrive. I know that many of you think I learned nothing from my experiences moving into the block, but I did learn that there are no coincidences here. She had known exactly what was going to happen.

I left the shop and chose to go back through the park, I was leaving nothing to chance, but it frustrated me that I couldn't get back home quicker. When I reached the building I flung the main door open and started to climb the stairs. They must have sensed my urgency because they only made me climb four flights this time.

I stared at the numbers on the flat door. 51. Why had I never met her before? Why had she been hiding in her flat? I placed the shopping bag close to the door, rapped hard on it with my knuckles, and shouted.

"Ms. Beckman!" A few moments passed. I knocked again.

"Give me a chance to open the door, Kat. And please. It's Essie. Or would you prefer I called you Katherine?" She opened the door and replied, scoffing as she said "Katherine".

"How did you know?" I demanded.

"Know what?"

"You know what. You saved my life. The crash!"

"I didn't save your life. I knew that if you walked around the park you'd be in trouble. I had no idea there would be a crash, I just made a suggestion. You saved your own life when you took it," she said flippantly.

"So you can see the future?" I asked, desperate for answers.

"Don't you dare! Blind woman... second sight. My whole life, the residents of this block have tried to reduce me to a walking cliche and I'm not doing it anymore! I don't see anything, I've been blind since birth. I've just always had a particularly accurate instinct," she spoke with passion. I could see why she locked herself away. If the other residents knew about her talents I'm sure she was hounded.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I haven't been here long, these things still surprise me. Thank you for sharing your instinct. I would've been squished if you didn't."

"Well, I'm glad you weren't." She reached down and picked up the shopping bag, taking out the packet of cigarettes to open and light one. "Thanks for this," she said rustling the bag with her fingers. "What flat do you live in?"

"Number 42," I answered. Essie beamed.

"Hah! I overheard someone saying that the old witch was dead but I wasn't sure I believed them. I thought Prudence Hemmings would ride out a nuclear apocalypse like the cockroach she was." I cringed at the sound of her name. I try not to think about her too much, or what she put me through. I try to focus on what I love about the block. Essie could tell she struck a nerve. "Did I hit a sore point?" she continued, noting my discomfort.

"I wasn't a fan of Prudence either. The idea of her coming back with cockroach antennae in the night will keep me awake now," I answered, trying to lighten the mood.

"You're funny. If antennae would've benefitted that woman she'd have done anything to grow them. It's nice to have some young blood in this place. It was all starting to get a bit old and stale. Take care, Kat." We said our goodbyes and she closed the door.

That night I thought about Essie. I imagined introducing her to the twins. I was sure she would love them, and I thought of trying to get her involved in the block again when all this was over. It made me smile. Unfortunately, my happy thoughts were soon interrupted by Jamie.

I sat on my bed with a cup of tea and could hear him from the cupboard, scratching and wheezing. I went and opened it up to stroke him a few times. Saliva dripped from his sharp teeth down his deformed jaw. It disgusted me.

I shut my eyes and tried to imagine my once gorgeous boyfriend, arms around me on the mattress on the floor of the flat for the one night that we got to spend here together. I wished every day to go back to that, but it would never happen. When I opened my eyes there he was... that monster.

I got close to Essie over those first few weeks. I got her cigarettes and a microwave meal every day and we chatted at the door. After a few days, I was taking my morning cup of tea to sit in the corridor and talk to her. I started making enough food for two so that she could have something home cooked. She hated my lasagna, but she was grateful.

She had lost her husband young, not long after she had her son, and never dated again. Her life was fascinating. She'd spent years as a social worker before she retired. She said that her instinct helped her give great advice to her clients and she'd managed to help a lot of people out of bad situations. Essie may have been older, but she was full of life.

I asked her why I never saw her, why she never came to committee meetings or got involved. As I suspected, she'd grown sick of the whole block hounding her for predictions about their lives. She told me that once Molly had begged her to tell her the gender of her unborn grandchild before the child's mother had found out so that she could hold it over her.

It sounded like it got intense. People were offering to pay for the winning lottery numbers, or the bank details of Bill Gates. They didn't want to listen when she tried to tell them that it wasn't how it worked; so she kept a distance, saw her son and that was about it.

It made me sad, I vowed that even after this lockdown was over I was going to keep spending time with Essie. I didn't want to think of anyone holed up at home all the time without anyone to talk to. I told Terri about her, and she remembered Essie being friends with her parents while she was growing up. Terri told me she'd been a resident forever.

I dropped Essie's shopping at the door and sat down in the corridor to chat as usual one afternoon. We spoke about music and her love of jazz. It was pleasant. Just before I left, she stopped me and told me that she had an instinct that she needed to tell me about. It was unusual, she didn't like to share them and I didn't like to pester, but she insisted it was important.

"Kat, one of your friends needs help. You need to know that it is possible. It won't be easy but if you look hard enough you will find a way."

That was all she said. She claimed it was all she knew, but I think Essie liked to hold things back sometimes. Either way, it was cryptic and confusing. I lamented her for it.

"That's all you're giving me? What am I supposed to do with that?" I quizzed her.

"Haven't got a fucking clue," she replied, lighting yet another cigarette. "I got an instinct and I told you. What more do you want? There are others in this block that would kill for one of Essie Beckman's famous instincts." She laughed and flipped her wild hair mockingly.

I sat in the corridor outside hers for a while, even after she closed the door. I thought about what her instinct could mean.

When I finally gathered up the stomach to enter my flat, I thought of Jamie. What if it meant I could help him? What if what I'd done was reversible? What if there was hope?

Or maybe it meant that killing him really was the only way I could help him, and if I looked at myself hard enough I'd finally find the strength to follow through.

I struggled to sleep that night despite trying to go to bed early. Every scratch, wheeze, and gasp from the cupboard sent me bolt upright and it took until just after 1 am before I finally drifted off.

When I woke in the morning I had 5 missed calls from Terri, 2 from 3 am and 3 from that morning. My heart dropped. The kids. I knew Ellie had been going through a stage of trying to get out of the flat and I was terrified something had happened to her.

I could barely hold the phone as I dialed back. Thankfully, she answered quickly.

"Terri! Are you okay? What's happened? Are the kids okay?" I practically screamed at her down the microphone.

"Kat, I'm fine. We're fine! But I have to tell you something." Terri was serious, she was never serious.

"What is it?"

"Last night, Ellie got out. She made it all the way up to your floor to try and visit you by the time I caught up with her. As I was about to march her downstairs I spotted something. It's Ms. Beckman, Kat.... She was walking into the lift." Her words cut into my soul. I let out a gentle sob.

"I'm sorry, Kat. I tried to stop her, I screamed her name but she didn't turn. She just walked in. I couldn't do anymore, I had Ellie there and when I checked the time... it was quarter past 2. I'm so sorry."

And that's where this predicament begins, in an ironically similar place to before, with me mourning the loss of a loved one to the lift.

When one door closes another opens.

The death of Ms. Esther Beckman hit me hard. She would've lambasted me for writing her name that way but I feel like it's important that people remember it in its entirety. Essie was special, she deserves that much.

I didn't get to spend long with her, but I was grateful that I'd met her at all. The committee's initiative to shop for vulnerable residents during lockdown had been devised to benefit those residents but I believe that I had needed Essie more than she ever needed me. She'd become my lifeline in that short time. The only distraction from my atrocious misjudgments. And she was gone.

When I got off the phone from Terri, I lit up a cigarette for Essie. I quietly sobbed at my fold-up table into my cup of tea. I couldn't understand why she would do what she did. Walking into the lift between 1.11 and 3.33 as the creatures who inhabited it were at the height of their frenzy was an unmistakable suicide.

I felt the pang of loss. It, in turn, ignited an emotional muscle memory and I was put back in the place I had been in all those months ago. I felt every emotion I had felt when I stepped into the lift and repeated the ritual. When I sentenced Jamie to a life spent as one of them things.

Essie was the first to perish in the lift since the creatures ripped Jamie apart on the night we moved in. The whole block is aware of the dangers, which ironically, made the risk pretty low. Prudence Hemmings' negligence had lead to my tragedy but there was nothing to explain what had happened to my new friend.

I had only known her for a short time but she really was full of life. She spoke about missing her son and grandson and how we would get to have a cup of tea together that I didn't have to drink in the corridor one day. She had plans. I didn't believe that she'd wanted to die.

Her last words of advice to me rang through my mind.

One of your friends needs help. You need to know that it is possible.

What if she had been talking about herself and she just hadn't realized? I wondered if I'd already failed her. Maybe this wasn't about Jamie at all. Ideas snowballed in my mind for what felt like hours, sitting at that table.

My thoughts were eventually interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Terri and the kids. I opened and they stood back a safe distance.

"I'm sorry, Kat. I know you probably want to be alone but the the kids knew you'd be sad about Ms. Beckman and they wanted to come and see you.

"I've already dropped some bits off to Mr. Prentice and the couple next door, so you don't have to worry today."

Terri was sweet. She's been nothing but nice to me right from the start and I loved those kids like my own flesh and blood. She was wrong about me wanting to be alone, just seeing the twins' faces lifted my spirits.

"Here's an air hug, Kat!" Eddie made a cuddling motion with his arms, gripping the thin air of the corridor. It was adorable. One of the hairless cats that walk the halls played at his feet, being careful not to brush against him so as not to burn his young skin.

"Air hugs back," I answered. "I miss you guys."

"We miss you, too! Mum says she can't wait until you can babysit us again! Don't be sad," Ellie added, melting my heart a little. They were growing into such kind and amazing people. You would struggle to believe that they looked like demons all night long and never slept.

I could see that Terri was struggling. She had huge dark circles under her eyes and had yawned multiple times in a short interaction. I felt for her, as much as I love those kids the lack of sleep when I do sit for them is killer. I couldn't imagine having gone as long as we'd been locked down existing on stolen hours here and there like Terri does.

"I can't wait either! We're going to have so much..." I couldn't finish my sentence, my attention was grabbed by an almighty scraping sound coming from inside my flat.

"Are you okay?" Terri started, noticing my sudden silence and change of expression.

"I'm fine," I answered bluntly.

I wasn't. The noise became more frantic in the background.

"What's that noise, Kat?" Eddie asked with a childlike innocence. I didn't want to lie him but I had no intention of telling the truth. There was a reason I only babysat in Terri's flat. I couldn't bare for the kids to be at risk or think of me as a monster. The scraping and scratching slowly started to become bangs and crashes.

"I have to go. Thank you for coming to see me. You've made my day, guys, you have no idea. I'll see you soon I promise." And with that I shut the door and bolted the latch.

I felt awful. I never wanted to be so rude, they had treated me as family but after dragging them through so much when we first met I didn't want to subject them to him. They didn't deserve to suffer my mistakes.

I ran to the padlocked wardrobe and froze, staring at it for a few minutes. I watched as the central line where the two doors met expanded and contracted with every pound from inside. As if the doors were breathing. He had started to wheeze and grunt uncontrollably. In all these months I hadn't seen behavior like it. I was genuinely fearful that if I opened the door he would rip me apart, limb from limb.

How the fuck did my life come to that? Hiding from my undead, semi-rodent boyfriend.

I sat down in front of the breathing doors with my back to them in an attempt to keep him in and cried. I felt like that's all I'd done. Cried. The fighting spirit had been knocked out of me. I'd been reduced to a snivelling mess.

The pounding on the door didn't stop. As the time passed he didn't calm down, he just became more desperate, frenzied. I wondered if this was how the ones in the lift had behaved before they tore him to pieces... or as Essie waltzed into their territory. Maybe he was only behaving this way because the others had finally gotten a victim.

My phone went off multiple times, it was Terri. I threw the still ringing phone across the floor and held my head in my hands.

thump

grunt

buzz

It became a pattern. The pounding against my back, the phone ringing. All the noises around me started to become formulaic and repetitive. I wanted it to stop so bad.

"I don't need this right now, Jamie," I begged, frustrated. I didn't expect a reply. I'd spoken to him often, trying with everything I could think of to dig out the man I knew, with increasing futility. Regardless, I found it therapeutic to talk.

Not once had I gotten a reply. Until then.

"KA... KA," he rasped in something that I can't really describe as a proper voice. The pounding had stopped. Only the raspy breaths and sounds of saliva dripping from his mouth remained. "KAA... AT," he wheezed finally, as if in pain.

The tears stopped, I jumped up immediately and fumbled with the key to the padlock to open his prison. As it opened he stared at me, Jamie's eyes looking sad and desperate. I stared back, wiping the tears from my face. For a brief interlude, it wasn't the creature looking back at me, it really was Jamie.

It hurt. For just a moment, I was truly alone with my soulmate. But it didn't last, it couldn't.

His eyes turned from the familiar blue tone to black. It made him look more rodent-like, the lack of a distinguishable iris made them beady, just like a rat. I stood still, watching uncomfortably as he stood on his hind legs, stretching out from his usual hunched positioning. I noted the sharp teeth, tucked underneath his deformed and fleshy nose. It was one of the few patches with no fur.

In the blink of an eye he launched himself forward, clawing at my face. I was taken off guard and flew backward as he made contact. He hesitated on top of me, my face inches from his grotesque snout for a moment, baring his teeth with a lust in those black eyes, spittle dripping onto my face from the tips of his sharpened fangs.

He didn't seem so small anymore.

It gave me just enough time to roll the fire poker I kept up against the wardrobe toward me. Weaponizing the entire flat was a rule of Prudence's that, unlike others, had actually proved useful. I gripped it with my right hand as I felt his claws start to penetrate my chest, sending a seering pain through my body.

I plunged the poker into the side of Rat Jamie's neck. Watching as deep crimson blood splattered across the room and the doors of the wardrobe, I started to hyperventilate. He rolled off me in a heavy slump.

Had I killed him? I thought. Was my nightmare finally over? I agonized over the fact I hadn't had the bottle to put him out of his misery but had been able to follow through when he attacked me. I felt like such a selfish person.

Despite this, I was relieved, looking at the blood and the unmoving fur heap on the floor next to me. My hand shook violently, alerting me that I was still holding the poker. I dropped it instantly with a loud clank and took a moment to breathe.

My relief was short-lived. The furry patchy heap on the floor started to slowly rise and sink rhythmically. He was breathing. Blood stopped pouring from the wound and he lethargically raised a clawed hand to wipe at the area like an animal would. I took no chances and dragged him back into the cupboard before his strength rebuilt.

I know what you're all thinking and I assure you, it crossed my mind, too. Just keep going, keep stabbing until he doesn't wake up. It's a reasonable thought process. I wish it were that simple, but nothing in this building is. If he got up from that attack, stabbing wasn't the answer. He should've been dead... three times over with the amount of blood lost. Even if I wanted him dead, at this stage I had no idea how.

It fucked me up. Trying to make connections between his sudden ability to communicate, the attack, and Essie's prediction. I didn't even know where to start.

I placed a bowl of cat food next to the weary creature, locked the cupboard, and placed the second, unnecessary, chair from my fold-out table against the center of the two doors. I was at a total loss and things were spiralling out of control.

I sat on the now-singular chair in my living room and smoked. I smoked and I drank tea. I think it must be some kind of ingrained British coping mechanism I've adopted, because whilst it didn't cure my anxiety, it did calm me down.

I texted Terri to tell her everything was fine. I tried to type out the truth... multiple times, but I deleted every single attempt. I didn't know how to tell her I'd lied to her for all this time. So I carried on lying.

She had always told me she was there if I needed to talk. I know she meant it, she was the most loyal friend I'd ever had. Which is why disappointing her was even more terrifying.

After a few hours, the screaming started. The inhuman, earth-shattering screaming with intervals of low growls. Jamie had come to.

The noises rivalled Mr. Prentice's and I wondered if the neighbors would be concerned, but in a block like mine late-night screaming and growling is the norm. Jamie could be eating me alive and no one might think to check. Even if they did, there's not much they could do to help. I visualized Percy and Sylvia turning up their television to drown out my screams.

It wasn't screams of pain, it was anger. A battle cry. The attack he'd subjected me to was just a warning. I could feel the disdain coming through the thin wooden barrier separating us. If his behavior continued, I was going to be dead, for sure.

About 11 pm, I couldn't take it anymore and I decided I was going to take my government-approved exercise and get the fuck out of my four walls.

The halls were alive. The more peaceful of our not-so-average residents had utilized the quiet time to enjoy their home. The cats frolicked, wrestling and chasing each other up and down the stairs. I wondered if they skipped for them, too, and if they'd ever escaped each other by ending up on different floors.

As I descended, the man on floor 5 was as stoic as ever. I smiled. He had become somewhat of a favorite of mine. Passing him on the stairs always meant that home was nearby.

"Hi, Clive!" I waved at him as I passed. I gave him a different name every time in the hope that one day I would get it right. He didn't respond, didn't even look, but then again he never did. I added Clive to my catalog of not-names.

The boy who lived in the mirror that runs adjacent to the stairs waved. His hair was tousled and messy and he wore a stained green-stripe T-shirt. He pulled faces and blew raspberries frantically at me in my reflection. I blew them back, pushing up the center of my nose to resemble a pig, which was met with silent, roaring laughter.

The stairs were poorly lit at night, but I still managed to count every landing I reached. 9 flights this time. Not bad, I thought, grateful it wasn't any worse. When I reached the bottom I felt a release, like everything bad about my life was locked away in that flat and I was free.

It was chilly outside. I had worn a thin cardigan but I could still feel it in the air. I made a beeline for the bench by the postage stamp of a garden next to the block. It was strange to see the city so empty. Usually outside the tower was brimming with activity, but the threat of the virus had left it desolate. As I sat in the cool air, I tried to clear my mind.

A good friend once told me that being in nature helps our brains to release serotonin and it's true. The soil will literally make you happier. I tried to embrace the serenity of the nature but it was soon infiltrated by a series of tiny mewing sounds coming from the foliage I had planted against the outer wall of the block.

I fumbled in my pockets for my phone and played around with it until the torch turned on. I approached the greenery with caution, not wanting to spook a cat if it was injured in there.

The fallen bits of foliage crunched underneath my feet as I got closer to the small shrub but the mewing didn't stop. After a gentle search, I realized that the sound was coming from three tiny kittens.

They were so small, with wrinkled, furless skin. They weren't newborn, their eyes were open and they were relatively alert. They were for certain offspring of the cats that wandered the halls. I was baffled, I'd had no idea they could reproduce. As the largest of the three rubbed its head against my hand, I felt my fingers singe a little.

I sat with the kittens for ages. They took the opportunity to sit in my lap pretty quickly and I waited for their mother to return. I grew increasingly worried and the three little naked kittens seemed to get cold. I set them down on the bench, wrapped in my cardigan, and started to call for the mother, shivering myself.

About 20 minutes passed and nothing appeared. I wrapped the bundle up a little snugglier for extra warmth and started to search the bushes. They were part of a planted bed that stretched a third of the length of the tower block. I kept an eye on the bench and moved further along the foliage.

I looked hard until I eventually found something. A fair-sized ventilation grate was hidden behind one of the shrubs. I hadn't remembered it being there when I planted it. Poking through the metal bars was a vine of some sorts that seemed to be growing upward through it from the inside, making it impossible to see. The grate lead to what must have been a basement.

A basement that the block didn't have.

I squinted hard, trying to make out the inside of the room but I couldn't see a thing. After a few seconds, I noticed that the vine was visibly growing around my feet, twisting over my shoes. It freaked me out, I dropped my phone and started to wriggle my feet free when I heard an almighty yowl coming from inside the grate. It was the kind you heard when cats were fighting outside your window.

I fell backward and was tripped by the vine but broke the piece that was holding onto me as I kicked at it. The shrub I had moved aside covered up the grate again and the yowling stopped suddenly. I ripped the piece of vine off my foot and grabbed my phone with the other hand. The torch was still beaming into the night sky.

I tried to dig back through the bushes but the grate was gone and so was the rest of the vine. I put the piece that had snapped off in my pocket and returned to the bench. The yowling gave me a bad feeling about the kittens' mother, so I scooped them up and carried them back inside with me. They gently mewed the entire way.

I was frozen and covered in goosebumps. It was approaching the time that the lift became dangerous and I wanted to make sure the kittens were okay. So I didn't investigate the downstairs when I entered. I rushed up the stairs - only five flights this time - and unlocked the door to my flat.

The screaming had stopped and had been replaced by a loud, raspy snoring. Jamie had finally tired himself out. I set the kittens in a heap on the sofa and found a few cushions and a blanket for them to curl up on. I would go and get food first thing in the morning. They were adorable, cuddled up in a tiny heap.

I sat at the fold-out table and stared at the piece of vine. It wasn't growing anymore, but it was healthy. I wondered how it had survived in a basement and how it had been able to grow at such an exponential rate. How had I lived somewhere for almost a year and not realized it had a basement? I placed the vine in a cup of water and started to stress about my inability to find the grate a second time.

My walk to clear my head had just brought up more questions. I couldn't make sense of any of it. Essie's death, Jamie's sudden behavior change, the kittens, the basement... that vine. I had no idea what any of it meant, but I knew I had to find out.

I didn't want to sleep anywhere near Jamie, so I curled up on the sofa next to the kittens and put Netflix on in the background. I drifted off to thoughts of the secret basement and what the fuck might be down there.

Can you ever really know someone?

I woke up the morning after my discovery of the kittens with them crawling all over me. I guessed that they were a little younger than 8 weeks old. They were strong and independent, pouncing on my chest with their sizzling paws to wake me up.

They were well-looked after. It made it harder to believe that their mother had just abandoned them.

I thought I knew the block. My entrance had been dramatic enough to introduce me to what I thought were the majority of strange goings on in the place. I walked the halls with a naive confidence that the building wouldn't be able to surprise me anymore. I thought I was prepared for anything.

The events of the night before had squashed that confidence. I knew that the building had sealed off floor 9 after the fire, but I never considered the possibility of other hidden floors or flats. Every other floor from the ground up was accounted for and there were no stairs leading downward. I hadn't set foot inside the lift since Derek had taken me in there and I couldn't remember an LG or -1 button from when he had.

I had never known the cats to reproduce either. By rights, they're all strays and if they had been working, the place would be overrun with kittens. The cute little bundles on my sofa shouldn't have existed.

Jamie was growling still, making low and disturbing noises. Luckily the screaming had stopped. I nervously unlocked the wardrobe and placed a bowl of cat food in there as quickly as I could before locking it again. The wounds in my chest throbbed as I looked at him and let go of the bowl.

Jamie had scratched and bitten a handful of times but usually by mistake and he had never hurt me badly. It's only made doing something about him much harder. His attack the day before had been different though, intentional, and as I dropped his food in that morning he nipped hard at my finger, drawing blood.

I sighed with relief as I secured the padlock and shuddered as I listened to him slurp and crunch on his food. I noticed the bloodstains from his attack spattered up the wardrobe door and shoved the spare chair back over the gap to make sure the door was shut and keep the kittens safe.

Walking back to the kitchen to make tea, I noticed the vine in the cup of water on my fold-out table. It had grown. Way more than any plant should in a matter of hours. It had stretched out of the cup and down the table, producing large, healthy-looking leaves. I had no idea what it meant, if it meant anything at all. If it had come from a room with no sunlight then, like the kittens, it shouldn't have existed.

Ms. Esther Beckman's words echoed in my mind.

If you look hard enough, you will find a way.

Maybe the friend I had been supposed to help was the kittens' mother. What if she was stuck in the basement and I just needed to find a way in?

I didn't have time to think too deeply about it. Terri had run my errands the day before but I couldn't expect her to do it daily. Percy and Sylvia wouldn't need anything until the weekend now but Mr. Prentice would struggle without my help. I had to carry on. So I got dressed, placed a bowl of water down for the kittens, promised them I'd bring back proper food, and made my way down the hall to flat 48.

I knocked and stood back to give him time to answer.

"Morning, Mr. Prentice." I tried my best to smile and be chirpy, putting the whirlwind of thoughts I had to the back of my mind.

"Morning, Kat. I'm sorry to hear about Essie, Terri told me yesterday. She was one of the longest-serving residents here, you know, along with myself and Molly. A terrible loss." He hung his head as he gripped his walking stick.

"She was a great person. I'm sorry I didn't get to know her for longer," I answered, feeling the fake smile I'd plastered across my face collapse.

"She helped me out of a few scrapes, Essie had an extraordinary gift. Never once gave bad advice that I know of. She was a great drinking buddy, too, back in the day." Mr. Prentice chuckled at his memories but looked truly saddened by the situation. It was the most I'd ever heard him speak in one go and his mention of how long they'd lived here made me think.

"Mr. Prentice, do you know if this place has a basement?" I asked. He pondered my question for a while.

"Well... I've never seen one. But that's not to say it doesn't exist." He smiled a little, I could see he had noticed the despair in my eyes and his smile was comforting. I struggled to find the words to respond, so he changed the subject.

"Could you drop some money to my friend at the pub today, please? And grab me a newspaper and a bottle of whiskey, if you don't mind." He threw two envelopes of cash onto the corridor floor between us and I nodded, told him I'd be back soon, and set off.

As I exited the main doors, I turned to look at the garden and considered searching for the grate again then and there but decided I would wait. It was torturous.

Instead, I thought of Essie as I made my way through the park, taking in the breeze and the bird song.

The Pickled Gnome, Mr. Prentice's drinking spot looked sad and empty, with a sign in the window stating closed due to the virus. I popped the envelope labelled Carmilla through a letterbox in the large red door and began to walk away, noticing through the window a lone woman, sat at the bar in a dressing gown nursing a cup of tea.

As I carried on toward the shop, I heard a voice behind me.

"HEY!!!" I turned to see the woman standing at the door of the pub, waving her arms. A large fluffy cat rubbed himself up against her feet. I turned and waved back.

"Please tell him thanks! I really appreciate it, drinks on me when this is over! You should come, too!" she shouted, beaming at me.

"I'll tell him! Stay safe!" I shouted back as she ushered the cat back in and closed the door again.

Maybe I would have a drink with Mr. Prentice when this was all over. I imagined him with a shot of whiskey telling stories of the block and smiled. It was a nice thought.

I ventured further than the usual shop. To one I knew would sell specialized kitten food. I grabbed the whiskey, paper, and a ready-meal; although he never asked, Mr. Prentice never turned down food and I hated to think of him hungry.

When I reached the block again, I struggled to pass the garden a second time but made my way up the stairs and toward the flat, passing the man on floor 5.

"Hi, Jeremiah," I waved at him. No response. Better take that one off the list.

I passed the woman from the Gnome's message and the items onto Mr. Prentice and rushed home to feed the kittens. As I placed the three tiny bowls I'd purchased down, I decided I should name them. I couldn't keep calling them kittens.

They became Wrinkles, Tetley, and Mr. Meow and they were about the only reason I could think of to smile. As they happily lapped up their food, I could hear Jamie growling in the background, scratching at the door. He must have smelled the kitten meat.

I waited until they'd finished every last bite and washed up the bowls immediately to reduce any risk of him trying to pound his way out of the cupboard.

Then I left the flat to finally search for the basement.

I tried the bottom of the stairs. Searched the entire lower floor for a new stairwell or a door, but there was nothing. I tried the garden, too. The same spot from the night before in the bushes was just plain concrete, no grate to be seen and no vine growing upward to match the monster in my kitchen. There was no grate the entire perimeter of the building.

My heart sunk with a difficult realization. There was only one place that I hadn't looked.

Standing in front of the lift was daunting. I imagined Essie and how it was the last thing she had looked at. I wondered if I would ever know her motives.

I imagined Jamie, before any of this, walking in obliviously on his way to another shift at work, smiling stupidly at the novelty of us having our own home. My body shook and my legs became weak, but I managed to force them forward and step inside.

Staring at the buttons inside the lift took me back to standing with Derek, how safe I had felt compared to now. Having him around felt like having my own private guardian angel, guiding me every step of the way. His absence left a painful void. It made that tiny metal box feel enormous.

I once again searched for button 9 but couldn't find it, despite nothing looking out of place. It was oddly comforting. Expected. Unlike the past few days had been.

The lowest floor I could find was G, the one I was currently standing on, but I knew the lift was able to play tricks. I could never be truly sure. Not without Derek.

I stared at it for what must have been at least 5 minutes, looking as hard as I could just like Essie had advised, but it turned up nothing.

I was grateful to get out of the lift, but frustrated that it hadn't made anything clearer. I stared at it for a while, its rickety construction and dilapidated feel made my heart pound. I couldn't look at it without imagining blood and bones lining the floor.

"Fuck you, Essie," I cursed underneath my breath as I walked up the stairs toward my flat, defeated. "Why did you have to go?"

Her cryptic intuition had done nothing but raise questions and she wasn't there to answer any of them. My life was starting to feel like some sort of cruel joke. The stairwell, devoid of average human life, was eerie and just added to my sense of solitude.

I'd conquered a huge trauma to even stand in that lift, yet all my searching efforts had taught me was that the man on floor 5 wasn't called Eric or Mikey.

I reached the flat and paced around it for a while, being careful not to step on Wrinkles, the largest of my three adoptees, who seemed to really enjoy playing around my feet.

Mr. Prentice was right. Just because I hadn't been somewhere and couldn't see it didn't mean that it didn't exist. I'd taken the building for granted and gotten too comfortable.

Derek had once described the place as a living organism and now I truly felt that it was taunting me and mocking my ill-placed confidence. I had to admit to myself that really, in all honesty, I knew nothing about it.

Jamie's growls had become like a background symphony to my life. I'm ashamed to say I was able to almost entirely block them out.

I couldn't ignore the vine though. It had wrapped itself around the table leg and stretched most of the kitchen floor, growing toward the balcony and desperately stretching for the light.

I wasn't sure what to do with it. If I returned it to the garden I might never see the grate again. The vine was the only proof to myself I had that it had been there in the first place.

I tried to trim part off, to take to the garden and compare with the other plants there, knowing that it would be an entirely futile endeavor, but as I clamped down with scissors they snapped in my hand.

The vine was rock solid. It was much tougher than it had been when I'd pulled my foot free, perhaps the sunlight had done something to it. I tried my best to bunch it into one corner but soon gave up, slightly terrified that it might suffocate me in my sleep.

Tetley was asleep on the sofa while the other two played gently with each other. I sat down and tickled them a little, feeling my fingers start to go numb from the heat.

I tried to think of other solutions to my problems than continually searching a concrete wall. I knew it wasn't going to turn up a basement... or tell me why Essie walked into the lift... or help me kill or cure Jamie.

Unfortunately, I'm from a generation that's solution to every issue is Google, so that's all I could come up with, and I loaded up my laptop.

I tried to search for original plans of the block, to see if there was some kind of floor plan or architect drawings that could confirm the presence of a basement but it turned out the place is too old for those to be online.

The block was built in 1951, at the very start of the new high-rise trend. There was limited information on the place other than a few archived articles from around the time it was built and opened. I cursed the libraries having to be shut in this pandemic.

According to the articles, it was a turbulent project from start to finish and was overseen by an architect and property development mogul who designed and paid for the building himself. There were reports that he was notoriously difficult to work with and that three construction firms pulled out of the project.

The next headline I came across intrigued me.

Cursed project finally completed, owner found hanged in unoccupied high rise flats.

There was little information on the suicide other than that it happened. If the building had been how it is today I can imagine that being alone in the place with no information or even confirmation that what you were seeing was real, could drive anyone mad.

None of the articles even had the name of the architect, leaving me at a dead end. It took a few searches and more obscure, archived city history blogs than I knew existed before I found anything else that piqued my interest.

Heir to tragic high rise architects fortune suspected of killing his own son.

The article was too blurred to read, it was a poorly taken photograph of a newspaper from the late fifties. This took away my chance, yet again, to find a name for the architect or even the son.

I thought about what bad luck the family had suffered. To be able to design and build something like that in those days meant you must have incredible wealth. But no amount of money could save them from tragedy, especially not somewhere like here.

I tried to adapt my search, instead entering a rabbit hole of murders in the late fifties. As I scanned the page I damned human nature, there were so many acts of evil detailed in the blogs. I even learned about Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in the UK in 1955.

Eventually, I found an entry that matched up. His name was Albert Miles and he was the eldest of two brothers. When his revered architect father died, he took over management of the tower block that he and his brother had become the very first occupants of.

He was hugely successful and pegged to become one of the biggest names in property development in the UK. The once-empty block was mostly full by the time the killing happened. Police were called by a resident living directly below Albert Miles, who complained that blood was dripping onto their balcony from above.

When police arrived, Albert was nowhere to be found but the body of his 19-year-old son was starting to decompose in the sun on his balcony. He had been stabbed multiple times.

Albert was never found or convicted and the case remained unsolved, however, most were in agreement that he did it. A bloodied kitchen knife belonging to Albert, dropped just inside the doors to the balcony, all but confirmed it.

It was interesting, but I wasn't sure it was helpful. I started to worry that my research had gone in completely the wrong direction. I wasn't sure how Albert Miles or the death of his son could help me and I was about ready to shut my laptop and give up. Then I felt something slither across my shoulder from behind.

The vine had grown exponentially, weaving a route from the kitchen to the sofa. I started to panic as it touched my skin but it didn't wrap itself around me or try to cause any harm, just gently glided across my shoulder and to the computer. It stroked the name of the blog on the header of the page a few times before falling to the ground, only a slight overhang left on the sofa.

It didn't want me to stop. There was no more information on Google so I sent a direct email to the blog owner, asking for anything on the Albert Miles killing that they had or details of anyone they could direct me to. I claimed it was for a university project.

I stopped and watched the TV for a while, the kittens all cuddled on my lap. I was grateful for my blanket, creating just enough barrier to stop me melting. Raspy, wheezing snores came from the bedroom. I decided to spend another night on the sofa, it felt much safer.

I started to drift off a little and went to shut the laptop but a loud ping from my email box woke me. Chills ran up my spine a little as I opened the message.

Hey Kat

Thanks for your email. Unfortunately, that particular case is very little known and doesn't have a lot of information out there at all. As you can appreciate, cold cases can be difficult to catalog but I aim to provide the most comprehensive online case files possible.

The only thing I have on this case that isn't on the blog is a photograph of Albert Miles and his unnamed brother outside the high rise flats. I was new to blogging at the time I wrote that entry and wasn't sure how to insert images. Your message has reminded me to go back and include this one! I've attached here in case it's of any use to you.

I would recommend checking out similar case files that may fit your project. Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any queries. Thank you for reading.

Simon

Murders In The Capital

I felt the frustration bubbling up. No further information. Another dead end.

I opened up the attachment to take a look at the mysterious Albert Miles. I was resigned that it would be of no use at all. Then the picture loaded.

Two men, handsome and maybe in their mid-late thirties, standing outside the main doors of the largely unchanged block. They were similar-looking, with a strong family resemblance but very different demeanors.

One was dressed in a sharp-looking suit and stood with a controlled posture. He had a serious facial expression and pointy features.

The other was slumped against the wall, a smile on his face and familiar, kind-looking eyes. This man wore a casual outfit that you might expect to see on a laborer of that era. Atop his head was the clue that I had been looking for in the form of a flat cap.

Standing there, next to Albert Miles, was my lost friend Derek.

Some families are more dysfunctional than others.

My brain hurt trying to process the things I'd learned. Derek had never mentioned his family or that he, by blood, had a claim to the building. He was always so in tune with it, it made sense but it was never something I'd considered.

I woke on the sofa that morning, confused. I had no idea how to continue. The vine had grown almost the entire perimeter of the flat, carefully weaving between my furniture and appliances, its waxy exterior reflecting sunlight from the windows. It stopped at the bedroom door, not crossing the threshold to Jamie's prison.

I bit the bullet and decided to call Terri. I hadn't spoken to her since her and the kids' visit a few days prior and I wanted to see if she remembered Derek ever talking about his brother or if she knew of any basement. Terri had grown up in the building, she was bound to have explored more thoroughly than Mr. Prentice.

Before I could get on to any of that, I owed her an apology. My interaction with her had been rude and I had been too distracted to check on her the past few weeks. I had been a terrible friend.

I hit dial on video chat and waited for a response. When she picked up the phone, she looked even worse than she had the last time I saw her. The dark circles were beginning to look like deep, inky tattoos, permanently stained on her face. Still, she smiled, just like she always did.

"Terri, are you okay? I'm so sorry about the other day, I was just..."

"It's fine, Kat. I understand, everything with Ms. Beckman must have brought back some tough feelings for you. I should've waited a day or two... I'm sorry." My heart melted as she spoke, I'd never had such a loyal and genuine friend.

"Thank you. Don't be sorry, it helped seeing you guys. How are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm okay. The kids aren't behaving great at night, I'm not sure if lockdown's got to them or something else. I have to watch everything that they do. The other day, I caught Eddie trying to take apart the washing machine with his claws. By the time I stopped him, Ellie had ripped up the shower curtains trying to climb them." She sounded defeated and, at best, definitely not okay.

"I wish I were allowed to help. I miss you." I sighed, longing for the day I could sit and drink tea with her.

"Are you okay, Kat? You haven't been yourself," she asked; we may not have known each other that long but she could sense when things weren't right. Terri was the epitome of an empath. This, I'd come to realize over the months, had been the only reason she kept in touch with Prudence, she's just so damn nice.

"I'm not. I don't know if you know about Essie's predictions... but she made one for me and it's sent me to some strange places. I'll tell you more when I figure it out, but for now I need your help."

I still chose to omit Jamie from my confessions, but I was ready to be a bit more open, I wasn't too ashamed to admit I needed help. Terri clearly knew about Essie's gift. She didn't bat an eyelid.

"Anything."

"Do you remember Derek ever mentioning a brother, even when you were growing up?" I asked.

"Not at all. Derek was always on his own, just appearing when we needed him. I was really young when he first disappeared though, so I don't remember him well and might not be the one to ask." Terri's face scrunched up in thought as she racked her brain.

"I'm going to send you something." I minimized the video chat and copied the photo from the email onto my phone and sent it to her by text. Her video paused for a moment as she did the same to check the attachment. "He was the first to live here, Terri. His dad built the place."

Terri's video clicked back on.

"Where did you find this?" she asked.

I explained the blog and why I had been looking. It wasn't a short explanation so I'll spare you that. We even broke from the seriousness briefly for the kids to come and fawn over the kittens. Eddie loved Mr. Meow whilst Ellie wanted to kidnap Tetley. Wrinkles just curled up with me, he was my secret favorite anyway.

Terri was fascinated by the vine. She wondered if it had a connection to Derek, especially given the photo I'd found on my search. I can't say the thought hadn't crossed my mind either. I learned more about him every day, but he would always first and foremost be the gardener. The vine made sense, but the basement didn't. I was struggling to connect it to the brothers.

"I don't know about a basement, Kat. But if this place is as old as you say then who knows. I know I may look haggard..." she pulled on her cheeks and giggled. "... but I'm really not that old."

I laughed. I was sad that she didn't have anymore information but it was nice to just talk to a friend. For five minutes, life felt normal.

I'd kept my secret, and talking to Terri I'd almost managed to forget about Jamie myself. If it hadn't been for the deep bite wound on my finger from the feeding the day before and the open cuts on my chest from his attack, I might have been successful.

I still had no idea what the riddle Essie had given to me meant. I was looking as hard as I could and it had led me down a rabbit hole that just kept spewing more questions.

What I did know, was that with Jamie's seemingly permanent change in demeanor, I was running out of time. The growling hadn't stopped, the look of pure hatred as I dropped in food didn't end, and I was getting frightened.

Something had to give. Either Jamie was going to die, or I would. There wasn't another option I could see and the former may have been entirely unachievable.

Derek destroyed Lyla, but he never returned after. Prudence claimed she killed the original wave of creatures by setting light to them all on the already burnt-out ninth floor, again something entirely unachievable without Derek's presence. I had to find him.

I said my goodbyes to Terri, promised that I would update her when and if I could, and left to do my daily errands for Mr. Prentice and the couple next door. As I left for the exit, I spotted a man going into Ms. Beckman's flat. I recognized him as the son that I'd always seen visiting, eyes glazed with tears.

Terri had said that she would get Molly to inform Essie's family, but I couldn't imagine what Molly might have said happened.

I should've gone to him, just as a human being, tried to comfort him, but I couldn't bring myself to do it without an explanation to offer. I promised myself that I would visit him when lockdown was over and I knew why his mother was gone.

I rushed out and completed my errands as quickly as possible, eager to get home; even having the name Albert Miles might have been helpful if I just kept digging on the internet.

After I dropped the bags off at Percy and Sylvia's door, I turned the key in my own, entered, and shut it behind me like I always would.

That was where the normality ended and my life was disrupted by an uninvited guest.

When I turned to face the flat and caught a glimpse of my fold-out table, there was a tall figure stood right next to it.

Albert, like Derek, was a little older than he had been in the photo. There was a family resemblance but the eyes weren't the same, Albert's weren't warm and kind, they were cold and filled with malice.

He wore a suit, similar to the one in the picture but it wasn't as sharp, it was covered in a thick layer of dust and tattered, with loose threads hanging everywhere, like clothes that had been dug out of a box in the attic.

He grinned at me. It was smug, like something you might expect from a slimy car salesman.

"It's been a long time since I had to visit any of the residents up here. I like what you've done with the place, much more modern than when that old bint before you lived here."

I was frozen to the spot. I hadn't been alarmed when his brother had appeared inches from me on a bench but something about Albert was much more sinister. The thought of his son, dead on the balcony, played on repeat in my mind.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

He laughed. The smug grin extended across his cheeks.

"I like you. You didn't even pretend not to know who I am. You know, Kat, I've always appreciated a person who cuts the small talk. It's better in business and in life. That trait will hold you in good stead." He was animated as he spoke, gesticulating wildly.

"You didn't answer my question. Don't you find that ironic considering your sentiment?" I answered back, still terrified but figuring that keeping him talking might somehow help the situation.

"I don't need to answer your question. You know why I'm here." He continued to grin, raising an eyebrow and adjusting the torn sleeves of his suit. "It's not often that I've come across a tenant that causes as much chaos as you do.

"It's usually issues with the rent, and even something like that hasn't happened for quite some time, but you are something special."

He stamped on part of the vine that was growing near his feet and I watched as the enormous structure withered and shrunk in size, as if it were in notable pain.

The beginning of my entire ordeal flooded back to me. I was back in my kitchen, discovering Prudence's note for the first time, reading the one rule that I'd never learned anything more about.

1. The landlord will never bother you, he doesn't visit, call or communicate in any way. But make sure to pay your rent in a timely fashion always. I have only dealt with him once in 35 years and let's just say I never missed another rent day. Any repairs required you speak to the agent you rented the place with.

Rule number one. So much happened that I hadn't thought much about that rule, but there must have been a reason she put it first, before even mentioning the creatures. Suddenly the literal monster in my closet seemed soft and fluffy in comparison to the ageless man stood in front of me.

"I've paid my rent. Why are you here?" I stood firmly, curling my shaking hands into fists. It was more for comfort than aggression. On the surface, I was hoping it would appear I was standing my ground.

The rent part was true. It was hard, but I always found a way. I was still training to teach and pulled in extra cash running after-school clubs as I trained. Even during lockdown, I was creating digital learning tools. This place was my home and I'd followed the first rule to the letter to keep it.

"Maybe you aren't as bright as I thought," he rolled his eyes. "Let's list reasons a landlord might want to visit, shall we?

"Damage to property. Unauthorized modification of communal spaces. Digging around where it's not wanted or needed. Nurturing my brother's unnatural experiments..." He went to continue, but I stopped him.

"What do you mean unnatural experiments?"

Albert laughed even harder than before, I could see in his eyes that he considered me entirely dense by this stage.

"You think those three little abominations you took in came out of nowhere? They were a cry for help, you stupid girl. Like a flare. And all you could do was pick it up and let it burn your fingers." He scoffed, laughing at his own bad joke. My heart sunk, wondering where the kittens were and if he'd hurt them.

"After all the trouble you caused when he helped you last time, I wasn't going to let my idiot brother continue to roam my halls. Especially not after what you did once he was gone."

I gulped. I knew exactly what he was talking about. He knew that I knew as well, Albert was more than a few steps ahead of me.

I realized that Prudence destroying his garden had probably never banished Derek at all. He had been kept prisoner by the man in front of me. If Albert could keep someone with Derek's knowledge and abilities trapped, then I didn't stand a chance.

"Shall we talk about that thing you keep in your bedroom, Kat?"

"I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry... I've regretted it since," I stuttered. I felt a tear run down my cheek as I anticipated imminent death.

"I know that. You wouldn't have even known how if my brother had never told the last woman... and he pretends to be so pious." The smile on his face had disappeared, even the thought of Derek left him with a scowl.

"He just tried to help the residents here. Please, I made a mistake," I protested, anticipating that I was about to die or even worse.

Albert didn't speak, he just huffed in frustration and turned to walk toward the bedroom. I followed him, trying not to stay too close. The floor was trailed with blood and as he entered the room I noticed the wardrobe door was practically shattered.

"You couldn't even contain your mistake properly." He gestured to Jamie who was in the corner, hunched over the blood-smothered body of a kitten that he was crunching on the bones of. Tiny bits of muscle and skin, in pools of blood, littered the floor.

His eyes were beady and black, any semblance of Jamie I'd once seen in them was gone.

I noticed Tetley and Wrinkles shivering together in the opposite corner, trying to hide from the monster. The brief relief I felt that they hadn't all met the same fate was interrupted when Jamie started to growl at Albert, baring his crimson-splashed teeth as menacingly as he could.

I watched in horror as Albert just stood there, staring at the increasingly angry beast.

The creature I had been hiding for all these months lunged at him aggressively, claws outstretched. Albert wasn't phased. He barely even moved a muscle, just reached out a tattered sleeve and waited for Jamie to make contact with his hand.

The second Jamie touched Albert, he let out the most almighty, inhuman scream you could imagine. It felt like my eardrums were about to burst and I instinctively put my hands over them. Albert put his hand back down by his side as Jamie fell in a heap to the floor.

He wasn't moving. Not like when I'd stabbed him with the poker. He wasn't just still, he was dead still. The heap of fur he had become started to morph on the floor, his jaw pulled inward as if it were dislocating and his limbs began to stretch and shed their fur.

After a while, Jamie was laid there on the floor. Not the rat-Jamie, the real one. The one I'd spent years with and searched for a home with. The one who knew me before all this shit ever happened.

And he was dead, too. For real this time.

It took everything I had not to throw myself on the floor with him. I stopped myself multiple times, but Albert's eyes bore into my soul and rendered me unable to move a muscle. I tried to fight back tears but I couldn't.

"Don't bother to cry. He died a long time ago." Albert kicked Jamie's corpse and bent down into a squat to get closer to him, not taking his eyes off me. "I didn't let him out if that's what you were thinking. No, Kat. You did when you locked an angry animal in a cage. Eventually, they all get free." I whimpered a little as he inspected the remains of my boyfriend, intensely taking in his hair and eyes.

"My brother had this preconceived notion that humans can live in harmony with the evil that inhabits this building. He's wrong, Kat. We can't. Eventually, it drives us all mad. Your mistake made such an unusual racket I had to come and see what was going on.

"Did you ever imagine keeping him like that before you lived here?"

"Of course not -" I tried to interject, but he wouldn't let me. He was in full-blown monologue.

"This place fucks us up, Kat. You can't make it any better, regardless of how many shrubs you plant outside." He stroked Jamie's cold, dead face gently, barely touching it with his fingertips.

The body evaporated beneath them, becoming nothing more than a pile of dust on my carpet. I hadn't even got to touch him, one last time. Albert stood back up, salesman grin plastered back on his face, and brushed his sleeves.

"I've cleaned up your mistake. Aren't you going to say thank you?"

I held back the bile that was forming in my throat, took a deep breath and summoned every ounce of strength that I could just to speak. He was right, this place had fucked me up. But losing your partner like that would do the same to anyone. I thought of the little boy in the mirror, Mr. Prentice... even Ellie and Eddie.

"This wasn't for me. You're wrong about this place, not everything here is evil. I made a mistake, but it's you that's evil, you killed your own son. What I did came from love," I blurted, trying to organize my thoughts.

"You don't know a damn thing about my son. And you won't. This is your only warning, Kat. Stop digging into my family. Consider my brother dead and keep quiet." He spoke sternly, I didn't dare try to talk back again. Despite knowing I'd hit a nerve, everything about him set me on edge.

He took another vicious stamp on part of the vine as he exited the bedroom. It shriveled entirely underneath his dusty dress shoes, back to the size that it had been when I pulled my foot free, except it wasn't green anymore, it was brown and rotten.

He turned to me once more before he reached the front door of the flat to leave and spoke.

"If you dare continue your pointless little mission to try and find Derek, you will meet the same fate as that blind old bat from down the hall. People here will always do as I tell them.

"Let her be an example of why not to meddle in my family business. Feel lucky that I didn't eviscerate you on the spot... or worse."

He winked at me, knowing that he had complete control of the situation and left with a simple "Bye for now, Kat."

As the door slammed, the two remaining kittens bounded to my feet, shaking with fear. I scooped them up despite the burning and held them close. I wasn't going to let anything happen to them.

The flat had an emptiness I wasn't used to, even when it had been just me with no kittens, before I repeated the ritual to bring Jamie back as a creature, there was the comforting knowledge that he existed somewhere. There was hope. The pile of dust on my bedroom floor and the shattered remains of my wardrobe were all I had left of him now.

Then there were Mr. Meow's remains, a glaring reminder of my failure to keep anything alive or safe. I cried for him, as I scooped his parts into a shoebox ready to bury in the garden the next day. It was all my fault. Jamie, Mr. Meow, Esther... they were all dead because of me.

I considered calling Terri back, telling her what happened, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. My stupidity had already cost lives and I wasn't prepared to risk her or the kids, they really were family to me.

I wasn't about to give up though. All the heartache I'd caused, the tears of Essie's son, and the months my boyfriend spent trapped in the body of a vile beast, maybe they wouldn't be in vain if I was able to save Derek from his brother. The empty, gaping grief that I felt left me perfectly accepting of the prospect of a suicide mission.

I cuddled the kittens and felt the skin of my arms start to melt and sizzle. If they really were a cry for help I had to listen. I just couldn't let it go.

I never liked that damn lift.

The shoebox I'd placed Mr. Meow in sat atop my fold-out table. As I lit my morning cigarette and sipped a cup of tea, I wondered if it was disrespectful to smoke next to a body.

I decided that disrespect was in the eye of the beholder.

I'd often thought of Essie as I smoked. Remembering how we bonded over a few spare cigs. That hadn't made me feel disrespectful. I was smoking more than usual with the stress I was under, too. I found it was a welcome few minutes' break from life.

I'd wanted to sit on my balcony that morning to try and get some light and escape from the claustrophobic feel of the flat. I knew that with my determination to find Derek, it might be the last I saw the sun, but the window cleaner was out there, just howling and scratching at the door.

To be honest, the flat felt so empty without Jamie, Mr. Meow, or even the vine, that for a moment I almost considered letting him in.

The longer I lived in the building the less I thought of the window cleaner as a sinister entity. He was more pitiful than anything and let's get realistic, I'd grown accustomed to being surrounded by monsters.

Since lockdown, he'd stopped bothering with the niceties and chit-chat. Instead, he just whined and scratched like a scared animal. It was Wrinkles and Tetley, rubbing themselves up against my - thankfully covered - legs that stopped me from just giving up and opening the sliding door.

I spent hours in the flat that day dwelling on everything, coming up with wild plans and theories in my mind. I texted Terri and asked her to check on Mr. Prentice for me. She asked what was going on and I said that I would tell her when I could.

It was weak but she accepted my explanation, or lack of, as always, with no questions asked.

I must've paced the length of the flat hundreds of times. None of the ideas that I had to help Derek seemed to develop into anything solid. It was frustrating, like trying to solve an impossible riddle.

I analyzed every part of my interaction with Albert, trying to find hidden meanings amongst the words in my head.

I wondered if he could communicate with the creatures, just like Derek had when he struck the deal over the lift. Maybe that's why he had come to my flat when Jamie finally escaped, it would make sense if they were communicating all along. Maybe he'd been the reason for Jamie's aggression toward the end.

I knew that I wasn't going to find Derek without also finding Albert, so I decided that working to find the older of the brothers would be easier.

Translating all my loose threads of thoughts into a plan didn't come easy. I tried to stop myself multiple times, worrying that I was going down the wrong route, but when it finally hit me, I knew that I had nothing better. Eventually, I settled on my next steps.

I started after I had fed the kittens and washed up the bowls. After they'd fallen asleep on the sofa. After I'd had time to dwell and stress. After it got dark outside and no human residents were left in the dimly-lit corridors. I had little faith in my plan and didn't want to risk anyone getting hurt as a byproduct.

I made my way down the stairs, carrying the shoebox coffin in my arms and a small bag of the dust that Jamie had left behind in my pocket, shovel wedged in the gap between my arm and torso.

"Good evening, Marcus," I greeted the man on floor 5 with less enthusiasm than usual. He responded the same way he always did - not at all.

The boy in the mirror blew more raspberries, making moose horn antlers with his hands and giggling. I waved back and tried to understand how Albert could consider every single special resident evil, these beings had become my family over time.

The outside of the building was empty again, a city that usually never slept was taking the nap of a lifetime. I felt peaceful in the garden with the breeze blowing my hair around. The park opposite was eerily mystical under the stars.

It was warmer than it had been a few nights before when I'd first discovered the kittens and the grate. Even though it had only been a short time, that night felt a lifetime away.

I fought the urge to sob as I dug the tiny grave amongst the shrubs I'd found them in, and for the first time since Essie's death I was successful. My mind was so focused on my goals that I managed to pull myself together and not become a wreck. I wasn't sure I had any tears left.

I made full speeches instead, first to Mr. Meow and then to Jamie, who I sprinkled on top of the buried shoebox, vowing that I would do something good in all this before covering them back up with dirt.

I stood and stared at the patch of soil for a while. At one point, I could've sworn I caught a glimpse of the metal grate but it was gone in a blink, replaced by flat, gray concrete. Either Albert was teasing me, or I was going completely mad.

I felt my heart start to pound through my chest as I re-entered the building. What I was preparing to do was dangerous, and potentially deadly, but it was better than never knowing if I could've done more. I didn't want to spend a lifetime imagining Derek trapped and alone.

Every time my life is in crisis in this place I seem to find myself outside the lift, and that night was no different. Even if everything in me was telling me to flee up the stairs and drop it, there I was, staring at the huge metal doors.

It had killed friends, taken me to places no one else could see, and housed monsters that infected my nightmares.

As my own heart continued to pound I imagined that the lift could be considered the building's heart, carrying human life to every floor like we were the blood of the tower.

My eyes flitted from the intimidating metal doors to the display on my phone. I was a few minutes early and those few minutes felt like a thousand years. I edged as close as I could to the button to call the lift and as soon the numbers changed I knew it was time to start.

1.11 am

I jabbed the button violently, took a deep breath, and reached into my pocket. It was hard to fight back the bile as I pulled out Mr. Meow's severed foot that I had carefully plucked from the shoebox earlier, but I managed and I threw it. It landed about three meters or so from the lift's entrance.

I retreated and stood to the edge of the stairs, just out of sight, my entire body shaking as I waited for the rattling noise of the opening doors. The first part of my plan worked as well as I could've hoped and soon, for the first time, I was faced with my boyfriend's killers.

I had only seen Jamie and Prudence's granddaughter Lyla's iterations of the monsters in person. The creatures that they were spawned from had remained largely a mystery to me and I had never considered they could be different from what I'd already experienced.

They were larger, much larger, than Jamie or Lyla had been. I remembered what Derek had said about the survivors strengthening with each one that dies. They were probably the same height as a fully-grown adult male with fur-covered, defined muscular limbs. They maintained the posture of a rat, and had long, razor-sharp teeth protruding from their elongated jaws.

Their eyes were different from Jamie's, too. Instead of being a beady black, they had a bright, daffodil-yellow sheen. I thought what was living in my wardrobe had been frightening, but he was nothing compared to them.

The two huge, rodent-humanoid creatures skulked out of the lift. They were on their hind legs but their backs were hunched over in a way that would've allowed them to break into a four-legged sprint at any moment. They started to edge towards the kitten foot, sniffing at it intensely.

Knowing I had moments before they smelled me too, I left my corner by the stairs and started sprinting toward the open metal doors. I hoped that releasing the creatures during their frenzy would be enough to summon Albert, he didn't seem to appreciate a scene. If I could just hide in that awful metal box for long enough, he would have to come and if they weren't in there with me then I would be safe.

My stress and sleep deprivation had gotten to me. I knew my plan was severely flawed and I hadn't properly considered the risks. When I finally made it inside the doors, I was confronted with worse consequences than I could've imagined.

Unsurprisingly, they spotted me. As I hammered on the button that should close the doors and lock me in, I could see them snarling, long strings of saliva stretching from their mouths to splatter on the floor as they prepared to run toward me.

I was ready to die. I was almost certain that it was going to happen in that moment.

That was until I spotted the tiny figure weaving through the creatures' legs. It was fast, and I could barely make it out. It was growling and making noises that seemed to genuinely frighten them.

Long claws slashed at the rat-creature closer to reaching me and it yowled in pain as it fell to the floor. Horns first, the figure managed to enter the lift just before the doors began to seal themselves. It hissed at the uninjured creature, keeping him backed away just enough for us to hear the thud of the metal doors closing.

Most would be terrified of anything that could frighten off their worst nightmares in an instant, let alone being locked in a four-by-four space with them, but not me. As the figure became clear, I was both proud and devastated.

"Ellie! What are you doing here, your mum's going to kill us both!"

Terri's young daughter sat herself down cross-legged in the corner of the tiny room as I slid down one of the walls to the floor myself, hugging my knees. I broke into hysterical tears, I couldn't believe I'd put Ellie at risk. I knew about the twins' late night escapes. She shuffled over next to me, her horns pinched a little as she nuzzled my shoulder but I didn't care.

"Don't cry, Kat. Did you see how scared of me those things were?!"

She was delighted, her smile lit up and if you could've seen anything in the deep black voids that replaced her eyes you'd have seen childlike excitement.

The creature outside scraped and hammered at the door and I could still hear the pained screams of the one she'd impaled. For a small child, she had no idea of the impact she'd just made. It was hard to comprehend how a little girl could cause so much damage.

"You shouldn't be out! Why aren't you at home? Is Eddie out too? Your mum will go looking, what if they get her?!" I started ranting. Ellie's face dropped immediately. I usually would have felt awful but I couldn't shake the thought of her whole family being killed because of me. Of the other people that might be in mortal danger.

How could I be so fucking stupid.

"Eddie's at home playing with his truck and mum fell asleep. I just wanted to come and explore and I was playing on the stairs when I saw you. I've missed you Kat... Are they going to eat mum?" Her little voice cracked and she started to sob. I wanted to be reassuring and tell her that they wouldn't but I didn't want to lie. I started to understand the gravity of what I'd released.

I was still confident that my original plan would bring Albert out of the basement. However, I wasn't so confident that Albert would just let Ellie go. He might see her as evil, like he saw everything else here. I had to do everything I could to protect her.

Esther Beckman's ridiculous prophecy played in my mind once again and I silently cursed her.

How many more friends are going to be in danger, Esther? Why would you be so fucking vague.

I tried to calculate a comforting yet honest response for Ellie but I failed. Before I had a chance to speak the metal prison we were trapped in started to whirr and crunch, shaking and making awful mechanical noises.

I tried desperately to press the button for Terri's floor, in hope that I could drop Ellie off unharmed, but it didn't work. Instead, the box started to fall and the lift traveled downward.

It wasn't high-tech enough for a digital display. Instead, the buttons light up as you reach each floor. Not a single button lit as we fell much faster than any lift should, for what must have been at least 5 minutes.

Ellie was screaming. I couldn't do much but to hold her hand, being careful to interlock my fingers in a way that wouldn't result in a claw through my own.

I watched the button panel the entire time, occasionally trying to press on any number I could. Every attempt was futile. The lift ground to a halt and we were thrown into the air as it stopped with a huge clap.

Just underneath the numbered buttons had appeared a shrewdly drawn -1 scratched into the metal. I knew it hadn't been there before and could only signify one thing.

I'd done it. I'd made it to the basement.

As I looked at Ellie, I couldn't help but wonder, at what cost? Was any of this worth the danger I'd accidentally put her in? I hadn't accounted for the extra person, or the lift falling.

My plan ended when I threw the foot and ran. In my optimistic mind, Albert would've killed the creatures outside to avoid a scene and have to talk to me again, without being able to kill me like Essie. I knew, squeezing Ellie's hand, that I had misjudged the situation entirely.

"Where are we?" she asked, nervously.

"I don't know for sure. I think this is the basement," I replied.

"But the block doesn't have a basement."

"I know."

The doors slowly opened to reveal a huge darkened flat. It was luxury, like an underground penthouse, but without a single window in sight and it was largely empty. Not a soul inside.

I stood up from the floor of the lift, Ellie's hand still firmly gripped in mine, and tried to take in the surroundings. The lift had stopped directly in what seemed to be a living room, there was no hallway or corridor leading to a set of flats like when the lift usually stopped.

In the room was a black velvet sofa, a few side tables, and an almost-useless lamp, providing a dim glow in the corner. It lit up a few twinkling cobwebs and made it just about possible to see a huge, trailing pot plant sitting on a table that matched perfectly with the vine that had wrapped itself around my foot and then my home. The lack of a nearby grate didn't bode well.

Ellie started to cry. I couldn't see actual tears with the voids for eyes but I could hear her soft whimpers. I searched my mind again for some comforting thoughts but I couldn't find a single one. If I was right, and Derek was trapped here, we were fucked.

Attempts to jab the buttons were pointless, it was as if the lift had run out of battery, we couldn't even close the doors. I took a step into the room and Ellie followed. Before I could say a word, we heard the metal doors clap together and by the time we turned around the lift had been replaced by a blank wall.

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!" I screamed, desperately hoping that Albert's smug face would just appear from the shadows.

It didn't.

All my plea did was terrify Ellie, who continued to grip my hand. It's awful to say, but I was partly grateful that she was there, if only so that I didn't have to be alone.

"Who are you looking for?" she questioned.

"Someone that can help us get home... I need you to stay close to me all the time, can you do that for me, please?" I hoped with my whole being that I could keep her safe. Ellie simply nodded in response, her horns bobbing in the dim glow.

I took a few steps in the direction of the plant, reaching out to touch it and see if it was limp or alive, like the version in my flat had been. I was disappointed that it was the former. As I ventured further into the room, I noticed that the opposite wall wasn't nearly as blank as the one that had replaced the lift.

Instead, indented in the wall was another set of metal doors, identical to the ones that had closed and vanished behind us. Next to the left side of the doors was a button with the words "call lift" carved into the metal above it. It gave me a great feeling of unease.

Despite my unease, I saw no other exit to the room and before I could even consider options my tiny companion had pressed the button. Even demon kids love buttons.

As the doors opened, relief washed over me to see that it was empty and not full of even more creatures. We took a step inside and I found myself once again staring at the button panel. This time, I wasn't searching for floor 9. In fact, I yearned for the days when that was my biggest problem.

The panel was much like the one in the lift we'd got here in, except alarmingly, every number came with a minus symbol before it... and there was no sign of a G for the ground floor.

There isn't a guide for these floors.

Looking at that button panel in the lift that didn't lead home I felt a knot form in my stomach. Why hadn't Albert appeared, and which button was I supposed to press?

"Where are we going, Kat?" Ellie asked; she had stopped crying but every word was heavy with fear. In truth, I didn't really know the answer to her question. I stared at the panel, taking in every number and noting it's inclusion of a -9.

"We're going to see if there's anyone else around," I answered.

I didn't like my chances with whatever might inhabit that floor. If wherever we were was a reverse of the building then number 9 could be nasty, so I started cautiously, pressing the -2 button.

Mechanics whirred and the large metal doors clapped shut. I wished that I had been behind the real lift's doors, before it disappeared from sight. The lift that we stood in was as identical to the original as possible, even the shiver it sent up my spine just being inside it felt the same.

I was grateful when it stopped and the doors opened to reveal a relatively normal-looking corridor, reminiscent of the ones above in the upper building.

I would've believed that I'd imagined the lift falling and was arriving home if it weren't for the large black -2 painted next to the metal doors, the lack of any windows, and an obnoxious, artificial light that I was sure would give me a migraine if I stood there for too long.

I don't know what I hoped would be behind the red, wooden door that led to a vast stretch of flats. I didn't suppose that finding Derek in something that the fake lift had indicated was as large as the building would be that simple but perhaps it would provide some answers.

Albert himself was a possibility. I couldn't predict his moves, but I had a strong feeling he wouldn't be able to contain his intellectual gloating at the failure of my plan for long.

"I don't like it here," the small voice broke my stream of thoughts.

"Me neither, Ellie. Hopefully, someone will be home and know how we can get back upstairs." I feebly attempted to smile at my tiny companion, but she was a child, not an idiot. She saw straight through me.

"I don't think we should go through that door." Ellie gestured to the red wooden door, separating us from the windowless flats. She planted her feet firmly to the spot and refused to move any farther.

"Do you have any better ideas?" I asked, genuinely hopeful.

"I just have a really bad feeling."

Her words didn't fill me with a sense of comfort or optimism but I saw little choice. I reached for the handle and pulled at the door. It creaked loudly as it opened, releasing a strong, musky smell, like something that had been shut away for a long time.

I took a tentative step inside alone, leaving Ellie just behind in the corridor, and shouted hello; hoping that if anyone was in there that visitors were usually scarce and they may come out. Unlike my previous plans, this worked flawlessly and within minutes each of the doors were slowly opening.

I counted around ten doors in total as human arms and fingers started to emerge from behind them. The flats were filled with - and I use this term loosely - people.

They weren't typical, none of them were dressed and they had fleshy limbs and appendages sticking out of all the wrong places. There were elongated necks, multiple arms, and spines bent completely backward. It shocked me that any of them could walk at all.

Each one of them looked like a unique result of intense torture. Torture that should've killed them long before they reached the stage they were at. Remembering where I was, I realized that they probably were killed long ago, or they never lived to begin with.

One in particular caught my eye. It had a neck at least three feet long and I couldn't distinguish its gender at all. Its back was bent in a way that a child might to do the crab and it was balanced on all fours. Instead of two arms and two legs, all four limbs were left arms, all facing the same direction.

Its neck lulled backward, swinging from side to side a little and struggling to support itself. I inhaled sharply as its head lifted slightly into a steadier position and it locked eyes with me.

It screamed.

The scream that came from that... thing... was the single most distressing sound I've ever had to listen to. It penetrated my soul and I felt every inch of pain and suffering that laced it. My stomach churned and the shrill pitch burrowed into my brain.

It left me completely immobile as every other person-like creature in the room lifted its head, wherever it balanced, and screamed in unison with the first. Holding my hands to my ears, I started to feel a warm liquid trickling from them but I couldn't take my only protection away to see what it was.

I can't even begin to describe the pain that I felt. There are no words for a misery that deep. I don't know how, but I could feel years upon years of torment and unimaginable pain that they'd gone through. The screaming became so overwhelming and all-consuming that I started to feel myself getting dizzy.

There was a violent tug at my shirt, forcing me backward before an almighty hiss, vicious enough to cut through the screams and silence them, echoing through the corridor.

It took seconds for each and every one of the mangled people to shrivel back into their flats, winding limbs clambering in all directions. Leaving Ellie standing there, horn tips gleaming in the artificial light.

"What were they, Kat?" I barely heard the muffled sounds she was making that had replaced the heart-wrenching screams.

I finally pulled my hands away from my ears to see them covered in blood. Ellie noticed and wrapped her arms around me, nicking me accidentally in the side with a claw. It hurt but I didn't want to make a fuss. In that moment, I knew no pain could measure up to what I'd felt during my short time amongst the mangled people.

"I don't know... How did you do that?" I could still barely hear the sounds of my own voice. It was like I was wearing a hat pulled over my ears, despite nothing of the sort and my hair being shoved into a bun on top of my head.

"I didn't do anything, I thought they were going to eat us both!" she replied, hyped on the adrenaline.

"But they all ran away..."

"I guess I'm just extra scary!" she answered, a pride in her voice that only a child could produce. I just looked down at her and ruffled the blonde hair between her horns. She was frightening-looking, sure, but she had nothing on those things, or even the creatures in the lift.

I couldn't understand why such ferocious monsters were so scared of a little girl. Why would they run instantly? It made me uneasy, but I loved the twins, no matter how unusual they were. I just wished that I could be more of a protector for her than it being the other way round.

We stumbled into the corridor and I was again confronted by the metal doors of the fake lift. To the other side of them there was an entrance, presumably to a stairwell if the under tower we were trapped in continued to be a mirror of home. After spending what felt like hours in a lift, the idea of stairs comforted me and I ushered Ellie toward the entrance.

There were no stairs going upward, back to floor -1. They only went downward, the odd artificial light not quite covering the bottom of the set we were at the top of. My ears rang with the sound of the mangled people's screams.

"Do you think they skip, too?" Ellie asked me, looking into the abyss with her own, impossibly deep black voids.

"Let's find out," I answered, gripping her hand again as we started to walk toward the darkness.

We reached floor -3 quickly, in one average flight. I considered exploring the corridor of flats that existed on that floor, too, but Ellie planted herself firmly to the ground again and insisted we didn't. I wasn't about to argue with her, sound still hadn't returned to normal and I'd learned from my mistake. I couldn't bare to face anything like the previous floor again.

We climbed down another flight of stairs. The ones we had just descended were still there, leading back up, when we reached the bottom, giving me some comfort that as long as we could reach the lift on floor -2 we should at least be able to get back to the cold, dim but empty basement.

This time, the stairs did skip, giving some sort of semblance of home. The big, black -5 sign was jarring, but missing a floor had allowed me to tell myself that these stairs were just an extension of the proper ones.

More jarring, was the woman. She looked right at us, at my demon sidekick that had terrified everything else... and she didn't run. In fact, she didn't move at all, it's as if she were looking straight through us. Ellie didn't panic either, she didn't tell me to get away or hiss at the woman. She just stared back.

Her hair was a mousy brown and her features beautiful, yet average. There was nothing particularly distinct about her, except for how much she reminded me of someone else.

She was a perfect mirror of her counterpart, she had the same vacant yet sad expression that the man on floor 5 always had. I wondered for a moment what her name might be.

"She misses him," Ellie said.

I looked down at her in confusion.

"How do you know that?" I asked, not bothering to question who she meant.

"I don't know, I just do," she shrugged nonchalantly.

I sat on the step next to the standing woman and despaired. This whole place was like a sick joke. There was no sign of Albert, Derek, or any way out of the labyrinth we were trapped in so far, and I couldn't comprehend just how much of an imbecile I'd been.

Between the thoughts of never getting out, how I'd endangered the entire block, how hungry the kittens would get, Jamie, and those awful screams, my head felt ready to explode. The incessant ringing was only getting worse.

The woman next to me didn't move a muscle, just stood staring into the open space in front of her. I looked at Ellie, knowing that she was special, and didn't doubt what she had told me. I could feel for myself that the woman missed the man. I understood how she felt, to lose her love to the building, my heart truly bled for her.

"We need to keep going. There has to be someone here that can talk to us. We need to get you back home to your mum and brother," I spoke, attempting to stay focused.

I smiled another forced, optimistic smile at Ellie and gestured for her to follow me further down the spiraling, artificially-lit stairs. I wasn't sure what I hoped to find, or even where I was aiming, perhaps floor -9 was my best bet at any sort of answers.

I didn't get a chance to test that theory. Once we reached the bottom of the flight we were once again faced with the big, black -5. The woman was stood in the same position, facing forward.

"Come on," I grabbed Ellie and tried to repeat the action. The stairs had always skipped. It wasn't anything unusual. It wasn't until it was.

By the sixth time we had attempted the stairs, Ellie was looking tired and scared. Despite her voids for eyes, the rest of her face displayed fear like any normal child.

"Kat..."

"It's okay. We just need to keep trying," I tried to convince myself as much as her.

"No... She doesn't want to be alone. That's why we can't leave." She let go of my hand and extended a long clawed finger in the direction of the woman.

She hadn't moved from her spot and there wasn't a noticeable chance in facial expression or demeanor, however, something about her felt entirely off. Hostile, even.

I understood grief, and doing everything possible to keep people close that you should let go. I wish that were what I thought the woman's intentions were, I really do. Instead, it felt more literal than that, more like she just really couldn't bare to be alone again, at any cost.

"Just keep going."

We ran down the stairs again. Then up them, and down again. Three more times and the terror started to build. Each time we arrived in front of the -5, the woman seemed more sinister, more malignant. She wasn't looking through us anymore. She was looking straight at us.

"My legs hurt, Kat," Ellie whined. Mine did, too.

"Do you think... you could scare her?" I felt sick even suggesting it but Ellie had the best chances of getting us away from the stairwell.

Ellie shook on the spot but nodded and took a few steps toward her. She got close to the woman's face and hissed, claws out. The woman didn't move, she didn't blink or flinch at all, she just stayed in her spot. Nothing at first, until she started to move. All that changed was her face, as the corners of her lips curled into a hollow smile.

The comfort I had felt from the familiarity of the woman and the floor number was dead in the water the moment she smiled. Ellie had retreated in an instant, tugging at my shirt again and shuffling closer. I think the fact that she did nothing else at all made it even more disconcerting.

The woman had the upper hand, and she wasn't going to let us go.

"Please," I begged. "If there's anything we can do to help you, please tell us." I fought my fear, doing everything I could to be kind. If she had ever been a person she might somehow pity our plight. "I say hello to your man. I don't know his name and he's quiet like you... I think he misses you, too. I know he does. I lost someone I love just like you did. I know how you feel."

A singular tear rolled down her cheek but the smile stayed in place. My chest thumped as my heart pounded against my rib cage... Maybe I was getting through to her?

Her eyes were haunting and hypnotic as they made contact with mine. It was like her brain was scrambled and she couldn't put the pieces back together. Her eyes were more expressive than I had ever seen before on any person, filled with confusion and sadness.

After a few moments of intimate communication with our eyes, the woman moved more than I had ever seen her or the man move. She cocked her neck to the side and tilted her head in Ellie's direction. A few seconds after her neck had turned, her eyes followed and she looked intensely at the child, smile plastered on her face and the evaporating trail of the tear still visible in the gleaming light.

Ellie started to cry, terrified. She tried to take a step behind me to use me as some sort of shield. No matter how many monsters she fought she was still a scared kid.

The woman took a labored step toward her.

It took her a long time to put one foot in front of the other. Standing in one position for so long must do a real number on the muscles, even for those of a supernatural persuasion. Nonetheless, her step was an immediate threat, I could feel that her intentions were malevolent. The sadness in her eyes had developed into a disdain and that single step was a declaration of war.

Ellie and I started to back away slowly, readying ourselves to break into a sprint down the stairs. I was prepared to run them in an endless loop forever if it meant keeping that little girl away from the woman.

Before we could even reach the first step, there was a voice. A male voice.

"That's enough now, Angela. I didn't think you were one to make children cry."

I turned to the man now standing next to the woman, who had returned to her spot by the stairs, visibly calmed. He had one hand on her upper arm but he didn't need it there, she wouldn't dare disobey him.

His kindly eyes and smile, that held real warmth, were arranged beneath a familiar flat cap.

"I wish I could say it were nice to see you, Kat, but given the circumstances, I better not," he continued, speaking directly to me this time.

"Who's he?" Ellie interrupted, tugging the same spot on my shirt, where the material had begun to stretch. I smiled at her for real for the first time since our nightmare began.

"Ellie, this is Derek."

How did we end up here?

"Pleased to meet you, young lady."

Derek smiled at Ellie; a genuine, warm grin. They had never met before. He only knew about the twins because I had told him about them last time we spoke, and he never got a chance to see them before he disappeared. Despite this, he was completely unfazed by her demonic appearance.

I wished more than anything that the circumstances had been better. Their meeting and our reunion would've been wonderful upstairs, but instead, we were stuck in the artificially-lit stairwell, with the now still again woman for company.

I'd missed him. I hadn't realized how much it was possible to miss a person I barely knew until Derek. He represented everything good about the block to me. He made it feel like home, even in the bright, windowless underground layers.

"Pleased to meet you, too, sir," Ellie answered in the poshest accent that she could muster, giggling. She radiated a light. There was an invisible expression of instant trust amongst the black that made up her voids. She liked him.

When this nightmare began, with the prophecy and subsequent death of Esther Beckman, I never would've imagined I'd be witnessing that moment between Ellie and Derek, to see an instant connection. I hoped he would get the chance to see her in the sunlight, too, with her brown puppy dog eyes in place of the voids.

The whole scene filled me with my own warmth. Sounds were still muffled after my brutal attack by the mangled people, and I was disappointed that his voice wasn't clear, but the arrival of Derek gave me great hope. Even the presence of the woman, who was still standing by the stairwell, couldn't break that. Besides, we were safe from her now.

He took his kindly eyes away from Ellie to look at me.

"Why are you here? How?" he asked, disbelief in his tone. There was no anger, just disappointment, which was arguably worse. It was the first time I had ever seen Derek not look calm and collected.

"I'm here for you! I couldn't let you rot down here. I got the kittens and the vine... Then Albert came to visit," I blurted out quickly.

Derek smiled a little but it was strained.

"I'm sorry, Kat. You shouldn't have come here. How did you do it...? Why is this little lady with you?" he replied, confusion building. He tried to hide the concern in his voice for Ellie's sake but it was useless, she'd already seen the danger we were in.

I explained what had happened, right from the very beginning, after he went away and how Mr. Prentice trampled Prudence.

Ellie stood in a frightened awe as I spoke about my monstrous boyfriend, how I'd bought him back, kept him locked away for months, and how he later murdered Mr. Meow. Derek looked worried as I described Albert's visit and threats.

I covered everything. From Essie, to the vine, to the window cleaner and his inability to hold it together in lockdown.

I tried to reason why I had thought that my plan with the lift would work, but saying it out loud made me realize how stupid I had been. Ellie continued to listen intently. She looked a little smug when I told him how she had saved me from the creatures and again from the mangled people just a few floors above us.

I could see that my explanation wasn't complete enough, Derek had a million questions still to ask but I didn't give him a chance. After months of dwelling on his disappearance and the events of recent weeks, it was my turn to ask questions.

"Where are we?" I asked, starting as simply as I could manage. Little did I know I had just opened Pandora's box with three words. Derek began to speak.

"I call it the Undertower, or the building below. It's still a part of the building, but most residents never see it - for good reason. The things that live here aren't always as friendly as those upstairs.

"When my father bought the land to build this place, he discovered a large underground tunnel system whilst digging the foundations and it inspired him.

"He wanted to be the first architect to extend a skyscraper the same length downward, and a good deal of the excavation was already in place. He wanted to maximize the earning potential of his space, but he hadn't accounted for the power of this land.

"My father was a competitive, secretive man, so naturally he told no one outside of his workers what he was planning, not even his family. He employed a team of contractors who all signed non-disclosure agreements. We're standing in the result."

Derek waved his arms a little, gesticulating about our current setting before he continued.

"When they found him hanging he was in the basement, the grim-looking room you will have arrived here in. That room, and everything below it has been untouched since construction. They gave up on expanding that particular floor and when my father died, the underground project was abandoned.

"As is the nature of this land, the contractors started to report strange happenings across the entire tower. There were at least 5 unexplained deaths and although it was unreported to the public, those were all amongst men working below.

"Those that worked on this hidden part of the building were especially superstitious, and after my father's death they sealed all entrances to the basement, entombing an entire tower block underneath the city.

"When it came into his possession, Albert tried to convince the builders to unseal it and carry on working. He was just like our dad, you see, ambitious and money driven. None of them would agree to it, they claimed it was cursed.

"The upper tower was completed just before my father took his life, so Albert abandoned his negotiations with the contractors within a few weeks and focused on opening the place up. He wasn't going to continue to miss out on any money arguing over these lower floors.

"He said that our father's death would only explain the grand opening being delayed for so long and he had to move forward. We moved in a week later, the first residents to live here."

He paused for a moment and a sadness clouded his face, his kindly eyes welled up a little as he thought back to life before the building.

"You must be really old if your dad built this place! Even my mum isn't that old!" Ellie interrupted. I laughed, her childish thought process was the only thing that could lighten the mood.

Derek chuckled and the woman next to him remained unmoving.

"I am quite old, I suppose. Don't feel it though," he answered, chuckling to himself as he adjusted his flat cap and winked at Ellie.

"Don't look it either..." I chimed in. Derek stopped chuckling and continued, shooting me a look.

"That isn't something I can explain, Kat. Albert and I weren't close to our father. We didn't really know anything about this place until he died. The project was mostly completed and we only got to speak to a handful of contractors, who told us wild stories we would never believe to be true at the time. We couldn't have imagined how our lives were going to change.

"The only clue we have to our... extended life... is his note.

"To my boys. If you stay here, you will never die."

"That was all he left us. On a crumpled bit of paper that had to be given to us by a builder named Keith. My best guess is that he made some kind of deal with a spirit of the place... I don't know... Maybe it was just a special resident I haven't met yet... Maybe the building itself.

"It took us years to realize we weren't aging normally and by time we noticed, there was no one left to ask.

"We had to navigate every supernatural, unusual, and strange occurrence in the place alone at first. I remember exploring, being in awe of everything I met. Whenever I would cross paths with Albert, he didn't look mystified like I was, he was scared.

"My brother and I were never the best of friends and it's my deepest regret that I didn't use that time we were alone here to build a relationship with him. Maybe I could've made a difference."

"A difference to what?" I asked, trying to take in each of his words. "To his son?"

Derek looked at Ellie, letting his eyes linger on the little girl and then back at me. He shook his head.

"Not now. There's far too much to discuss. For now, we need to find a way to get you home."

I considered protesting but I could see the sadness in his eyes and I didn't want to press. He was right, I'd put Ellie at risk for long enough and I needed to get her back to Terri and Eddie safely.

"Have you been here this whole time? If you can't get out, then we have no hope," I whispered to Derek as he put an arm around Ellie's shoulders and prepared to move. He sighed a little.

"You met my brother, Kat. The consequences of my escape would be huge for the block; he's not appreciative of the way I conduct myself. He prefers to take what the building gives and make it harmful, twist it into something bad... I prefer to live with it. I don't believe anything here is evil... except maybe him."

I tried to let it go, I wanted to keep moving but things weren't adding up.

"But Albert said... the kittens and the vine. He said they were a cry for help."

"He lied. It's in his interests to keep me away. Yes, I helped them live, it gets lonely down here. When he discovered the plant, he took it off me immediately.

"Albert brought down one of the cats to feed to the thing he keeps on floor -10, I stopped him. He let me keep it because I suppose somewhere deep down he pitied me. I nurtured that little cat until out of nowhere the kittens were born. It was amazing, love created new life.

"The cats were great company and I would've freed them if I could, but I never let them out.

"I didn't have a clue how they got out until you mentioned a grate in the wall." He looked me up and down as he spoke, eyeing me unusually. It wasn't an entirely mistrustful look, but suspicious nonetheless.

"So how do we get out?" Ellie asked.

"Well, last time your friend's garden got me out of here..." He crouched to speak to her at eye level.

"We planted a garden for you! But you never came," she huffed in retort.

"I know. My mean brother told me how beautiful it is. I hope I get to see it one day! He's made it a bit harder this time." He stood up and addressed me again. "I used to go through the basement. There's a stairwell, it's just sealed up, you have to break it. The lift will only bring you down, you can't get home that way."

"So let's go!" I urged, reaching for his hand. Then I saw it. I hadn't noticed, I had been too focused on his kindly eyes.

Derek was missing all four fingers on his left hand. He looked at the floor as I struggled not to stare.

"What he did to Jamie. If I even just enter the basement, it will happen to me; I tested it. You can see the results." He lifted his stumpy hand. "I don't know how I got that cat to give birth. And I don't know how Albert does anything that he does to the things that live here. I just know that if I step in that basement, I'll die."

He looked devastated. Despite the relief that he hadn't gone straight in and done much worse damage, I knew the loss of his fingers would be major for him. He was, after all, first and foremost a gardener.

"I'll walk you there, Kat, make sure Albert lets you go. But I can't come with you."

I wanted to scream, loud enough to hurt any ears left on the mangled people upstairs. I wanted to shout and tell him that after all I'd been through, I wasn't going to leave without him. But the horned little girl beside me had thrown a lot of complications out there. Defeated, I nodded.

Derek turned to the still woman.

"I'll be back to visit, Angela, I promise. But please let these ladies leave safely." He leaned over and kissed her cheek gently before ushering us toward the stairwell. Another single tear rolled down her face.

We trudged upward fairly silently. I wondered if all my questions would ever be answered. I knew from before that Derek was mysterious, but after all I'd been through to get to the undertower it didn't seem fair that I would be marched back so unceremoniously.

Derek may have known the way to get home, but no single person has complete control of this land, I was coming to really understand that. The building would always win.

So I shouldn't have been surprised when we arrived at the large, black -7.

"Kat... they skip. You know that, there's nothing for you in there." Derek put his stumpy hand on my shoulder as I stared at the different yet familiar corridor.

He could see the curiosity filling my eyes as I was confronted with the counterpart of my home. Would it be filled with more mangled people? Or was it a true reversal, a place where me and Jamie lived happily, Mr. Prentice didn't have to deal with his affliction, and Essie was alive? Or was it home to something entirely different?

Noise suddenly became more than just muffled. My mind was actively blocking it out. The knowledge that Derek was with Ellie took away some of the responsibility that I felt as I edged toward the familiar, yet very different main entrance.

"Kat, please don't." Derek followed me, cautious to keep hold of Ellie. I think had she not been there he probably would have grabbed me, but he didn't want to spook her. I continued forward in a trance like state.

-42

The numbers were blurred and the minus symbol stood out. I stroked the wood and the handle. It didn't feel like home. Not even a little. I was curious about what was inside, but I somehow knew that it wasn't good.

The only seemingly positive thing about the situation was the lack of mangled people on the floor. I didn't know what was behind the doors, but it wasn't them. I had already created enough noise to draw them out if they were there. No, something else was there.

Instead of trying my key, after a sudden epiphany, I turned and ran, straight toward number -51 and pounded on the door.

"ESSIE!" I screamed, realizing that if I hadn't died in that lift, then maybe she hadn't either.

I banged hard on the door and could almost smell the familiar cigarette smoke seeping out of the flat.

"Kat, stop!" Derek screamed. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him covering Ellie's voids in grim anticipation. Then the door squeaked open.

There she was. Essie hadn't died at all. Her fate had been so much worse.

My friend was standing at the door, face twisted into a horrifying expression, her mouth lulled open much wider than should be possible with a functioning jaw. More alarmingly, her eyes had been entirely removed, leaving red, bloodied, gaping wounds central to her face.

Tufts of hair had been yanked from her scalp, leaving raw skin in its place. The dress that's neatness I had previously marveled at was torn and distressed around the edges, barely covering her swollen, deformed limbs, bones jutting out of open wounds in all directions. The air filled with the scent of old ash and necrotic skin.

She collapsed to the ground, unable to stand any longer on her broken legs, mouth still hanging open. Guilt washed hard over me.

"How could you leave her like this?!" I turned to Derek and screamed, but his face was as horrified as mine.

"I didn't know, Kat. Honestly, I didn't. I didn't even know she was dead until I found you! Please, we have to keep going, don't let her see this." He kept his hand over the gaping black voids that were so much more alive and comforting than Essie's hollowed sockets.

There was real shock in his eyes. I believed him, but I was angry.

"She wanted me to help you! And this is what she got?!" I couldn't get past my rage. Essie had been left to suffer for so long already and who knew how long Albert intended her to stay like that. She laid there, writhing, and I was both desperate to help her and furious.

Derek didn't get a chance to protest. Instead, our argument was interrupted by a slow and mocking clap.

I turned to see the door of flat -42 flung wide open, Albert in the doorway, with a smug grin on his face.

Not all heroes wear capes.

"You're so predictable, Kat. I knew you'd find yourself here, on this particular floor. Apologies for my tardiness to this reunion, I've been cleaning up a rather large mess you left while travelling here."

My skin crawled as Albert spoke, he filled me with the opposite of the warmth Derek did. The world became cold and hopeless.

"Is everyone okay up there!?" I asked, desperately hoping that my stunt with the lift hadn't hurt anyone.

"All but one," Albert replied, smiling wryly. "Aren't you going to thank me? Yet another disaster cleaned up by yours truly. It could've been a lot worse." My heart sank as I went through a Rolodex of residents in my mind. It was like I was being told off. I was about to ask who got hurt, but I couldn't find the words in time before the brothers eurrupted into a bitter row.

"Let them go home, Albert. They've learned their lesson, they won't look for me again," Derek interjected firmly.

"Are you some kind of idiot?" Albert retorted, rolling his eyes. "All the chaos this girl has caused and you think I'm going to just let her head back up there to cause more...? When she brought such a beautiful gift." He took a few steps toward Ellie, gazing in wonder, and Derek stepped in front of her.

"You aren't coming anywhere near her," he hissed at his brother through gritted teeth.

"What is she?" He stopped moving and directed his question at me.

"I'm a girl and my name is Ellie," she shouted from behind Derek defiantly, poking her horns out to the side. She was audibly annoyed at being referred to as a what.

"I'm sorry! It's great to meet you Ellie." He edged a little closer again and got down to void level, just like Derek had not long ago. There was no instant connection this time though, just a twisted fascination in his eyes. He spoke as if she wasn't even there. "Exquisite. She's natural."

"Of course, she is," Derek responded, stepping back as he continued to guard the little girl.

"Nothing you mess with works out very well, does it?"

"That depends on your definition. Your successes all panned out pretty poorly, don't you think, little brother?" he snapped back.

"What are you talking about?" I blurted, confused. I had no idea what they meant by natural or what they were arguing over. In fact, I had personally always found Ellie's demonic appearance quite unnatural myself.

Albert scoffed maniacally as Derek looked at the floor. The sibling dynamic was so visible, you could see Derek being put into a place of little brother, trying to hide behind the peak of his flat cap. Regardless, he valiantly continued to shield Ellie. Finally, Albert stood up and addressed me directly again.

"He hasn't told you anything, has he? About this place, about how it throws out creations you could barely imagine." He looked around him as he referred to the building below that we had been trapped in, and continued.

"You have no idea of the power this land has. The power it gives to people who stay. Ever wonder how Prudence Hemmings managed to throw a fully-grown man off a balcony and chase you up all those stairs - at her age? Or why Mr. Prentice becomes that other thing? Or why me and my lovely brother here aren't long dead?

"They're just all too stupid to notice. They have no idea what's right beneath them. They won't ever realize the potential."

My mind reeled at his words, maybe the building really could change its inhabitants. To be honest, I spent more time than I'd like to admit wondering how I hadn't found it easier to escape Prue. I was permanently scarred from the altercation after all. Despite my contempt for Albert, I recognized that what he was saying made sense.

I noted the residents he mentioned. All of them had spent decades in the building. It wasn't a far stretch at all to believe that it could've irreparably altered them somehow. There were others that I could think of, however, that had been there just as long and seemed as normal as you or me. All the questions hurt my mind.

I heard a yelp and some pained moans and turned to flat -51, where Essie was frantically trying to wrench herself up off the floor. Every time she got close, another bone would crack and her jaw would edge slightly lower. Blood oozed from the wounds.

"Just let them go. This is pointless," Derek tried to interrupt, to keep things moving. I wouldn't let him. Looking at my friend being tortured by her own body had only made me angry again.

"No! What do you mean she's natural?" I shouted at him, curiosity about their conversation getting the better of me. Derek spoke as Albert smugly grinned in the background.

"Kat... we can do things. It doesn't just end with an extended life, we can manipulate some of the people and things that pass through here. That's why I was able to give Prudence the way to get Lyla back. It's why those things listen to me."

Derek pointed at Albert before continuing.

"He gave that cult the ability to burn the whole floor with their minds... and I gave the residents that died new life as the cats. Since he left to stay down here, he's been messing around with anyone and anything he can get his hands on. I've tried to stop it over the years, but... I don't always manage.

"Those people you dealt with on the floor below the basement... they were all his failed experiments. Those poor people were once residents upstairs that ended up here by mistake. Fifty years' worth."

Albert couldn't let him continue. He was bursting with the need to gloat.

"I wouldn't say they failed! They're all beautifully grim. I thought you were a fan of giving things new life, little brother."

There was little to no feeling in his voice. His sharp tone and dusty suit made him almost like a caricatured amalgamation of every Disney villain recorded.

Except in Disney films the villain didn't win, and looking at Essie, writhing in pain on the floor of not her doorway, Albert had won already.

Derek stayed silent, I could see he felt guilty for even being associated. He just looked at me in desperation.

I tried to fathom what they were saying.

"So... Jamie was unnatural?" I asked timidly, taking in the inference that his monster form had been nothing more than a byproduct of Derek's power. Just another twisted experiment, like the mangled people whose screams rang in my ears. I wondered if he had felt pain like they did.

Albert erupted into laughter and once again clapped mockingly.

"There's that intelligence I liked about you when we first met! It's in there, girl! Now you get it. Can you explain to me where your little friend came from?" His words were patronizing, but he couldn't hide his curiosity.

He took another few steps toward Ellie as Derek stood bravely in front of her. "It's not often I find one I'm unaware of. I don't know how I've missed her. Especially when she was able to do so much damage to my other creations. You should've seen what she did to one of the pair that inhabit the lift. I have to have her."

Ellie reached a clawed hand forward and pushed Derek aside with such force that he was taken off his feet. She hissed, just as she had with the rat creatures and the mangled people. Albert winced, but stayed stoic as his face filled with joy.

"You're mean!" she shouted at him. My heart melted a little that she thought that those two words were fitting for the situation. If only things were as simple as they are in the mind of a seven-year-old.

Derek stumbled to his feet and watched closely, in awe of Ellie's blind courage.

Albert once again dropped to his knees to face her. She stood defiantly, her voids fixed on his cold eyes. He started to reach his hand out toward her. She growled softly in response.

"NO!" I screamed. Visions of her disintegrating in front of my eyes filled my mind. I couldn't let him touch her. I started to run toward them but Derek grabbed me and held me in place as he whispered in my muffled ear.

"He won't hurt her, but he will hurt you." I looked at his stumped hand and listened, despite my discomfort. I thought back to the article about Albert's son's death and for the first time, I wasn't sure I trusted Derek. How could I know for sure that he wouldn't hurt her? I was ready to jump forward and throw Ellie out of the way at any point.

Albert stopped just millimeters short of Ellie's face, his fingers hovering in front of the deep black voids. His eyes were filled with wonder, the expression on his face was how I must have looked the first time I saw her, too.

"It isn't just you, is it, Ellie?" he mused, a smile erupting across his face. "There's two of you."

I should've been alarmed, worried that he had realized she was a twin. I should've pondered how he knew, but at this stage semantics were pointless. Instead, his lack of knowledge about Eddie's existence filled me with relief that he hadn't been harmed upstairs. If he had, Albert wouldn't have been so fascinated by his sister.

"Eddie wouldn't like you either," she said bluntly, breaking the magic in his eyes.

Before I could make a single move, Derek had leapt across the room and got between them again.

"Let them go," Derek said calmly, one more time. "They don't belong down here."

"I'm finding it hard to believe that she didn't come from down here. And I promised that one..." Albert tilted his head in my direction, "a fate just like hers." He pointed at Essie, who had bloodied red tears running down her face as she squirmed on the floor. I watched the jagged edge of her snapped thigh bone scrape against the carpet, pulling it further out of her skin and I cringed hard.

Derek didn't respond to his brother. Instead, he grabbed Ellie's clawed hand and walked her towards Essie's flat.

"What are you doing?!" Albert cried out in a condescending fashion, scrambling up from his knees and following. I couldn't bare to see him get closer.

An anger bubbled inside me and the entire floor went dead silent. All noise was replaced by a deep mental echoing of the screams of the mangled people. I thought of all the suffering the landlord had caused and watched as he edged toward that pure, innocent, demonic little girl. And I saw red.

I sprinted at him and threw myself forward, tackling him to the floor from behind. Raising a clenched fist, I punched him hard in the face. I had never hit anyone like that before, I'd never felt the red mist that those who get angry describe, until that moment.

I wasn't sure what I thought my interference would do. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to kill him, and that I probably wouldn't be able to do any damage at all, but Ellie had saved me so many times already that night that I couldn't let him get to her.

Albert's cold, dead-looking eyes bore into my soul and he let out a joyless giggle as he wrestled me to the ground so that he had the upper hand. He hovered his hand over my face just like he had Jamie, pinning me down with the other.

I wondered if it was the last thing his son had seen before he died. Jamie, Essie before the torture, all of them. Had this been it? Could the last real memory they had be those cold eyes.

I prepared to die. Since moving into the tower block, it was something that I'd done more than most, but this time it felt permanent. Everything but Albert went black. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and tried to think of the things I wanted to remember, the people upstairs that had become family to me.

Death never came. Instead, I felt a crushing and release as someone grabbed Albert from above me and threw him against the wall.

I sat up panting, in shock that I was alive. I was disoriented and my ears continued to ring. I opened my eyes. The artificial light started to penetrate the black and all I could see was Derek's tweed flat cap, on the floor beside me. My heart stopped.

The next sound I heard was familiar, but somehow bigger than ever before. I blinked a few times to see Ellie, claws raised menacingly in the air, roaring at Albert, who had been grabbed by his brother and had, in turn, overpowered him.

She was much taller and wider than usual, a gigantic figure towering above all of us, and her human features that came through the demonic ones were greatly reduced. If I didn't love her so dearly, I would be tempted to describe her as terrifying and monstrous.

Albert took his attention away from Derek, a smug and slimy smile forming ear to ear as he marveled at the giant girl. He moved toward her in a trance-like state.

Ellie opened her mouth as she stood above Albert with her claws, revealing long sharpened teeth with prominent fangs in the front. Somehow, her voids for eyes seemed infinitely deeper.

Then she bit him.

Her sharp fangs pierced Albert's skull, sending blood and brain matter spattering across the corridor and all over me, Essie, and Derek.

She didn't stop there. Ravenously, she laid into him with her teeth, pinning him hoisted up to the wall with foot-long claws, by his limbs. She had as good as crucified him and was consuming parts.

Bone and organ littered the floor and walls and what was left of limbs twitched as she severed nerves. I watched in horror and awe. A symphony of screaming, growling, and crunching breaking through my muffled hearing.

When he stopped moving and what remained slid down the wall, leaving a trail of blood, Ellie's size reduced as well almost instantaneously. Neither I nor Derek had any words as the now little again demonic girl stood beside a corpse of her making.

She ran toward Derek with her arms outstretched, bloodied mouth, and embraced him. He held her tightly, his kindly eyes filled with the shock of what he'd just witnessed. After a minute or so, she broke from Derek and turned to me and helped me up before doing the same.

It felt good. To know that she was safe.

She stopped hugging and stood facing us both before speaking, voids facing the ground.

"He was going to hurt us all."

Never take the sunlight for granted.

Derek and I stared at Ellie in silence. It wasn't a stare of horror, more of sheer disbelief. I couldn't be more grateful that she had saved our lives.

What remained of Albert on the floor wasn't a source of alarm. Despite his extended life, she had ripped him into enough pieces that if he had survived, he couldn't speak and must have been in unbelievable pain. Just like the residents he tortured for years.

It would've been a cruel irony and I almost half hoped he hadn't truly died, as sick as that may sound.

"Are you okay?" I asked Ellie. She had shrunken and morphed back into a smaller demonic child, something that I felt a need to protect, despite the fact she didn't need anyone to do so.

"I'm fine," she answered, head still hung as if she were ashamed. There was a pause for a moment.

"Thank you, sweetheart. We'd all be dead without you," Derek chipped in, his normal, calm and positive tone restored. Ellie lifted her head and smiled as he recognized her for the hero she was. It wasn't that I didn't feel the same, it's just that the shock was overwhelming. "We need to help another friend now, honey. Do you want to grab Kat and come with me?"

Ellie wrapped her clawed hand in mine as I clutched Derek's blood-soaked tweed cap with the other. She looked at me with love, just like she had at the beginning of this nightmare. The cold atmosphere of the floors below that we stood in had been reduced to a pile on the ground, just like Albert.

We walked towards flat -51. Every step felt wobbly, like those few steps after a really spinny ride at the fair. I struggled to put one foot in front of the other.

Derek dropped to where Essie lay squirming and put a gentle hand over her chest, carefully avoiding the splintered rib bones that stuck out.

"I'm so sorry," he said to her as he shut his eyes, leaned down, and kissed her bloodied forehead.

The shards of bone that decorated her entire body started to move and rearrange. She squealed in pain as her skin started to cauterize over the newly-repositioned bone and innards. Her twisted limbs started to resemble something human again. I felt tears rolling down my face.

Once she was as close to her usual herself as she was going to get, Derek took a step back as she opened her eyes, which had returned to the hollowed sockets and looked directly at me.

Essie was blind, she had always been blind, but she knew that I was there. We held her gently as the three of us helped her to her sofa, an exact replica of the one upstairs, placing each bruised limb into position as carefully as we could.

The bruises shone purple and green underneath the harsh artificial lighting, reminding me that we weren't really home.

"Kat..." she struggled to speak. Her jaw hadn't quite relocated the whole way. I knew what she wanted though.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a slightly bloody cigarette. Essie reached out with broken fingers and held it to her lips as best she could as I put down the flat cap and lit it for her.

"Come on, sweetheart, we're gonna stand in the other room," Derek said to Ellie as he ushered her into the hallway and away from the smoke, leaving me alone with Ms. Beckman.

"I'm sorry, Essie." I started. She tried to reply but she could barely make a sound. "You were right though, he did need help. Now no one in the block is going to go through what you have any more... I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

Essie puffed on the cigarette with great difficulty, she could barely close her lips around it but she persisted, with a glint in her eye that indicated this was the first pleasure she'd enjoyed in quite some time. She grunted a strained no at me.

"Ellie did it. I can finally take her home now. I just wish that we could take you and Derek with us." I lit my own cigarette and took a long draw from it.

"You... ca... can. No... not... me. Go home. GO HOME," she managed. Every word leaving a trail of pain in her face. I cringed, despite her better appearance she wasn't fixed. She was in as much pain as she had been before. I smiled at her, just to try and make her feel a little normal.

"Speaking in fucking riddles again, Essie?" I responded, trying to muster a laugh through the tears that continued to fill my eyes.

She looked directly at me again and I knew that she had been serious. We finished our smoke in silence as I wept and she wheezed.

"Derek!" I shouted after a few more minutes with her, encouraging him back into the flat. He and Ellie appeared within seconds.

He took one look at me, nodded with tears in his eyes too, and he knew what to do. I got up from the sofa and pulled Ellie in for a hug, careful to avoid her horns, making sure that she faced me.

Then I watched over her shoulder as he delicately closed Essie's eyelids and the wheezing stopped. I held in a sob and clutched my young friend as tightly as I could.

Derek walked toward us and put his arms around the both of us for a moment in silent mourning before stepping back.

Ellie looked up at me, a knowing in her voids, and she spoke.

"I want to go home now, Kat."

Her words broke what was left of my resolve. The sobbing began and Derek put his hand on my shoulder. He started to walk us out of the hallway and as we reached the mess on the floor that had once been Albert, outside the door of flat -42, I came to a sudden stop.

"No further. We need to go in there," I said, directing them into the open door of my anti-flat. Derek tried to speak and protest but I stopped him the moment he opened his mouth. "Please. Just trust me."

I wasn't angry, or frantic like before, and I think that he knew I wasn't trying to lead us into more trouble. I recognized that I'd probably done enough of that to last a lifetime.

Essie hadn't led me astray before, her advice had been sound, I'd taken a few detours but I got to the right place eventually. If I were to respect her death then I had to follow the last bit of advice she gave out.

The flat was familiar. My sofa, fold-out table, and kitchen were all there, identical to the ones I'd spent so much time at. The flat was windowless, the sole indication in my confusion that I wasn't truly home. I pulled back the curtains of the balcony doors to reveal thick concrete behind them.

It was sad really, but I almost longed to see the window cleaner, tapping on the glass and begging to be let in. I would trade his persistent harassment for my current predicament in a heartbeat.

I felt my face sink. Whatever Essie had wanted me to see here wasn't as clear as I'd hoped. I should have anticipated that it wouldn't be easy. Derek and Ellie stood in silence as I inspected every inch of the place, even down to an equally smashed copy of the prison I had kept Jamie in.

Frustrated, I eventually looped back into the living room, prepared to walk out the front door and follow Derek to the basement entrance, where he would leave us again. The prospect of going through all that for him to remain trapped in these layers was more disheartening than anything I'd felt before.

Then I saw the light.

It wasn't a eureka moment. Or some sort of religious epiphany; it was an actual physical light. It wasn't artificial like the one that had plagued our stay in the under tower. It was real, and it was coming from the sun.

"How..." Derek uttered in wonder as his eyes fixed on the grate that had appeared at the top of the concrete, behind the sliding balcony doors. The sun flooding in lit up his whole face and electrified his kind eyes.

The opening looked just the same as it had the night I found the kittens, but from the other side, its appearance was all the more poignant. Who would've thought that metal bars could signify such freedom.

When it first appeared I had never imagined that something other than a basement could exist beneath the block.

"Thank you, Essie." I looked up at the ceiling and imagined her smile as it had been before Albert had gotten to her. She knew she couldn't be saved, but she made sure Derek didn't have to stay. And I knew that in her death she wouldn't have to suffer again.

The grate was just large enough for a person to fit through with enough of a squeeze and I could almost make out the shrubbery I and the twins had planted.

"See! You're coming too!" I grinned at Derek with the first bit of true joy I'd felt in quite some time. He didn't protest this time or argue at all. He smiled back and just said two simple words.

"Thank you."

I pulled open the sliding door and Ellie, who had been stood to the side, climbed the curtain with her claws as quickly as possible. I was amazed and grateful that she didn't pull them down. I watched in awe as she wrenched the bars away from the concrete and uninterrupted sunlight poured into the lower flat.

The sunlight bathed us all and Ellie dropped to the ground at the same time as her claws and horns began to retract. I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment the voids disappeared but they did.

There she was, mess of blonde hair on her head and brown puppy dog eyes looking at us as she hit the ground with a thud. A little girl you wouldn't suspect more than a tantrum of replaced the ferocious beast that had protected me through this hellish landscape.

The front door that led to the hallway where Albert's remains lay had suddenly been replaced by a thick blank wall, just as the lift that bought us here had been. All that remained was the flat, the three of us, and the open grate.

I pulled one of the chairs from the fold-out table below it and turned to Derek.

"You first, so you can pull us out."

He was busy staring at the newly transformed girl. There was guilt in his eyes, and he looked at Ellie more strangely than he had when she was demonic. Regardless, the connection was still there.

I handed him the flat cap, still soaked in blood, and he placed it on his head with a genuine smile. He looked himself again with it in place as he took a step onto the chair. Before climbing out, he turned to us and winked.

He wriggled through the grate with some difficulty, and reached his hands back through. I watched Ellie's tiny clawless hand clutch his fingerless one as he hoisted her through the gap.

Left alone in the flat, I took another look at my surroundings, and took a moment to consider all the pain beneath the block. I imagined a life where Ellie hadn't come with me and I was trapped for good, or dead at the hands of the rat creatures.

As I burst through the small gap, pulled by both Derek and Ellie, the bright sun and sensation of the shrubs in my hair as I crawled through them felt like a rebirth.

The garden was stunning. Dewdrops littered the green foliage and the rising, orange sun lit them up like fireflies. I had never been more appreciative of it. Looking back at the outer edge of the building the grate was gone, along with any indication that it had been there at all.

I wondered why it had appeared in my flat down there. Why I had been the person to find it both times, and I remembered what Albert had said about the building altering those who stay. I pondered whether he was right, and if it was possible that it had altered me already.

As we sat in the fresh morning air, I knew that none of it really mattered. Standing outside of a grim city tower block was cathartic; gray concrete had never looked so inviting.

We were home.

The scenes of carnage and destruction that I had imagined would greet us when we entered the building were nowhere to be seen. Albert had certainly cleaned up. There was no kitten leg, or creatures, or even evidence of a kerfuffle. It made me all the more nervous; I had no idea who had been hurt.

The slow trudge to Ellie's floor was painful, my limbs all ached and the ringing in my ears continued. Still, I was just so glad to be getting her home, I couldn't wait to see Terri's face when we returned her daughter safely. Ellie may have looked a mess, but she was alive and well, which was the best I could ask for given the circumstances.

I wish I could say that Terri greeted us with joy. I really do wish I could.

Instead, her face was sullen and the dark circles that sat like tattoos looked deeper than before. The skin around her eyes was puffed up and swollen with tears. When she spotted Ellie, she fell to her knees with relief. I hoped her face would brighten, but it didn't.

"Where is he?" she sobbed, grabbing hold of Ellie and clutching her as tightly as she could. "Where's my son?"

My heart dropped to my stomach. I'd made a sea of bad decisions in my time, but this... if this was what Albert had meant... was the worst consequence I could've imagined.

I tried to find words but I couldn't, I'd never seen a person look quite so broken. The pain in the screams of the mangled people wasn't a patch on Terri's sobbing.

"Is... that his blood?" she asked, gesturing to our clothes and hair whilst struggling to speak.

I had been complacent. If the creatures had overpowered Eddie, if they had won, then maybe there wasn't enough of him left for Albert to see that he was like his sister. I shouldn't have written off the possibility like I had.

Derek stepped forward and put his hands on Terri's shoulders. She winced and I remembered the lockdown situation, the only grounding in reality that I'd felt since returning to the upper layers of the block. She looked him in the eyes.

"I don't know if you remember me, Terri. You were very small the last time we met, but I remember your parents." His kindly eyes had locked with hers as she melted and collapsed into him, wailing and gasping for air.

Together we walked her to the sofa, not unlike how we had Essie not long before. I'd never known Terri's flat to be so quiet; Eddie was always playing. He was always so loud. And he always came home.

Ellie was the absconder. It's why I'd found it easy to convince myself that Eddie was playing in his room, disrupting Terri's sleep like normal as we navigated the layers below. In all honestly, I think I was just trying to convince myself that I couldn't possibly be responsible for the death of a child.

Logically, I always knew that with his sister gone for that long, he'd go looking. I just hoped... I really hoped we would get home in time. That he could hold his own. I don't know. Anything but this. I had buried my worries.

Terri couldn't breathe properly through thick, heavy sobs. The noise muffled my already fucked up ears. Derek sat with his arms around her while Ellie nuzzled into his other side and I sat opposite, blood-soaked, devastated, and alone.

Knock... Knock... Knock...

The tapping on the door brought all conversation, sobbing, and brooding to a stop. Terri sprinted to the door, hope in her eyes, and as it opened she wailed in joy.

"Get off me, mum! Where's Ellie!"

The familiar voice of the young boy jolted me back into the room and I turned to see Eddie, accompanied by none other than Mr. Prentice. Eddie spotted his sister on the sofa and ran toward the three of us.

"Woah, where did all the blood come from? Cool!" he shouted. There were a few cuts and bruises covering his limbs but he seemed mostly unharmed. His excitement was enough to tell me that he was okay. Derek stared at him in disbelief, not unlike how he had Ellie upon their first meeting.

I turned and walked toward the door, to where Terri and Mr. Prentice were speaking. Mr. Prentice wobbled slightly as he kept himself propped up with his cane.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. I heard a lot of banging and decided I should go and check what was going on. I found him at the bottom, by that ghastly lift.

"I didn't recognize the man in the suit, I couldn't get close enough, but I don't understand how anyone could stand over an injured child and not help. He ran into the lift when I got closer and you know how I like to avoid that place.

"I'm not sure why folk run from me sometimes, but it was probably for the best, I'm not sure what I'd have done."

I imagined Mr. Prentice, in his animal form running toward Albert. Imagining that the landlord had run scared from the beast warmed my heart.

"Anyway, I'm rather tired. So if you don't..." Mr. P stopped as he caught a glimpse of the inside of the flat behind us. His eyes widened. "Is that... DEREK!"

Derek came up behind us and reached out a bloodied hand to shake Mr. Prentice's. The elderly man looked unsteady on his cane, as if he had seen a ghost.

"It's been years!" he stuttered, beaming, firmly gripping Derek's intact hand. "We shall have to have a drink together, my friend!"

"We will," Derek smiled. "I'm back now. There'll be plenty of time to catch up."

Terri clutched the twins tightly as the two men reveled in their meeting. I couldn't help but smile quietly to myself and think of Essie. The kids were safe, Derek was back, and Albert couldn't continue to terrorize the block. And yet again, Mr. Prentice had proved himself the real MVP.

We left Terri and the kids to have some family time, Ellie hugged Derek so tightly as we left I thought she might crush him.

We walked back to the seventh floor where mine and Mr. P's flats were. It should've been a victory walk but I couldn't shake the feeling that everything wasn't entirely over.

My feeling was confirmed once the door to flat 48 closed behind Mr. Prentice and Derek looked at me gravely.

"There are a few more things you need to know, Kat. Can you get cleaned up and meet me in the garden?"