Two large red patches

 “What the hell was that?” Hikari was on her feet in seconds and her voice lowered as she approached the front door of his apartment. “It's not Halloween, is it?”

“Of course not,” said Yota, checking his shirt for hot chocolate before cleaning up the mess he had made on the floor.

“Your neighbours aren't normally that noisy, are they?” she asked.

“No,” he mumbled.

The wadded up kitchen towel kept trying to escape his quivering hands. The door opened and he assumed she was taking a quick peek outside. He wasn't sure whether he was glad she heard the scream too. He returned to the kitchen and a second scream, louder this time, caused him to drop his mug again, this time into the sink. Hikari slammed the door shut and he didn't have to see her face to know she had slipped into crisis mode.

“You still have my Eagle, don't you?” she asked as he left the kitchen.

“Why?” He found her airsoft gun propped up in the furthest corner of the room, between his bedside cabinet and the outer wall. “Do you – do you think someone's in trouble?”

A stupid question. That kind of scream didn't come from someone who was having a good time.

“Maybe,” she replied as he passed it to her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just wasn't expecting – that,” he said as if she hadn't seen him cower like a child within his own four walls.

“Do you recognise her voice?”

“It was a woman?” He held onto the rounded edge of his wooden drawers, breathing softly to slow his heart rate.

“Sounds like it to me,” she said. “Give me a sec. I'll just go and check –”

“– Wait!” Yota grabbed her sleeve, his fingers snagging on the fabric. “I'll go with you.”

“It's probably nothing.” She tried to reassure him but he only threw on a sweatshirt and zipped it up pointedly when he couldn't find his usual cardigan.

They put on their shoes and he hovered at her side as she left the apartment, though not before wedging his sandal carefully between the door and its frame just in case. There was no one in the corridor but the atmosphere felt off. The echo of their footsteps on the tiles seemed too loud. The air stretched thin around them and Yota rubbed at the memory of bruises on his arms left by rough hands. His skin prickled and the urge to return to the safety of his home tightened around his throat like a thick collar.

“It's nothing, right?” he murmured.

“Looks like it,” she answered, her tone equally soft and lacking its usual conviction.

“We should go ba-”

“Wait a minute.” She stopped halfway down the corridor, facing door number eighty five, and he couldn't remember who lived there. “It's open.”

Something dark flickered at the edge of his vision but he didn't see anything when his gaze snapped towards it. An unseen hand tugged on the leash attached to the anxiety around his neck and he pressed his fingertips into Hikari's inner elbow. The door creaked against her palm and she made a shushing noise, index finger pressed to her lips, before she entered the stranger's apartment. He didn't want to follow her in but the emptiness of the corridor invaded his bones like cold air.

Trying to control his breathing, he stepped into the unknown space that had the same layout as his own and walked right into her back. His indignant question was silenced by her ten second old warning as well as her stiff body language. The first thing he noticed was the overwhelming fragrance of freshly washed clothes, along with a repetitive sound that could have belonged to a washing machine running if only it had sounded less guttural and spaced out.

The second was someone's uneven breathing, interrupted by sobbing noises. Yota would have backed out of the place straight away if Hikari hadn't grabbed his wrist with her free hand and glanced back at him through shell-shocked eyes. The scene beyond her gave him all of the answers he needed before he could question her expression.

A woman, who was probably only a few years older than Hikari, crawled backwards on the floor. She moved as if she were trying not to be heard, dragging her right heel, away from two large red patches. One was smaller than the other, yet both surrounded what appeared to be flattened human bodies that were thankfully in prone positions. Yota barely had time to work out what could have done this to a parent and their child before a large stone slab rose up on its own, revealing the remains of a crushed wooden table and two chairs.

He smothered his shock with a fist. The stone slid sideways, legless, until it drew level with a third chair in the middle of the room. Two huge ears protruded from either side of its form, covered by a pair of similarly large hands. The stain on its face matched the colour of the patches on the floor. Its eyes were closed and the constant drone from its open mouth sounded like a old person snoring. There were no strings, no equipment, and no way to explain how it could move like that on its own.

It might have been some expensive remote controlled device but it fell forward way too smoothly, pulverising the second to last chair, and Yota squeezed Hikari's arm. She pushed him back towards the door, then crept forward to save the woman who had managed to create some space between her and the unexplainable entity. She crouched down and placed a hand gently on her closest shoulder.

The woman gasped and Hikari muffled the rest of her fear with her palm but the incessant droning stopped abruptly. Yota's heartbeat stopped with it. The stone slab turned towards them, its mouth closed, and remained perfectly still for a few seconds. Yota resisted the impulse to hug himself and clenched his teeth instead but it was too late. The slab started groaning again and floated towards them, its bottom edge scraping across the floor which vibrated under their feet.

“Get out!” yelled Hikari.

She yanked the woman's arm over her shoulder and lifted her up by the waist. Yota darted towards the door, then hurried back to help her carry the injured person. A glance over his shoulder revealed that the entity was closer than any of them wanted it to be and his pulse returned with a vengeance. Blood hammered painfully against his artery walls and he would have pressed a hand to his heart if both hadn't been occupied by the woman between him and his best friend.

The door seemed further away than normal but they managed to manoeuvre their way out through it with surprising ease, heading straight for Yota's apartment. Hikari slammed the door shut as soon as they were all in and Yota walked the stranger over to his bed, aiding her descent to the mattress.

“Are – are you okay?” he asked her.

The sweat under his arms began to cool.

“Y-yeah,” she said shakily but it was obvious that she wasn't. Far from it.

She pressed her hands over her eyes. Grief twisted her posture into a weak and defeated work of art. Tears dripped off her chin and his chest burned.

“What was that?” asked Hikari, standing with her airsoft gun pointed at the entrance. “Where did it come from?”

“I don't know,” sobbed the woman. “One second we were all about to have dinner, and the next that thing just appeared out of nowhere.”

“It didn't come from outside?” The room began to quiver around him again. A high-pitched whine drowned his ears, accentuating the rapid beat of his heart.

“No, we were already sitting down and the door was locked,” she insisted. Her right foot was turning blue and purple. He had a horrible feeling her ankle was broken. “It just – just appeared there by the table. My husband tried to stop it but it – it fell on him and he just –”

She groaned, half sorrow, half anger. A sound that drove its fist into the flames within his chest. He had to try and tape up the poor lady's foot, try and grant it some stability before it could be treated by professionals, but his back hit the wall and he couldn't move.

“I'm sorry to ask but what happened after that?” prompted Hikari, her gaze trained on the doorway. “The more we know about this thing, the better our chances of escaping it.”

“I tried to get out with my son,” said Yota's neighbour, rubbing at her eyes. “But he was so scared and he started crying. So it chased us like it heard him and then –”

“Even though its ears were covered?” murmured Hikari. “Interesting.”

“– then it landed on my foot and my son tried to hide under the bed but it – it got him first.” She wailed and hit her own forehead repeatedly with a fist, attempting to stifle her pain with her other hand. “I couldn't stop it. I couldn't save them.”

“I'm so sorry,” said Yota, shaking his head. His own eyes watered. “It's not your fault. I'm sure you tried your best.”

“That's right.” Hikari backed further into the apartment, brushing a hand over his shoulder before placing it on his neighbour's. “There's no way any of us could've expected this. It doesn't make any sense yet you still managed to get away.”

“But why?” She looked up at the younger woman. “Why was I the only one who made it? Why not my son? Or my husband?”

The confusion and betrayal in her eyes worsened the whining sound, and Yota barely managed to stay on his feet. He took slow, deep breaths and counted in the way he had been instructed to as a child. Inhale for four seconds, hold his breath for four seconds, and then exhale for another four seconds. Over and over. Until the irritating ring in his ears faded.

“I don't know,” said Hikari beyond the veil of his box breathing. “But you're here and you're going to live, okay? We're going to get help.”

“Help?” he asked instantly.

“I can't see anything weird outside,” she replied, looking out of his bedroom window. “But we can't say for sure whether there's any more of those things.”

“More?” gulped his neighbour. “You think that's not the only one?”

“I don't know.” Her calm voice cut across their rising panic. “But there are only two ways to find out. Yota, can you check if Mr Haraguchi's seen anything weird? If not, he needs to alert everyone else.”

“Okay.” He swallowed hard and picked up the phone, dialling the building manager's number.

He pulled the handset away for a moment to ensure the ringing wasn't tinnitus. Hikari kept glancing at the door and then placed her gun on the floor beside her, kneeling down in front of the other woman with the first aid kit she hadn't had the chance to return to the kitchen.

“It must've really hurt,” she said, palpating the injured foot and her lower leg cautiously. “That thing looked heavy.”

“It was,” sniffled the neighbour. “It really was.”

Hikari found some compression bandages and ice in his freezer, using both to treat her swollen foot.

“What's your name?” she asked, placing the other woman's bound lower leg on his chair to inspect her work.

“Juri,” she replied, wincing as Hikari tightened the bandages that kept the ice packs pressed against her covered ankle and lower leg. “Juri Kimura.”

“I'm Hikari Oshiro,” said the younger woman. “You've probably seen Yota around here too.”

“I have,” she replied. “My son – always wanted to dye his hair blond because of Mr Shiratori.”

Yota couldn't have been more glad to hear Mr Haraguchi's voice at the end of the line and kept his back turned towards the two women.

“Hello?”

“Good afternoon, Mr Haraguchi,” he said quickly. “It's Mr Shiratori.”

“Yota? What's wrong?” asked the older man.

“There's – uh –” He cleared his throat and wished they had discussed what to say before he called. “– have you seen anything strange recently?”

“Strange? What do you mean strange?”

“In the building. Or outside. I don't know.” Yota's mouth dried up.

“No,” he replied. “Just Tomo. He seemed worried about you.”

“Oh okay. We've – uh – we've got a problem up here.”

“What kind of problem?” Mr Haraguchi chuckled shortly. “Did you forget to change the batteries in your remote again?”

“No, it's not that.” Yota squeezed the handset and leaned on the storage cabinet in front of him.

How was he supposed to tell the old school man about the floating stone creature, the two people who had been killed by it, and the injured woman currently in his room without sounding completely insane? Why would Mr Haraguchi believe him? What reason did he truly have to help Yota out with something so complicated?

Yota jumped as Hikari patted his upper back and held out her hand. He passed the phone to her straight away and stumbled over to sit on the end of his bed.

“Mr Haraguchi? It's me, Hikari,” she said, nodding at him before turning towards the door. “I'm going to need you to call an ambulance … and the police.”