The house

A foul stench could be perceived from the house next door.

The smell was nauseating, it was enough to be considered a hazard, yet somehow, not a single person had done anything about it. Calling the police? Nope. Complaining to the resident? Nope. Complaining about it in social media? Nope. Ironically, nobody ever did anything about that house: It was like it had never existed in first place.

An existence denied by all, yet all so very real at the same time. A paradox.

Because the house was built right next to my house, the stink was almost unbearable by human means. Hence, I decided to end this madness once and for all.

How?

Simple. One should always get to the bottom of the issue to solve the problem. That’s a given.

Of course, I wouldn’t be that foolish to go empty-handed. If a madman were to live in that house, I would be an easy prey, don’t you think? Therefore, a weapon is necessary by all means.

———–

I stood in front of the house porch, exactly at 12 pm. It would be stupid to go too early since there would be nobody out on the streets. And too late at night? Pfftt… the answer is obvious. Of course, the best course of action is at lunchtime, when office workers are out walking aimlessly.

Amusingly, the building in front of my eyes wasn’t an old building. In fact, my very own house was the one built years and years ago.

This residence, however, was the epitome of poor care: The grass at the small front garden was outgrown and long dead. The once majestic apple tree was just a dry trunk overrun with pests. Garbage was piling around at every single nook and cranny, as if a balloon full of waste just happened to explode in front of the building.

The house itself wasn’t in the best state either. The wooden walls were chipped away, the paint layers were violently peeling out. Even the door was barely holding itself, as it simply creaked at the smallest wind.

The crème of the crop? It looked like an attempt to repair the house was once made. Alas, the keyword is “attempt”, as splatters of newer paint layers were splattered on various parts of the house. To be honest, this futile attempt, instead of helping, it only made thing worse, since the random chaotic splatters of clashing colors didn’t even respect the correct areas: Yes, the walls, the roof, the grass, and even the rotten tree were covered in these arbitrary painting blobs.

Truly disgusting and unsettling to the eye.

———–

“12:05 pm” marked the hands of the clock. As a hunter with his prey locked on, I walked on to my goal, while crossing the mountains of filth. I hurriedly opened the door as it creaked. Suddenly, without warning, the stench inside welcomed me as it wanted to embrace me.

As one would expect, the smell inside was nefarious. Had I been born a dog, I would have perished on that very spot. The sulfur aroma mixed with a somewhat honey-like smell invaded my nostrils. Instinctively, I covered my nose with a damp towel I had prepared beforehand. Even so, I refused to back down on my mission.

I walked by the entrance in a quiet manner. The rotting wood on the floor kept squeaking at every step. Who knows if the floor would give up? Frankly, the possibility was high. I carefully kept going on, evading the trash and dust accumulated on the floor.

The inside of the house wasn’t that clean either: In fact, the outside of the building would be considered as the tidiest and cleanest of the world compared to this piggery.

Piles of garbage thrown around, dead animal bodies, insects crawling and feasting on such corpses, organic splatters on the walls probably made by throwing those bodies around, dust so thick you couldn’t even see the floor itself, spider webs with spiders so large any arachnophobic would pass out upon sight, old unwashed clothes just thrown away over the filth, peeling wallpaper, moth-bitten furniture where you could even see the larvae moving inside the nooks. A ridiculous amount of laziness and incompetence had ruined this place.

However, the most unsettling part was what whoever lived here tried to do as a “quick fix”: Yes, once again, random splatters of paint covered the room. Blue, green, brown, yellow, magenta covered the room from up to down in the most unprofessional way possible. How? The genius had even painted over their own pigsty.

Garbage, corpses, organic liquids, floor, spider webs clothes, wallpaper, furniture. All of them were covered half-assedly in a cacophony of colors. It’s even admirable to see how could one mess up this badly had it been an attempt to fix things.

It was hard to believe my neighbour, whoever they are, would live in this filth.

———–

“12:15 pm”. It’s ridiculous the amount of time wasted just walking away from the front door. As one would suspect, the floor had indeed given out in some random areas. However, since the garbage blocked my vision, it was hard to even detect such holes. I kept walking over carefully, as I attempted to get to the bottom of this mess. Nonetheless, soon I had reached the limit of what a human nose could tolerate.

I hurriedly open the first door I saw, revealing a bathroom. The putrid damp smell welcomed me as soon as I put a single step inside. I was already at my limit, but I refused to give up now.

Hopefully, inside the bathroom, there was a small window that to outside. Unfortunately, the rust and the filth had locked this window shut.

Desperately, I grabbed the back of weapon I had brought: An axe, and broke the glass as fast as I could. Without pausing, I hastily put my head out of the window and inhaled a big mouthful of air. At this moment, I couldn't care less about the toxic air outside that kept people away. In fact, the stench inside the house was enough to kill an elephant.

I breathed heavily for this "fresh" air over and over. Whoever lives here either has metallic nostrils or simply doesn't even have a nose to begin with. Truly an erratic existence.

After some time, that seemed like an eternity, I regained my composure and returned my head to the inside of the room. I sat down on the border of the bathtub filled with slimy putrid liquid and sighed. Maybe, this is a job too large for a single person.

Suddenly, I heard a wriggling noise from somewhere inside the house. It was faint and far, but it sounded like some sort of wet slippery sound. Since I was in the bathroom, my closest guess would be some leakage at the kitchen or laundry room. Frankly, given the state of the house, that didn't surprise me.

Once again, I placed the damp towel over my nose and mouth and walked outside the room towards whatever is making that noise. As I evaded the filth obstacles, I crossed over to the back side of the house and entered what looked like a former kitchen.

"Former kitchen" was the best I could come up with at that moment. I could only recognize what this area used to be since there was a large half-opened refrigerator in a corner of the room. As one would expect by this point, the piles of garbage and maggot-infested meat decorated the whole room. However, the only thing that caught my attention was that the owner had failed to cover this room in paint. In fact, only about two-thirds of the room were covered in blue and magenta paint.

I saw a broken sink destroyed halfway lying down on the floor. The water faucet still had some weak flow of running water that made a small dripping sound, yet this sound wasn't the sound I was looking for, despite both being wet sounds.

Without warning, a phone ringed.

It was my own cellphone. I was sure I had turned it into silent mode. I upsetly used my free hand to take out the device and shut it off. Before turning it off this time, I used the chance to look over to the time reflected on the screen: "12:38 pm". Almost an hour inside and I hadn't even covered half of the house. Definitely, this is a job for a team of people.

All of a sudden, a blob of slime fell on my hand.

It was cold, yellowish and slippery.

Instinctively, I froze in that spot. The falling slime had caught me off guard. The goo bubbled up as it slowly fell off my hand. I stared at the wet trail the mucus had left on my hand, confused. No, the correct word would be... "shocked".

Before I could regain my senses, another blob of the goo fell,

On top of my head.

I tried using the phone screen as a mirror, yet despite it still being daytime, it was too dark for me to see.  I thought then of using the front camera, as it had a flash function. And so, I opened the application and aimed the camera at whatever was on the ceiling.

What a fool I was.

The squirming lump of flesh squealed as it fell on me. The weight was enough to crush at least half of my bones.  The slime covering its body splattered all over my body. If the stench from before was enough to kill an elephant, this stink was enough to kill a dinosaur. 

I'm on the verge of losing it, I can't even type anymore. The weight of whatever is over me is slowly making me insane with pain. My legs can no longer move, my torso is stinging with agony. Why aren't I dead yet?

Is the creature alive? Dead? I can't even move my head back to look. I'm trying my best to focus on the typing or else the rotten stink that issues from it will drive me insane.

———–

Without warning, the creature started moving. The slurping wet sounds began once again. It was the very same distant sound as before.  The goo covered thing then wriggled on top of the man's torso and splattered itself over his body, finally crushing him. Just like a slime would.

It was a scene one could hardly describe. Truly a trade of burbles, grunts, and slurping sounds. 

In the end, all that was left was just some paint splatter.

A bright turquoise splatter of paint.