The Lying Game

6.

It's quiet in the apartment building. It took me two hours to get from the uptown to East Village. An hour and a half on the train and thirty minutes for missing the train and waiting for another to arrive. The silence is unusual and eerie. I walk faster to my apartment after getting off of the elevator. Reaching 313, I search for my keys in my purse.

I stop looking, a nagging feeling that someone is watching makes me stay motionless. I slowly turn my head to the right. There's nothing down the stretched hallway. I look to my left and hear a thud. My head snaps down and see my phone on the floor. I bend down to pick it up. I didn't even know I was holding my phone. My instincts cause my head to turn again and there are feet right next to me.

"Shit!" I yell as I fall back. I look up and to my relief it's only my elder neighbor Mrs. Schuyler.

"Emani are you alright?"

"Yes Mrs. Schuyler, I wasn't expecting anyone else to be up this late. You gave me a little scare." I was all scared for nothing. I find my keys and unlock the door.

"Oh Emani." I hear Mrs. Schuyler before stepping inside.

"Yes Mrs. Schuyler." I shake my keys in annoyance because I really have to finish packing.

"A man came by and was looking for you. He kept trying to get inside your apartment."

"Do you remember his name?"

"No" She looks off into a distance. "Goodnight Emmanuel." She turns around and enters her apartment and shuts the door.

I roll my eyes. Mrs. Schuyler is very old and she sometimes calls me Emmanuel. She probably made that whole story up then.

"Crazy old lady." I mutter as I enter my apartment.

I'm going to miss being in this apartment. I'm probably going to have to sell it because I won't be in it that often anymore. I admire the studio apartment and it's vintage furniture. This was the first apartment I bought right after I graduated from college.

I saved up everything for this small little thing and it was all mine. This apartment came with a lot of damages and I bought my own tools and equipment and fixed every one of them. Well, my dad came and showed me how to fix every one of them.

I put my stuff down and go to wash my hands at the kitchen sink. When I look outside it's pitch black. I hate when it's not daylight-savings-time. The feeling of someone watching me came back bigger than before. My heart races and I feel my throat tightening out of fear.

I close my eyes. It's okay Emani, no one is there.

Click!

My eyes snap open.

Was that real or did I imagine that? My pulse quickens. I try to look out the window but I can't see anything. I'm on the side of the building away from the street lights. Another flash appears and I see it from straight across. Its from the apartment across from mine. Im beginning to think Mrs. Schuyler wasn't making this up. I quickly close the shades of the window. I run and close all the curtains to my entire apartment as well.

I feel eyes on me even though everything is shut. I change out of my clothes in the hallway outside of my bedroom door, paranoid of windows now. I quickly hop into the shower, thinking it will make me feel better, but it doesn't help. I hurriedly put my hair into a high ponytail, there is no time to wrap now.

My motivation to get out of here shorts my packing time. It only takes me another hour to bring all my stuff to my car. I put my key into the ignition and turn it. The car makes a faulty sound, but I got it inspected last week. I try turning the car on again but the engine won't start.