THE DEMISE was not a death of a body, but a death of a mind.
it was abstract in the way that it had happened. in fact, he didn't know how it had happened. surely, between the fine lines of sickly yellow caution tape and kaleidoscope police lights, he could have seen it coming. surely, he could have stopped it, but he couldn't.
the elevators carried something that wasn't of sacks of human skin. it carried a ticking time bomb of the next death of a resident. it lived between the peeling wallpaper and copper-colored water stains on the ceiling, inside the mold and under your carpet. it was not something you could get rid of with disinfectant.
what you could get rid of with disinfectant, is blood. it doesn't do a good job, though. he learns this fact through the deaths of these people, through the abandonment of the lonesome apartment rooms when his neighbors didn't come home the next day and the day after. it isn't he who is cleaning the blood. it's only the janitors that do.
the janitors reside in the basement. he doesn't know what's down there other than dust, mice, and satanic rituals. he hears noises sometimes; a laugh that shakes his walls, a creak that doesn't sound like a creak, so he doesn't know what it really is. he only says it because he doesn't want to think of anything else.
his friend in apartment 23 is the one who died. they were both ten and only friends for two days because his family was about to move away into the city. they probably didn't like how the murders in the building were piling up and he was sure they didn't want to get murdered. he never wanted to tell taeyong his name and he never pried.
apartment 23 died because his mother was murdered. murder weapon was rat poison, taeyong found out. he assumed the husband thought she was a rodent. apartment 23 never opened his mouth ever again. he was gone the next three hours without a goodbye.
sixteen years and counting, he has been surrounded by death.
