Gloomy Night Rain

Bang!

So I'm currently living in a cheap- but decent looking apartment. The school where I teach is a few minutes away from here and that's a plus for me. The whole building is actually big, it just lacks maintenance and there are a lot of rooms that are totally wrecked and the owner doesn't even bother doing something about it. It is a six-floor apartment, and my room is on the 5th floor. The elevator is kinda handy... but I never used it, worrying about the ghost stories I heard from my neighbors. I always take the stairs even though it's very tiring to climb up and down. But hey, it's exercise at its finest.

I went home early today because I'm not feeling good. My head really hurts- maybe because of my past sleepless nights. At first, I tried using the stairs to get to my apartment, but after a few steps, I felt like falling and lost my balance. Luckily, I had my hand gripped on the railings tightly. I decided to just settle for the elevator. I mean, what's the worst a ghost can do, right?

"Bang!" I flinched when I heard the loud noise.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

I took the elevator and there's a loud 'bang!' every now and then. Maybe they're working on something here. Other than the banging sounds, everything is normal and I'm all alone. Well, at first. A woman entered- and it's not just any woman. It's my mother. I'm a little surprised when I saw her. We never had the best relationship, but we don't exactly hate each other. She rarely visits me- and when she did  she always inform me in advance. She kind of hate my apartment because she claims that there are angry ghosts in here. You know, the typical parental paranoia.

This is really surprising.

"Oh hey mom. What brought you here?" I asked her casually.

She didn't respond. She just sort of stood there, with her head hung low. I stared at her, like what's wrong with her? My thoughts were distracted when I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket.

My mom is calling me.

As if on cue, the lights flickered, and went off. I cursed silently and looked down on my phone.

I hesitantly pressed answer, and with shaking hands, I put my ears near the speaker.

"Hel-"

"Listen Christine. I did my research and my suspicion was confirmed. That apartment is infested with dangerous souls and you need to get out now. "

"What? How did-" I was so shocked that I dropped my phone when realization hit me. I backed away to the corner, as far from the woman as possible.

"Y-You're not my mom." I said as if it wasn't obvious, my voice trembling in fear and my heart pounding in my chest.

"You're right. I'm not. Because sweetheart, my name is death." she hissed and in a blink of an eye, she had her hands gripping my hair tightly. She sniffed it first, before pulling it and slamming my head against the wall.

"Bang!"

My original headache was multiplied a gazillion times- it just hurts that much.

"Bang!"

She repeated the action ten times more and with every hit- I can feel the life slowly fading away from me. My eyesight is slowly blurring into darkness.

"Bang!"

Until I felt myself went limp and just listened to the agonizing sound of my head being pounded against the elevator wall.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"