✭Fading Footprints✭

We walked over to the apartment's stairwell, going down the stairs a bit faster than usual. 1 floor, 2 floors, 3 floors, 4 floors, 5 floors, and finally after what felt like forever, we made it down to the basement. The walls were concrete, one wall in the back being brick. "Oh my god- what's that smell?!" Aster asks, gagging and pulling up the bottom of his shirt to cover his face. "I have no idea" I respond, also pulling my shirt over my nose. The scent is still so strong even with me breathing as shallow as I can and covering my face. "God! It smells like rotting meat down here!" Aster half-yells. I look over to my left, seeing a large commercial fridge, *why would an apartment complex have a fridge in the basement?* I thought. I walk over to it and open the door immediately coughing. I open one of the drawers and see a ton of rotting fruits, "nasty..." i say closing the drawer and fridge door. "Holy shit!!!" Aster yells, "shhh, be quiet dude we don't want to draw any attention down here." i tell him, "Sorry, Tara, but the smell is like, way stronger over here. He's about halfway into the basement. I walk over to him gagging immediately, "hold fuck you were right" i manage to choke out, walking away back towards the front of the room. Aster follows me, "what in the fuck makes a room smell that bad?" he asked me. "I have no idea, but we should get out of here, we can do some research when we get back to my house." "Okay", he responded. We began to walk up the stairs when we heard a voice we really didn't want to hear, "what are you two doing down here?"
The landlord.

Got some help from my friend @Evaalenah on some of the chapters, you should totally check out their work too!