Immortal

Damn it, People!

The stench hit me straight away.

I doubled over gagging as I clawed at my throat. I looked up at Batty.

"Are...you...kidding me?!" I hissed.

Batty shrugged smugly and went inside. "I found that letting people open the door before you made it so much more bearable."

The smell.

Oh, how shall I describe it?

It was like sulphur, Durian fruit, rotten fish, and the smell of off chicken all rolled into one.

"Ah...my...lungs...God-"

"-Wont help you," she said, coming back to lift me up. "At least, not in this situation. Breathe in through your nose and out through the mouth."

"But it burns," I said, really resisting the urge to vomit.

She gave me a piteous look. "I've been here for half a year."

I staggered over to the lounge room which was joined with the front door and the kitchen area. I fell onto a couch and buried my nose in it. It helped a bit.

"And you havent complained about it?" I said.

She went into another room. "Well, I tried to tell them. It didnt necessarily work. It was...hard to point it out," she called out.

I groaned.

An hour later, I had found out that the reason our apartment smelled so bad was because of one shared air vent, which was supposed to be made into individual vents but the landlord hadn't gotten around to doing it.

"That's it. I'm going to put a stop to it! What floor are they on?" I asked determinedly.

Batty was chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter, didn't look up as I asked.

"Floor 3, Room A," she said, still not looking up.

I walked to the elevator. It opened. Once inside, I pressed the button for the third floor. The doors shut with a ding. When I arrived at the third floor, I stormed over to Room A.

Three sharp knocks were all I needed.

A small Indian woman opened the door. She was wearing a green sari and her hair was up in a bun.

A wide smile lit up her face as she took my hand. She said something.

I shook my head awkwardly to say I didn't understand.

A young Indian girl -older than me- stepped out from behind the lady.

"Dādī, vaha bhāratīya nahīṁ hai," she said, in fond annoyance to the lady. She looked at me without a smile.

"She says to come in."

I shook my hands awkwardly. "Ah, no, I'm actually just here because-"

The lady upon seeing my protest smiled wider and pulled me inside and sat me down on a chair.

The house had many different things in it, ranging from dumbells to spices. There were Indian tapestries hanging all around the room that loomed like it would blend in better in a castle rather than a flat. In the corner of the room there was a shelf next to a small T.V That had many Bollywood movies on it.

The lady immediately went into the kitchen and started cooking some food. I had a feeling I would be eating it. Smoke began to rise and that smell that filled our flat came up but it was far more muted and barely noticeable.

The teenage girl sat in a chair opposite me and gave me a 'who-the hell-are-you' look. "So, what do you want?" she asked, rather nastily, I thought.