Beneath the Foundation

Chapter 4

It wasn't until around nine that I started to ebb back into reality. Most nights back then were spent questing through the far reaches of whatever fantasy world I was inhabiting. As a general practice, I would have one of my ears free from my headphones, in case someone came knocking on my door. The way my room was situated, my computer was on the far wall. While seated there, my back would be adjacent to the door. It was never a huge issue at the time. A little anxiety inducing when someone would come in whilst I was immersed in a game or activity, but the one ear out usually quells that fear. Besides, it was rare to get visitors this late in the night, but better safe than sorry.

The hum of the lcd screen of the monitor filled the room, creating a tight atmosphere of warmth and – dare I say – comfort. God, the faint light emanating from the screen feels nostalgic to think back on. It was easy to whittle away the hours, the world around you fading into the background as the gaming sessions grew longer and longer. Forgetting to eat, forgetting to sleep. It all sounds very unhealthy, and probably was, but it felt good to enjoy something so wholeheartedly. There was no window in that room either, and with the lights off the only source came from the screen itself. Your vision almost starts to narrow in those kinds of situations, like wearing those blinders they put on horses during the races to keep them focused on the task at hand. Except this task wasn't something a stadium full of people would bet their life savings on, but damn, was it fun.

The night went on. A tiredness started to fall over me as my eyes grew heavier. A trickle of sweat traced down the side of my face. Air conditioning did very little in such a small room. Especially when that small room held a small boy vigorously typing away at his small machine, putting off a good hundred degrees of heat. I leaned back in the chair, arching until the pops in my back echoed through the small room.

Through the popping a noise became apparent. It was a muffled *tok*. Like the sound of the floorboards creaking. All at once my surroundings became very real. The world from the computer screen seemed a thousand miles away now. The house settled frequently, so such a noise wasn't entirely out of the ordinary, but it stuck out for a reason (at the time) that didn't seem apparent. The noise sounded far off, muffled through the wall as if it had come from the dark hallway just outside the door. At the same time, it felt so close. Close enough to touch.

There was only a single *tok* at first before it became very quiet again. Only the hum of the computer monitor persisted and shifted through the room. I felt frozen for a second, waiting to see if it would persist. Maybe one of my parents had gotten up and needed something? It was possible, but it'd just never really happened before. The house made noises, yes, but very rarely this late in the night. Night was quiet, it was my time to be alone. So, any disturbance to that felt monumental.

I scanned around the room, not really intending to find anything, but more of an auto-corrective action. Lot of good it did. I had been staring at that screen for so long that my eyes couldn't comprehend the total darkness that had enveloped the room. I watched and waited, until eventually the thin lines of recognition began to spread along the walls. The bed, the closet, the banister that held my tv, they all crept back into reality. With the encroaching realization that I was, in fact, alone, my mind began to ease.

That was until the noise came again. A slightly louder *TOK* came and pierced the suddenly extinguished loneliness. It definitely came from the hallway. One noise was uncommon, but two was like the coming of the second sun, fucking strange. It again sounded muffled. If it had in fact been from the hallway, that made sense since the door was still tightly shut. Gooseflesh bubbled along my skin as my eyes transfixed to the door. At the time, I didn't know what to expect, or what I was waiting for. Your mind goes to weird places in those kinds of situations. Part of me was praying to hear my dad cough from the other side, or the familiar sound of shuffling slippers coming from my mom awoken by one of dad's snoring fits. Neither came, so my mind still wandered. I thought of ghosts and ghouls, of zombies and vampires. Once when I was younger, my dad showed me a low budget horror movie on the Syfy channel about a ravenous chupacabra let loose upon an unsuspecting population on a cruise ship. The movie was terrible, but that creature terrified me.