Uproot

Loan POV

“Hey”

“Hey, Lo! How ya doing? Haven’t heard from you in a week.”

" I am great Charles just here packing up some stuff, I'm going back to my dad’s.”

“Are you going for the weekend or is it for good this time around?

“I... I think it’s for good, when I am here, I feel like I'm being watched or something, I don’t know Charles living by myself is not all that it cut up to be.”

" Don’t sweat it do what you got to do, just take care of yourself alright? I am gonna miss you though.”

“I am not leaving until next week you will see me at the diner tomorrow for sure. Anyways... goodnight, Charles. I gotta finish this before Stacey comes over.”

“Alright then.... goodnight Lo, tell Stace to take it easy tonight, can’t be passed out drunk every Friday night right?”

“Bbyyeeee Charles”

I hang up my phone and toss it on my bed, today could have gone better but like every week from the time I moved into my apartment. I keep getting this weird feeling like I am being watched and sometimes followed. I told Charles about it, but he keeps telling me it’s my imagination. I don’t think it is, it just keeps getting worst day by day. The best thing for me now is to move back home with my dad, the place where I feel safe. I just graduated from university, with a Business degree I have yet to get a corporate job, but I will keep trying though, but, for now, I am working at a diner in the city which is owned by Charles’s dad.

I met Charles the same day I moved here, I was having a rough first day in the city and he was kind enough to help. Even after a year of friendship I still don’t know that much about him, only that he went to college in Europe and now he wants to turn his dad’s diner into some sort of franchise. All in all, he has been there for me every now and then, and, I am grateful, because of him I have a job. Stacey is my other friend I have here, I met her at the diner. She works has the cashier there and from the very first day she had become my best friend and we have been inseparable from even since.

We even came with this tradition of sort that every Friday we will have a theme cocktail party for just the two of us. Even now after a year we still have our Friday night theme drinks, where we make different types of cocktails to wash away the stress of the week, even though we have to go to work the next day but still it’s well needed.

I got up when I heard a bang from across the hall. "that sounds like it came from Ms. Malonia place." I mumbled to myself. Ms. Mage Malonia, is an old Italian woman that has been living in the complex for over a decade now. She treated me like a granddaughter from the moment I moved here, she is warm and caring, I couldn't have asked for a better neighbor. She lives directly across the hall from me which causes our front door to face each other.

Bang!!!

I jumped when I heard the sound again, I decided I am going to make sure that she is okay and began my journey to my living quarters. When I step into the hallway of my apartment, I started to have that feeling again. Someone is definitely watching me. I close my bedroom door and stand there for a while, and has I do, I could feel eyes burning in the back of my head. I contemplate on whether to turn around or not. In the end I did, I turn around and look through my floor-to-ceiling window that faces the back of the apartment I could swear I saw movement by the wall that separate the lots, I shrugged it off when I heard a bang from across the hall again and made my way to the door to see what's happening, it’s just 7 pm and I'm not expecting Stacey until 9 pm, so I have time see what Ms. Mage is doing and help her if needed. As I approach the door something feels a little off, the little, tiny voice in my head telling me not to open the door.

I approach the door cautiously, trying to make as little sound as possible, looking through the peephole I didn’t see anyone. I was about the step away from the peephole, when the light flickered, and there standing in front of Ms. Mage door is a person holding... I am not sure what it is but there is a pool of red substance in front of the door, but I am too far away to be sure and there is only so much you can see from a peephole. I couldn’t see what the person was wearing but a hoodie covers their face, and the light was too dim in the hall to make out anything they were clothed in black that’s for sure, with a knife in one hand, and a.... what is that.! This is freaking me out now then this apartment complex is so quiet to begin with.

I don’t want to draw unnecessary attention to myself just in case this person turns on me I was pulled out of my thought when I heard footsteps I focus back to the peephole and see that the person is making their way towards my door now, my heart is beating rapidly trying to pound its way out of my chest as the footsteps got closer and closer I could hear it beating in the corners of my head competing with the sound of the footsteps. I quietly sink to the ground by my door as I listen to the person on the other side trying to not breathe as heavily as I think I am. Waiting for a knock or something to happen all this is killing me, if the person doesn't kill me, I will surely die of a heart attack. Sitting here wondering if this is the end without even reaching my beginning, is not a situation i want to be in at the moment. The doorknob began to shake, I began to sweat like I was sitting in a sauna for hours. And then.... it stops. I sat there for I am not sure how long, probably a few minutes. And then there it is a knock and then the doorbell rang. I was still stuck to the door afraid to move. The knock started to get more aggressive, and I started the shake with fear the more they proceeded, I am not sure who is on the other side of that door, but I wasn’t about to get up and find out, for all I care they can stay on that side, better for me and my existing trauma.

" Loan!!!!! Are you in there? I have been texting and calling you for about half an hour now. Loan!!!!”