Number Twelve, House Street. The twelfth house on House Street, sitting at the end of the cul-de-sac that was House Street.
It was, to put it lightly, a craphole. The garden was overgrown, jungle-like grass and weed-ridden plots that had long since killed off any rival plants with their presence. The door was battered and old, with the number two missing on the front door and the remaining number one bronzed and old looking, hanging on its hinges like it was moments away from joining its fellow number and falling off. The windows were a murky brown and in clear need of cleaning due to the grime and mould growing against the sturdy glass.
A small ginnel led to the back garden via the side of the house, a dilapidated concrete box that was supposed to be a shed alongside it opposite the house. The little path led to a concrete square that led up to a smaller patch of green and tall, tree-like bushes that surrounded the edges of the little concrete compound. There was a wooden table covered in bird crap and the chairs for it had long since been stolen.
The house itself was a muddy brown colour from the bricks and it seemed like a few of the roof tiles had gone missing. There was a chimney that had a roost of crows blocking it, and Jaune could practically hear their squawks waking him come morning.
It was a craphole. But it was his craphole. It needed some work put into it, but before long Jaune was certain he'd be calling the place home.
Shaking his hands and slapping his face lightly, Jaune set his face in a determined look and slid the key to his new home into the lock of the front door, breathing calmly before sliding it clockwise and pushing the door open.
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The air was musty with the smell of age, neglect and dust. The wooden floor looked grainy due to the thick layer settled over it and stared forlornly at the blank walls, blank ceiling and blank floor. The only outliers to the depressing blankness was the unshaded lightbulb in the middle of the hallway and the thick miasma of dust settling over the place.
Jaune coughed out the dust and held himself up by pressing his hand against the wall. At least it didn't feel damp, dusty or sticky. Just cold.
"At least I can count on you eh?" Jaune said to the wall, before shaking his head. It was way too early to be going mad. He wandered on, exploring his house, unaware of the dark shape following him through the walls, silent as the wind.
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The living room was…there at least. A single leather chair that had seen better days and a square, ancient television with an equally ancient remote and movie box, a few old but thankfully classic DVDs sitting next to it in a stack.
The back room was literally an empty room. The kitchen had a fridge, an oven and a few dusty cupboards with one too many spider webs for his liking.
Walking upstairs was loud and creaky, and he knew for a fact he was going to crap himself every time he went downstairs for a midnight snack, what with the stairs and the general vibe of his new home screaming 'horror movie'. Upstairs itself was pretty much the same as downstairs. A bathroom with a toilet, sink and metal tub for a bath with a lone shower head in the corner and a single bedroom with an at least king-sized bed that was lathered in a white sheet and a wardrobe and small bedside table with a shaded lamp that had swirling vines depicted on the shade.
There were two other rooms as well, but both were empty apart from the little hills formed from cluttered junk he didn't need, like Halloween decorations and other random bits and bobs. With any luck he'd be able to find something to hang up on the walls, like a painting or something along those lines. Anything to make the place feel less barren.
"I've got a lot of work ahead of me." Jaune sighed, wandering down the creaking stairs before plopping himself down in his chair and pulling out his Scroll. He put in his password and went straight to his contacts, going to one of the people he knew would have advice. "Dad?"
"Jaune?" His dad rumbled, voice tinny through the Scroll. "Is everything alright? Are you settling in well?"
"Not really." Jaune admitted. "The place is…well it's like you said. Needs a lot of work put into it. I was hoping you could give me some advice on where to start."
"Can't do that without seeing the place first son." His dad replied, a tinge of regret in his tone. "I'll see if I can come visit you this weekend with your mom. She'll know what to do, and we both know she's always wanted to have an extension or something at our place. Hopefully letting her decorate yours will get it out of her system so your sister can actually go to college."
"Yeah." Jaune snorted, feeling a wave of what could only be described as fear as he stared at the barren walls. Did he want depressing or blatantly mom? It was a tough call. "Any generic advice?"
"Focus on your bedroom for your first day and order some take out." His dad replied sagely. "Gonna have to sleep somewhere after all. I've gotta go son, good luck."
"Bye." Jaune said, his father quickly saying a quick goodbye before hanging up. Jaune stood up, dumping his Scroll on the leather chair and letting out a groan. "I still need to bring those boxes into the house too. Damnit."
He sighed and wandered out of the living room, down the hallway and out of the house, heading to the bottom of the path where his car was parked just outside his new abode. Slowly but steadily, he transferred the boxes stacked inside his cheap car to his new house, lining them up in neat rows in the hallway until he could figure out what needed to go where.
Meanwhile, a shadowy tendril grabbed his Scroll from the leather chair, moving slowly as it inputted the password it had seen Jaune use to unlock the device earlier. Then it searched, browsed and discovered, scrolling through pictures of Twelve House Street's new tenant and learning.
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Jaune sighed, pulling off the lid of a water bottle and greedily drinking its contents. At least half of his dozen or so boxes were now unloaded, his clothes stored away in the wardrobe upstairs and other stuff like comics and boxes hidden away in the little drawers of his bedside table.
He patted underneath him, searching for his Scroll, before he blinked and realised it was on the armrest. He could've sworn he'd just dumped it on the leather chair earlier, before shrugging and picking up the Scroll. He was probably just making excuses for not noticing the Scroll when he sat down. After a quick search for local food places he ordered a pizza and then fiddled around with the TV, trying to figure out how to get it to work.
A few minutes later and Jaune was idly watching one of the movies that had been left next to the television that was probably older than he was. It was an early Spruce Willis film, Buy Hard, and because of that fact alone it was already an instant classic for him.
Half an hour into the movie and there was a thud at the door from the bronze knocker. He quickly paused the movie and jolted up and out of his seat, hurrying to the door and opening. He gave the delivery driver a tip and hurried back inside with his pizza, which was thankfully still warm. Settling back down, he cracked open a can of soda he'd gotten with his meal and eased into the chair, the pizza box resting on his lap whilst in either hand he had a can of soda and a slice of pizza.
Whilst his eyes were enraptured by the sights and sounds emanating from the TV, the only light source in the room since he'd forgotten to turn on the lights, he didn't notice the small tendril slither up the bottom of his chair, brushing inches away from his leg before quickly snatching a slice of pizza from the box.
Jaune blinked, something catching his eye and breaking his lazer focus from the TV. He saw nothing out of place, but the sudden realisation of how dark it truly was made him get out of his seat and flicker on the living room light before settling back down to finish his dinner and movie.
If he paid more attention to the room around him, he would've noticed the dark, shadow-like film clinging to the walls, like they were lit in a weird ScrollChat filter. If he paid even more attention, he would've noticed a trail of tomato sauce leading to a small hole in the wall, a stray peperoni resting just outside it.
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With a yawn that made him smack his lips together like an old man with no teeth, Jaune groaned and pushed himself out of his seat, the end credits for the film blaring loudly. For a movie that had started with credits, to end with even more of them seemed like rubbing it in his face. That was one thing he'd never missed from old movies.
He padded from the living room with the empty pizza box and soda can. He'd need to save the number for the pizza place. It had been relatively quick getting there and the food had been nice, not to mention cheaper to some other places out there.
He dumped both items against the kitchen counter before checking the back door. It rattled but stayed shut, which made sense considering the fact he hadn't unlocked it yet. Afterwards he went back to the living room, turning off the TV before making sure the front door was locked. Then he turned on the upstairs hallway light and turned off the downstairs light, running up the stairs hastily at the sight of impenetrable darkness downstairs.
Shaking his head, he turned left at the top of the stairs, doing his traditional bedtime routine of brushing his teeth, peeing etcetera. Just a boring guy doing boring stuff. He sighed quietly to himself when he was done before slowly padding to his bedroom, the quietness of the house suffocating and adding on to the inexplicably bad mood he was feeling.
Growing up with seven sisters and two parents meant he was used to living in a house of pretty much near constant noise. The lack of…anything really just unsettled him, reminded him of the fact he was all alone now.
So he should stop being a kid and seeing things in the shadows. He shivered before turning off the bathroom light and entering his bedroom, which at least looked habitable after his earlier spring clean, and a little lived in due to all his stuff being sprawled about. Grabbing a pair of clean boxers, he dumped his dirty clothes in the corner next to his bedside table before crawling into his bed and closing his eyes, slowly falling into a fitful sleep.
When his breathing became calm and steady and his eyes stopped fluttering beneath his closed eyelids, a tendril emerged from the floorboards at the bottom of his bed. Another came out from the spare plug socket that lit his bedside lamp, slithering up the side of the wooden bedside table before flinching away from the light emitted from the lamp on top of it.
More tendrils emerged, from the floor and the walls, all careful to hide themselves from the harsh glow of the lamp. They explored the various items strewn across the room, his clothes, his books, his comics, everything. It sounded like little goblins scuttling about, taking inventory of his possessions before stealing the most valuable items, the books thudding as the tendrils prodded them, the comics wiggling and waggling as the tendrils played with them, his clothes shuffling as the tendrils explored them.
The noise was starting to get loud, as so many dark tentacles explored numerous bits and bobs. Jaune startled in his sleep, and all movement stopped.
Underwear hovered in the air, socks covered the tips of the frozen tentacles and two tendrils that had been fighting over a comic book vaguely looked like two bickering children who thought they had woken their parents. As one, the tendrils slowly lowered the things they had been toying with, playing with, or they removed themselves from them. As one, they turned, so the featureless, round tips of the tentacles faced Jaune's sleeping body like dozens of tiny eyes staring and watching. When he did nothing more than snore, they slowly inched forward, crowding together to avoid the light.
They twisted and coiled, swirling together to form a single, long, meaty tendril that slithered up the right hand side of Jaune's bed like a snake, protected from the light by Jaune's lumpy form underneath the bed sheets. The tendril moved forward slowly, stopping at every little twitch, snort and movement Jaune made in his slumber. It incrementally inched forward, second by second, millimetre by millimetre until it rested at the bottom of Jaune's pillow, hovering up as if it was staring at his face.
It stayed there. Still. Watching. Listening. Learning. Then it slowly moved forward, prodding the side of Jaune's face softly.
"T-Tickles…" Jaune mumbled, and the tentacle lurched back as if it had been struck. "Stop it Saph…"
His snores resumed. The tentacle calmed, and slowly lowered and moved back into its former position. Jaune was facing away from it now, having rolled over in his sleep. It prodded his back gently, growing more and more incessant, more and more agitated, until it thudded against the back of his neck with a meaty thwack.
"Gwah?!" Jaune cried, lurching upwards suddenly. As his tired eyes suddenly widened, the tendril lurched back and thudded against the ground, sliding against the wooden panels until it melted into the gaps of the floorboards. "W-What?"
Jaune breathed heavily, hairs on the back of his neck raised and tired eyes suddenly clearer than an eagle as he looked around the room. He had seen something. A rodent maybe? Heavens forbid a spider?
Minutes passed and nothing happened. Every shadow seemed like a nightmarish monster, every clump of clothing like a large rat and everything seeming oddly out of place.
He checked the time carefully, letting out a sigh when he realised how late it was. He must've just had a night terror. It was obvious he wasn't used to living alone just yet. He just hoped it wouldn't take too long for him to get used to it though, because the thought of waking up at two o'clock in the morning frequently was enough to make him sigh tiredly.
He wasn't fully at ease, so when he lowered himself back underneath his bed sheets he was virtually a plank of wood, straight as an arrow and tenser than a deer caught in headlights. But as time passed and his own exhaustion overtook him, his muscles slowly relaxed and his eyes fluttered shut.
Above him, a dark shadow formed on the ceiling, similar to the weird light filter-esque film that had clung to the living room walls earlier. It waited and watched quietly, never moving from its spot above his bed until dawn broke and Jaune woke up due to an alarm shortly after.
It dissipated into nothingness, but the dark shadow still clung to the walls, to the ceiling, to the floor, always following Jaune as he wandered about his new home thinking he lived alone.
Unaware of his housemate who lived in the walls.
A/N: Next update will be on the 25th March, 2023