One of the unnerving things about being a college student is that it is virtually impossible to maintain a healthy sleep schedule. Some nights I keep myself up till 3 AM for my own amusement; other nights I am kept up till 5 AM by assignments. On nights like these, after all the parties have broken up, and even the most wild revelers have departed for their beds, the slightest stir outside your window is apt to make you jump.
The urge to turn out the lights must be fought, because one can’t get much work done in darkness; but there is always the feeling that all the unseen eyes in the shadows of the night are fixed on your window, and are watching you intently. This is especially true if yours is a first-floor apartment like mine, and you could walk up to your window, and not know that your face is mere inches from another.
But these thoughts don’t trouble me too much. After all, I have lived in this apartment eight months already without incident, and I don’t expect anything to happen in the two months left before my lease ends.
What troubled me was the light in the third-floor window in the apartment building across the street that I could see from my bedroom after I had turned out the lights. My initial thought when I had come to realize that I had never seen that window without light was that its occupant was doubtless a hardworking student of nocturnal habits—not unusual on a college campus.
Then one afternoon there was a terrible fire in that apartment building, and it was evacuated. No one was hurt, thankfully, and the residents were taken to a nearby hotel paid for by the university. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of burnt wood late into the night, and a sort of buzzing silence had descended on the street as cars and pedestrians—and even birds and squirrels—avoided passing through it.
The only light in the building that night was in the third-floor window. I couldn’t tell if it had been left on all day, or if someone had gone back inside in the evening to seek the comfort of a favored study environment, but it nevertheless filled me with a chill, and the last thing I remembered seeing before my eyes fluttered shut was the pale yellow glow in the fog.
The next day I hastened to see if the fire had been mentioned in the papers. I found a small article in the campus newspaper that reported that a faulty electrical appliance had most likely set off the fire, and that the fire department had revealed that it had most probably started in the east wing of the second or third floor. The east wing of the building was the one that faced my bedroom, and it seemed quite probable to me that the incident had some connection to the light I saw every night in the third-floor window.
If you asked me now if going into the building that night to investigate the strange phenomenon was the brightest idea in the world, I would tell you that you were most probably out of your mind; but at the time it seemed a decent idea, and so I prepared to spend the night among the ashes with a blanket and a flashlight.
The smell of burnt wood and plastic was oppressive when I entered the building through the narrow corridor. The wooden steps groaned and creaked as I ascended them by the stark blue light of my flashlight, and once or twice I found myself turning my head suddenly to realize that the yellow eyes I saw out of the corner of my eye were not there.
Then I got to the third floor, and saw that the fire must have indeed started there, for the east side was black like an ironsmith’s tool, while the west was spared too much damage. There was only one door in the east wing, which made the task of finding the apartment that I sought a lot easier. What was more, the unmistakable yellow glow was there, shimmering dimly under the door, making the charred wood around the frame look blacker than night.
The door crumbled wistfully under the touch, and it should have occurred to me then to turn back; but all my senses were focused in that instant on the figure standing at the far end of the room, facing the window. I gave a cry of terror, and stepped into the apartment. I did not see whether the figure had heard my cry, for the floorboards snapped under my feet, and I plummeted toward the earth for what felt like eternity.
I couldn’t tell you how long I fell, for the next thing I remember is waking up in my bed. The alarm clock on my desk showed 3:33 AM in red numerals. I looked out my window at the charred façade of the accursed apartment building, bathed in the silver light of the all-seeing moon, and saw that the third-floor window was dark and peaceful, as if a being that had long been trapped in that apartment had finally been freed.
The urge to turn out the lights must be fought, because one can’t get much work done in darkness; but there is always the feeling that all the unseen eyes in the shadows of the night are fixed on your window, and are watching you intently. This is especially true if yours is a first-floor apartment like mine, and you could walk up to your window, and not know that your face is mere inches from another.
But these thoughts don’t trouble me too much. After all, I have lived in this apartment eight months already without incident, and I don’t expect anything to happen in the two months left before my lease ends.
What troubled me was the light in the third-floor window in the apartment building across the street that I could see from my bedroom after I had turned out the lights. My initial thought when I had come to realize that I had never seen that window without light was that its occupant was doubtless a hardworking student of nocturnal habits—not unusual on a college campus.
Then one afternoon there was a terrible fire in that apartment building, and it was evacuated. No one was hurt, thankfully, and the residents were taken to a nearby hotel paid for by the university. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of burnt wood late into the night, and a sort of buzzing silence had descended on the street as cars and pedestrians—and even birds and squirrels—avoided passing through it.
The only light in the building that night was in the third-floor window. I couldn’t tell if it had been left on all day, or if someone had gone back inside in the evening to seek the comfort of a favored study environment, but it nevertheless filled me with a chill, and the last thing I remembered seeing before my eyes fluttered shut was the pale yellow glow in the fog.
The next day I hastened to see if the fire had been mentioned in the papers. I found a small article in the campus newspaper that reported that a faulty electrical appliance had most likely set off the fire, and that the fire department had revealed that it had most probably started in the east wing of the second or third floor. The east wing of the building was the one that faced my bedroom, and it seemed quite probable to me that the incident had some connection to the light I saw every night in the third-floor window.
If you asked me now if going into the building that night to investigate the strange phenomenon was the brightest idea in the world, I would tell you that you were most probably out of your mind; but at the time it seemed a decent idea, and so I prepared to spend the night among the ashes with a blanket and a flashlight.
The smell of burnt wood and plastic was oppressive when I entered the building through the narrow corridor. The wooden steps groaned and creaked as I ascended them by the stark blue light of my flashlight, and once or twice I found myself turning my head suddenly to realize that the yellow eyes I saw out of the corner of my eye were not there.
Then I got to the third floor, and saw that the fire must have indeed started there, for the east side was black like an ironsmith’s tool, while the west was spared too much damage. There was only one door in the east wing, which made the task of finding the apartment that I sought a lot easier. What was more, the unmistakable yellow glow was there, shimmering dimly under the door, making the charred wood around the frame look blacker than night.
The door crumbled wistfully under the touch, and it should have occurred to me then to turn back; but all my senses were focused in that instant on the figure standing at the far end of the room, facing the window. I gave a cry of terror, and stepped into the apartment. I did not see whether the figure had heard my cry, for the floorboards snapped under my feet, and I plummeted toward the earth for what felt like eternity.
I couldn’t tell you how long I fell, for the next thing I remember is waking up in my bed. The alarm clock on my desk showed 3:33 AM in red numerals. I looked out my window at the charred façade of the accursed apartment building, bathed in the silver light of the all-seeing moon, and saw that the third-floor window was dark and peaceful, as if a being that had long been trapped in that apartment had finally been freed.
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