The Apartment on the Third Floor

    It all started in the apartment on the third floor...

   The drapes hung dead, the air was cool and crisp and the wall paper that used to be cheery, lost its charm. Everything looked abandoned, like someone left in the middle of the night and never returned. I noticed that when I first entered this small building no one was very friendly at all, they never even looked my way. I felt uneasy and unwelcome. 

   I was examining the room and I noticed something strange, the picture frames. They caught my attention as soon as I saw them.  I walked towards the picture frames and it sent a shiver up my spine as I laid eyes on them. They were all of different residents looking out the window with a hypnotized look in their eyes. All but one was on display, the other was face down on the dresser. I picked up the frame. The moment I flipped it over to see the picture I immediately felt all of the color drain from my face. The frame slipped from my cold, quivering fingertips and hit the floor. After seeing the picture and the entire apartment, I had the sudden urge to do what the last resident did, run out the door and never look back, but at the same time something about this room felt like it was calling me, felt like it was home. 

   That night before I went to bed I shut the window so the cold autumn wind wouldn't disturb me in the night. It was 3:00am and the window blew wide open. I woke up with a startle and as I started to get out of my bed I heard a voice that stopped me in my tracks. It called out my name in a raspy voice that caught my attention then whispered in my ear.

   It said, "Come to the window." 

   Even though I was scared out of my mind and shivering like a chihuahua in the rain, it felt safe. I got out of bed and made my way to the window. 

   The voice piped up again, "Look familiar?" It asked.

    At that moment the idea of going to the window no longer felt safe, but it was almost like I couldn't stop myself from doing it. As I peered out the window for longer I started to put the pieces together.... 

   People wouldn't look my way, the picture I picked up and the things this voice was telling me all added up. 

   I am invisible to the human eye, I no longer exist in the physical world, that picture was of me. I had that hypnotized look in the window and the voice was a passed resident that makes people jump out the window and commit suicide after the picture is taken by someone or something unknown and somehow unseen. 

   Now I know that each new passed resident takes over the apartment on the third floor and hypnotizes the next. I am the new one and I will be waiting for you.