As of current, Olive has two news. One was good, and another was bad.
The good news was that his accusation about Eddie sneaking behind and scaring him half to death turned out to be true after all.
'What a surprise...'
The bad news, however... Olive was completely alone in this dark, damnation of a storage. His brother had gone out and headed to the lobby, picking up delivery food, thus leaving him alone.
It has been no more than ten minutes since he went out, and Olive doubts that Eddie will be back anytime soon.
Placing a ladder beside the racks, Olive climbed one of its highest rows and glared around the junk on the racks.
The stuff there was a mess, with plenty of dust and badly arranged boxes and crates. There were also other things that he saw, but was too bothered to focus on them.
Without further notice, he took one of the boxes on the racks and brought it down, carefully not to trip from the ladder. Ironically, his job was no different than before, separating the boxes and the crates and then arranging them on the racks.
No improvement whatsoever.
'Why am I complaining anyway? Other than being here, this task is a piece of cake!'
He then spent another minute going up and down, each trip down with a box — or a crate — on one of his arms, hugging it, and each trip down making him sneeze uncontrollably due to the dust.
At first, Olive thought whether he needed to wipe the dust off the racks or not. But why bother? This is a storage, not a living room. He hardly believed that he would find a person casually sitting in it — if there was one, though, he would most likely find it weird, both the person and the situation.
By now, almost half of the rack was finished. And after he finished it, he would go outside and wait for Eddie in the living room.
He doesn't even bother cleaning the next racks, since Eddie had asked him to clean one or two racks, not three.
But to do that, he needs to finish cleaning the racks first. However, Eddie would probably arrive by the time he finished cleaning it — maybe even before he was done.
Stopping to take a few deep breaths and wiping his sweat off, Olive inhaled deeply and lifted the ladder off the ground, walked over a few meters away from where he had been, then placed it.
Thuk!
He was drenched in sweat.
It was extremely hot in here, there were no air conditioners after all, so there was nothing he could do except to bear it for far longer. With a sigh, Olive climbed the ladder yet again.
***
While bringing a box down, Olive suddenly noticed something off. He didn't know how to put his hand on it, but somehow... the room seemed to be getting darker.
With a bad premonition in mind, he looked up at the ceiling high above him toward the light, and examined it without missing a single detail. Immediately, he quickly noticed what was wrong.
There, the bulb permeating the light seemed to be getting dimmer and dimmer. It was slow, but unmistakable. However, that was not the end of it, around it, Olive noticed that it was not just one light bulb that was getting dimmer. All of it, the bulb at the center, the end, the middle, the corner, and everywhere else was getting dimmer — inch by inch.
Suddenly, without a whisper of warning, the light flickered.
Click! Click!
...At the beginning, it flickered two or three times. But as it continued, the flickering then began uncontrollably. Not a corner was spared from the assaulting light, constantly turning dark and bright repeatedly, even where Olive stood.
Still standing on the ladder, half dumbfounded, half terrified, Olive's eyes kept looking at the light. He wanted to move his leg and run out of the storage, but his leg refused to listen, frozen in place, mostly out of shock.
After a while, the flickering stops and so does the sound.
Olive held his breath somehow knowing what was about to come.
Then, came the darkness... slowly creeping its way toward the storage, swallowing it whole with its cold and unsettling atmosphere... If the storage was creepy and eerie before, then now, it was terrifying casting a deep sense of uneasiness.
The darkness was thick. So thick that not even a white cloth could be seen if it was somewhere in the storage. No matter how hard one tries to peer, they would inevitably pry the darkness–like void.
...People say, that the blind have sensitive senses when their vision was taken. There were truth to those words, of course. So it would make sense if a person with a vision did not have such abilities. Perhaps that was the reason why they could not fathom the feeling thoroughly.
And that was why at that moment, Olive sensed everything. Without his vision, the smell of dust grew thicker, never failing to find the time to assault his nostrils. Around him, the air was still. The space was eerily silent, not even a sound could be heard in the distance. This kind of silence was the reason why the storage grew even more sinister and harrowing to Olive.
But if there was a sound in the distance suddenly, that would be even more terrifying...
Landing on the floor, Olive put the box down and put his hand in one of his pockets. Not a second later, he pulled out his cell phone, opening it without wasting time.
The UV screen flashed on his face, without giving it any thought, he swept his hand down and switched on the flashlight. Finally, Olive regained his vision again and was able to perceive clearly, but only to where his flashlight was pointed.
Looking around, he grimaced. The room had suddenly blacked out at possibly the worst time ever. Out of all places he could be during a power outage, why does it have to be the storage room? What a tragedy!
'Welp, that's my cue to get the hell away from here.'
Without a second thought, Olive bolted away from the ladder near the racks and headed toward the stairs as fast as his tired leg could possibly muster. Not long after, he arrived at the stairs and climbed them hastily, not even bothering to look back, as if there was a reason to. When the door came into view, Olive's face lit up with a profound relief.
Olive arrived at the door and placed his hand on the knob. In the next moment, he will leave the storage room, albeit, until Eddie comes back that was. But who cares? At least he didn't have to endure staying in this place alone any longer. Especially during a blackout.
Clank.
Olive momentarily froze.
'Huh? What's this?'
Was he imagining it, or did the doorknob refuse to twist? Olive tried to twist the doorknob again several times without success by any means.
At this point, his heart started to beat faster than ever, even the time when he fought the strangers. Taking a deep shaky breath, he turned his body back and faced the stairs heading down toward the sea of void. Olive shivered.
'W–Why is this room locked?!'
No really, what kind of idiots would lock someone in the storage?! Well, that answer was stellar, wasn't it? Who else could it be if not Eddie? He was the only one with him in the storage room after all... or was he?
'Ah! Stop thinking that!'
Not giving a time to think, Olive instantly shifted his focus toward his phone and furiously searched for Eddie's contact list. Thankfully, there weren't many people listed in his contacts, so the search was rather fast.
[...Hello?]
Olive took a long, deep breath before replying to Eddie.
"Eddie... why on god's earth, is the storage lock?"
His voice was slow and sounded calm, but there was a hint of agitation in it.
[Lock? What are you talking about?]
Olive's eye twitched. He then whispered furiously.
"I meant this door is locked! What else could I have meant?! I swear to god, this... is by far your most unfunny and cruel shenanigans you pulled!"
Instantly, Eddie interrupted Olive, his voice sounded a little panicked.
[No! I didn't lock the door! I swear!]
Then, he paused.
[Well... at least I don't recall locking it — god knew my shenanigans have limits too. Are you sure it's locked?]
Twisting the knob again, Olive answered bluntly:
"Seems locked to me."
A sigh could he heard from the other side of the line.
[Crap... listen, I won't be arriving there anytime soon. So... sorry about the locked door — must've been because how often I locked it every time I exited it before...]
'Right... as if your sorry can unlock the door.'
But Eddie hadn't finished talking.
[Ah! There's a key near the racks where I had cleaned. Should be around the corner, or was it on the racks? In any case, you should find it two or three rows from the racks where I'd cleaned.]
Olive's gaze was fixed on his phone screen before shifting to the stairs bathed in darkness.
Grumbling, he said:
"Fine..."