The pixelated alien monstrosity exploded in a satisfying shower of viscera and loot. Jess Altman leaned back in her ergonomic chair, the hydraulic cylinder sighing in sympathy with her own exhaustion. 5:47 AM. A respectable hour to log off, especially for a Tuesday morning. Or was it Wednesday? The days blurred together when you kept vampire hours.
Her eyes were gritty, the kind of dry that came from staring at screens for too long without blinking enough. Her brain buzzed with the residual adrenaline of the raid—they'd finally managed to clear the Crimson Depths dungeon after three weeks of attempts. All she wanted was a massive spoonful of peanut butter, maybe a handful of pretzels, and the sweet embrace of her bed.
The kitchen of her apartment was a sliver of modernity sandwiched between aging building stock. The faint blue glow of her smart fridge was the only light as she rummaged for the jar. The building was silent in that particular way only a place could be in the dead space between nightlife and early risers—that magical hour when even the city seemed to take a breath.
It was a silence Jess, a freelance graphic designer who owned her own hours, had grown deeply accustomed to and protective of. She'd moved into this building specifically because it was quiet. The previous place had paper-thin walls and neighbors who seemed to think 3 AM was the perfect time for furniture rearrangement and passionate arguments.
She was mid-spread, the knife scraping a satisfying layer of Jif onto whole wheat, when the sound tore through the wall like a chainsaw through tissue paper.
It wasn't a shout. It was a raw, primal scream, full of a rage so profound it seemed to vibrate through the plaster and into Jess' bones. "RRRRRAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Jess jolted, the knife skidding and leaving a deep gouge in the bread. Peanut butter smeared across the counter. "Jesus Christ," she muttered to the empty kitchen, her heart doing a little skip-beat. Her first, instinctual thought was gaming-related. "Dude. Did you just lose a hardcore character? Chill out."
She'd been there. She'd yelled at a screen before when a boss fight went wrong or when hours of progress got wiped by a stupid mistake. But never like that. That sounded… unhinged. That sounded like someone had reached into his chest and ripped out something vital.
She stood still, peanut butter jar in one hand, waiting. Maybe it was a one-off. A bad dream. People had nightmares, right? Especially weird shut-ins who probably lived on energy drinks and instant ramen. Leo had pieced together a rough profile of her neighbor over the months: young guy, maybe college-aged, rarely left the apartment, had groceries delivered, probably some kind of programmer or student.
Then the voice came again, lower but razor-sharp and seething with a venom that made Jess' skin prickle. "SHOW YOURSELF EXHELTOR. YOU FUCKING COWARD! I WILL FUCKING FEED YOU YOUR OWN ENTRAILS."
The peanut butter knife hovered in mid-air. Jess' brain, fuzzy with sleep deprivation and the lingering effects of too much caffeine, scrambled for a reference. Exheltor? Her mind cycled through games, movies, books. Was that a new expansion boss? A character from some anime she hadn't seen? The name sounded vaguely fantasy-ish, like something out of a tabletop RPG.
But the sheer, personal hatred in the voice was real. This wasn't someone yelling at a game. This was someone yelling at someone they genuinely wanted to murder in graphic detail. The intensity felt too immediate, too present, too raw.
The apartment next door was a studio, just like hers. The kid lived alone—Jess was sure of that. She'd never heard a second voice, never seen anyone else coming or going. Was he on voice chat? Discord maybe? But even the most heated gaming arguments didn't usually involve threats of disembowelment delivered with that level of conviction.
The silence that followed was somehow worse than the screaming. It was a thick, listening silence, pregnant with tension. Jess found herself holding her breath, her own late-night snack forgotten. She wasn't scared, not exactly. She was deeply, profoundly weirded out. This was a new flavor of neighbor noise, and she'd thought she'd experienced them all.
Then came the THUD.
It was a solid, meaty, impactful sound that resonated through the shared wall. Not something falling—Jess knew what things falling sounded like. This was something hitting something else with considerable force. A body hitting a wall? A fist connecting with plaster?
The sound was followed instantly by something that erased all thoughts of video games and late-night drama: a sharp, utterly genuine shriek of agony. "AAAAHHHHH!!!!!"
It was a sound of pure, unadulterated physical pain, the kind that bypassed the brain and came straight from nerve endings. It was followed by the frantic, unmistakable thrashing of someone rolling on a hardwood floor, gasping and… sobbing.
Real sobbing. Not the angry tears of frustration or the dramatic weeping of someone putting on a show. This was the lost, desperate crying of someone who had reached the absolute end of their rope and found nothing there but air.
Jess' professional gamer's annoyance evaporated, replaced by a cold drip of concern that started in her stomach and spread outward. This had just crossed a line. This wasn't nerd rage or a mental breakdown over a failed raid. This sounded like a medical event. A seizure? A psychotic break? Had the guy thrown a punch at his wall and broken his hand?
The logistics of that were so stupid and tragic it was almost funny, but the crying killed any urge to laugh. It was too real, too raw, too immediate. This was the sound of someone genuinely hurting, not just physically but in some deeper way that made Jess' chest tighten with sympathy.
She stood there for a full two minutes, a silent statue in her dark kitchen, listening to the ragged, miserable sounds from next door. The crying ebbed and flowed like waves, sometimes quieting to sniffles, sometimes rising back to full sobs. It was the kind of crying that suggested someone was alone with pain they couldn't handle, couldn't process, couldn't escape.
The urge to bang on the wall and yell "Shut up!" died before it even fully formed. You don't yell that at someone who sounds like that. You just don't.
Her mind started running through options, each one more complicated than the last.
Option one: Do nothing. The classic apartment dweller's creed. Mind your own business, keep your head down, pretend you don't hear whatever weirdness happens on the other side of thin walls. It was the safe option, the easy option. But the sounds of genuine injury and severe emotional distress made this feel ethically gross, like watching someone drown and choosing not to throw them a rope.
Option two: Go knock on the door. And say what? 'Hey man, I heard you screaming about entrails and then crying, you good?' The kid was a ghost. Jess had seen him maybe twice in six months—a blur of dark hair, a hoodie pulled up, always looking at the floor like he was afraid someone might try to make eye contact. He wasn't a "chat with the neighbor" type. If he was in this state, knocking could make it worse. Could push him over whatever edge he was already teetering on.
Option three: Call the police.
Jess ran a hand over her face. Calling the cops on a neighbor felt like a nuclear option, the act of a Karen who called authorities instead of handling things like an adult. But this wasn't a loud party or music played too late. This was a sequence of events that, strung together, painted a picture her brain couldn't ignore: a scream of rage, violent threats directed at someone specific, a sound of impact, a cry of serious pain, and now ongoing emotional distress.
It was the kind of sequence that showed up in news stories with headlines like "Neighbors Heard Disturbance But Didn't Act" or "Warning Signs Ignored Before Tragedy."
The crying was getting quieter, but it wasn't stopping. If anything, it was becoming more hopeless, more resigned. Like someone giving up.
Jess made a deal with herself. If it stops in the next sixty seconds, she'd let it go. Chalk it up to a weird night and go to bed with a story to tell her friends later.
She counted. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. The sobbing continued, punctuated by gasps and what sounded like someone talking to themselves in a voice too low to make out words.
Thirty Mississippi. Forty Mississippi. Still going.
Sixty Mississippi.
"Damn it," Jess whispered. She walked to the charger on her counter and picked up her phone. It felt heavy in her hand, weighted with the responsibility of what she was about to do. She wasn't a hero. She wasn't some kind of Good Samaritan who went around solving other people's problems. She was a tired girl who wanted to go to sleep but now couldn't because she was worried the weird kid next door might be hurting himself.
She dialed 911.
"911, what's your emergency?" The operator's voice was calm, professional, probably fielding calls from drunks and domestic disputes and people who'd locked themselves out of their cars.
"Yeah, hi," Jess said, keeping her voice low as if the guy next door could hear her through the wall. "I'm not sure if this is an emergency, but I'm hearing… concerning noises from my neighbor's apartment."
"Can you describe what you're hearing, sir?"
Jess described it, sticking to the facts, trying to strip away the weirdness while still conveying the seriousness. A loud scream at approximately 5:50 AM. Shouting that included threats against someone specific—she spelled out "Exheltor" feeling ridiculous as she did it. A very loud thud that sounded like something hitting a wall. Cries of pain. Extended sobbing that had been ongoing for several minutes.
"Are you still hearing the sounds now?" the operator asked.
Jess pressed her ear closer to the wall. The crying had stopped. Everything was quiet, but it was a different kind of quiet than before. Less peaceful, more... ominous. Like the silence after something important had broken.
"No… it just stopped. It's quiet now."
"Ma'am, we'll send an officer to do a wellness check. It's better to be safe. What's your address?"
Jess gave it, spelling out the street name and providing her apartment number. A knot of guilt and relief tightened in her stomach. She'd done the responsible thing. The adult thing. The right thing, probably.
She'd also possibly just made her reclusive neighbor's life a living hell.
"The officers should be there within thirty to forty minutes," the operator said. "If you hear anything else concerning before they arrive, please call back."
Jess ended the call and finally looked down at her ruined peanut butter toast. Her appetite was gone, replaced by a churning anxiety that had nothing to do with too much caffeine. She dumped the bread in the trash and shuffled toward her bedroom, the silence from next door following her like a shadow.
As she passed the shared wall, she paused and listened one more time. Nothing. Dead silence. It was almost worse than the crying had been.
She tried to sleep, but every time she started to drift off, her brain would replay the sequence: the rage, the impact, the pain, the despair. By the time she heard the distinct sound of heavy knocking on a door down the hall, followed by a muffled, authoritative voice saying "Police! Open up, please," she was wide awake and staring at the ceiling.
Jess pulled her pillow over her head. She was definitely the villain in her neighbor's story now. The nosy asshole who called the cops instead of minding her own business. But as she replayed the scream, the raw pain in that cry, the hopeless sobbing that had gone on and on, she thought: Maybe it was the right kind of villainy.
She just hoped the kid was okay. And that, whatever his deal was, it didn't involve any kind of weapons collection. Because honestly, after the "entrails" comment, Jess wasn't entirely sure what she might have gotten herself into.