Sometimes we do notice that silence is louder than noise.
Ada often thought about that. Ada usually sit at the front of her house every morning holding cup of coffee and watching a cross the other building number 12. Curtains always closed. No one ever came out. No greeting. No mailbox visits. Nothing.
Her friend Kemi laughed whenever Ada mentioned it.
“You worry too much,” Kemi said over the phone. “He just likes his privacy.”
“Privacy is one thing,” Ada replied. “But no wave? No walk outside? It feels wrong.”
At night Ada sometimes heard a sound from that house. Not music. Not talking. A scratching sound. As if someone wrote page after page, never stopping.
Weeks passed. Nothing changed. One evening she came back, reaching her doorstep she found a folded note.
“The man in dark coat does not belong here, beware of him”
Her heart jumped. When she watched around the street was totally empty. She then looked the house across, that's number 12. The curtain was closed.
The following day, when she was coming out from her apartment, she saw a tall man in a dark coat standing under the streetlight. He covered his face with a big black hat. Standing there like a stick. He didn't say any word.
That same evening another note was already on her doorstep.
“The man saw you, be careful.”
Ada’s hands shook. Whoever was leaving these notes knew things. Probably it might be her silent neighbour at number 12.
One morning she decided to face it.She went straight to the house across that's number 12 and she knocked. At first nothing. Then the door creaked open.
Inside the house was filled with smell of dust. One of the living room was totally empty except a desk which was filled with trash of papers. Each sheet was filled with same hand writing. She picked one up.
“He is getting closer.”
Her chest tightened. A floorboard creaked above her. She quickly ran and climbed a stairs. Up there they was a door which was open.
When she piped through, they was a thin man busy writing in a paper and he never raised his head. His pen moved quickly, scratching across the page.
“You wrote the notes,” Ada said softly.
He stopped. The man gently looked up and spoke to her with a rough and loud voice.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why?” she asked.
“He follows anyone who knows,” the man whispered.
“Who?”
The man glanced at the window. Ada turned. Across the other street the man wearing a dark coat and black hat was looking at them.
Her breath caught.
The neighbor clutched his pen. “I tried to warn you. Now he’ll come for you too.”
Ada’s voice shook. “What does he want?”
The man’s eyes looked empty. “He erases. People vanish. Once he marks you, you’re gone.”
The lights flickered. Warm breeze hit the window and shut it. When Adam looked outside the man was gone.
The neighbor leaned closer. “If you hear scratching tonight, don’t open your door. Don’t look outside. Pretend you’re not home.”
Ada backed away. “This is crazy.”
“No,” he whispered. “It’s real. Leave immediately before is late.”
She quickly ran out of the house and went straight to her own room.
She kept thinking that night which watch number 12 from her window. At exactly 2 a.m., the sound came. Scratching. Not faint this time. Loud. But not from the neighbor’s house. From her own front door.
Her stomach dropped.
The scratching grew stronger. She picked her phone up but they was no signal at the moment. The voice keep rumbling in the air.
“Ada…”
Her phone fell from her hand. She moved back closing her eyes tight towards the door. Immediately the noise stopped, the room was filled with silence.
At morning when she came out, she found another later on her doorstep.
“You looked. Now you belong to him.”
All her body was shaking as she reads the note. She then look at number 12 from her window.
The chairs was empty and that was the first time the window at number 12 was open.
The silent neighbor was gone.
