It’s illegal for my landlord to be renting an apartment without windows, but I guess that’s why the rent’s so cheap. One room, a lightbulb that was tinged red with heat and swung like a uvula, and a connected bathroom. I slid a box across the cool, slick floor. The idea that I was living by myself was exciting, in the way that makes you want to run around, tell everyone, and then puke. 

I could almost convince myself that the apartment was cute. The door had a thin coat of paint over it, so you could still see the wood grain branching underneath it. There was a small bed and rickety night stand pushed to one corner, and beyond that it was as much of an empty expanse as 200 square feet could be. 

The crown jewel of the apartment was the floor. A deep cherry-red, and so glossy that every step I took was almost painful, having to peel my feet from the floor as my skin stuck to it. It had a strong, acidic smell, I assumed came from a recent staining and polishing. It was headache inducing, especially due to the aforementioned lack of windows, and the door had a habit of shutting on its own no matter what I did to prop it open (which was incredibly frustrating, with the constant back and forth of boxes that needed to be moved in). 

Shoving the box in the corner, I dug into it, tucking a frame under my arm and dropping the rest much harder on the nice flooring than I should and pulled out a hammer and a fistful of nails. Was it a good decision for me to use them on the rented walls of my apartment? Probably not. But given the paint job on the walls already, I didn’t think the landlord would care that much. I lined up the nail and hammered it into the wall, a cringe-inducing, wet crunch resulting.

I hope I didn’t just nail into something important.

I continued one, hanging the frame, trying to level it visually (and always being a little bit off), and quickly gave up before moving onto posters. I searched through boxes of books and clothes until I found mounting tape with the word permanent printed in large red letters on the packaging. Just another sacrifice the paint job was going to take. I stuck the poster up above the tiny bed before collapsing on it. 

I turned my head to the side, looking at the frame. There was a red liquid dripping down behind it. Crap. I definitely hit something important. I took the frame off and blocked the bleed with one hand and searched for something behind me to stop it up. A metallic smell started to steep into the room. Most definitely rust. Frantically trying to find anything I could to stop it, I finally looked behind me instead of the wound in the wall, and saw that my poster had fallen to the floor. Great. I ripped up a piece of the poster and was going to shove it into the hole, but the liquid had already stopped running. Instead there was a dried clot over the hole. Too bad I didn’t notice that before I ruined some of my precious wall art. 

I washed my hands and gave up on decorating. The palms of my feet were starting to ache, probably from standing for too long. I laid back down on the bed and felt the wall of the room. It was oddly slick, and had an acidic odor. Probably non-stick paint. An uneven draft came into the room from the cracked-open door, which rhythmically bowed back and forth, like a smoker gasping for air. Probably just… bad wood? I tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Shit. I probably just locked myself in. 

My feet had started burning more. I looked at the bottoms of them, which seemingly had gotten an acid peel. The floor was pretty shiny and smooth, so maybe the chemicals they used hadn't worn off yet? I used a wall to steady myself as I looked at my foot, quickly pulled it away. The wall was… slippery. And burned too. Maybe I had a neighbor who would let me out? My landlord? I banged on a nearby wall. No one answered, and the burning on my feet was worsening, trapped in the windowless bowels of an apartment. And it was hungry.