Each time I step onto my balcony, my eye slides towards the parking lot. I’m waiting for the things that hide behind the old hospital. They creep between the apartment building and the hospital turned old folks home. It’s a land of forgotten lives. The type that twist in the shadows.

I consider myself lucky— I’ve only seen it once. It crawled between cars— slinking beyond the shine of the fluorescent lamps. It jumped between patches of darkness like sun spots for an unpracticed eclipse viewer. It’s thin, grey, mottled limbs seemed too thin to support it’s bloated torso.

The emergency evacuation chute is located between the two big parking lot spotlights— it’s designed to expel medical waste during peak operating hours. Or it was before the building switched functions— now, it’s where the creature creeps out from.

During the early mornings I look into the vacant rooms across the way while I sip my grainy instant coffee. Too cheap for premium Java, too broke to move. I keep watch— just in case I catch the creature crawling between rooms during the daylight.

I keep a journal of my meager sightings. Hoping that one day I will have more to tell— and safe enough that I can live to tell more.

No one will believe me until then. No one will know that I know of the things that move in the night. Of the dark things that believe themselves sight unseen.