Night of Escape: Shh! Don't Make a Sound
My neighbor was a blind man. A strange blind man.
Even with his cane, he walked faster than someone with perfect vision. When a kid threw a rock at him, he dodged it with precision.
"You... can you see?" I asked him, hesitating.
He was silent for a moment, then took off his sunglasses...
Junior year, I had an abortion. I rented an apartment off campus to recover.
I still went to classes every day, but I couldn't absorb much. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that unformed fetus.
The doctor tried to comfort me, saying that at this stage, it wasn't quite a life yet.
I didn't know if that was true or not. But the feeling— I had abandoned my own child.
The child's father was a senior. Once he got together with another woman, he became nothing more than a stranger.
After the surgery, no one taught me how to take care of myself.
I downloaded some recipes from the internet and scheduled online consultations with a therapist. But none of it helped. I lay awake night after night, and whenever I closed my eyes, I felt a child's gaze watching me from the darkness.
It wasn't fear. It was guilt, and helplessness.
One night around 2 AM, a sharp pain seized my lower abdomen. I struggled out of bed, planning to go to the hospital for a checkup.
Going downstairs, I saw a middle-aged man feeding stray cats.
He was my next-door neighbor.
I was about to ask him for help, but then I witnessed something inexplicable.
The stray cat ate what he offered, wobbled on its legs, and collapsed to the ground.
At his feet was a burlap sack.
Inside, several unconscious cats.
I hesitated and said nothing. Enduring the stabbing pain in my abdomen, I limped away from that place.
I spent the entire night at the hospital.
The endometrial lining had shed. I bled a lot, but it wasn't dangerous. I took the medication and felt much better.
Broad daylight. I carried my prescription back to the apartment complex.
Passing a corner, I noticed a small crowd gathered.
A child was screaming. A mother covered her child's eyes.
It was still work hours, so the crowd was sparse. I glanced over.
A burlap sack was seeping blood.
A security guard used a branch to pry open the mouth of the sack.
Inside were feline body parts — formless, bloody masses of flesh and fur.
I realized I had discovered my neighbor's unspeakable hobby.
But honestly, I didn't have the energy to think about it.
I went home, lay down on my bed, and passed out almost immediately.
What I didn't know then was that torturing and killing stray cats was just practice.
What he truly wanted to kill was people.
Women.
Come to think of it, I'd noticed the man the moment I moved in.
Around forty years old, with a powerful, muscular build.
He always wore sunglasses. Coming and going, he carried a metal cane, tapping it against the ground to navigate obstacles.
He was a blind man. A strange blind man.
Even with his cane, he walked faster than a sighted person.
I figured it out later — he must have lived in this building for a long time. He had the entire layout memorized in his head.
But what truly terrified me was what happened next.
I woke up the following afternoon.
Exhausted, I dragged myself up and headed out for class, starting down the stairwell.
In the hallway, a chubby kid was clutching a rock, looking around for something.
Click.
A door opened.
The blind man stepped out, his cane tapping the floor as he carried his trash outside.
The kid's face contorted with rage. He hurled the rock with all his might!
The rock flew straight at the man's head.
A hit like that would split open an adult's skull. I was about to cry out a warning.
But I watched, stunned, as he dodged it.
I almost thought I'd imagined it, but I saw it clearly — he jerked his head to the side. The rock slammed into the iron door behind him with a deafening bang, leaving a large dent in the metal.
The kid stood frozen.
Then I witnessed something beyond imagination.
The blind man tilted his head, listening, as if parsing a sound.
The kid, panicked, started running.
The next second, the blind man surged forward like a silent beast.
He moved so fast I could barely track him.
He was behind the kid in an instant. The kid was heavy, but the man scooped him up with one hand as if he weighed nothing.
The kid's momentum kept him swinging in the air for a moment.
The man's muscles were terrifyingly thick.
"Let me go! You killed my cat! You'll die a horrible death!" the kid screamed, thrashing.
The man gripped the kid by the collar, suspending him in midair. At the sound of the cursing, his expression darkened. He lifted the kid higher and higher. The collar pressed against the kid's throat, strangling his voice.
Before the man was the hallway window. Half the kid's body dangled outside.
This was the fifth floor.
If he let go, the kid would plummet straight down.
"Hey..." I couldn't stop myself from speaking out.
The man froze for a second. Then he pulled the kid back inside and set him down.
The kid coughed violently. The man patted his head.
"Behave yourself, or I'll tell your parents."
The kid came to his senses, shot one terrified look at the man, and bolted.
In the hallway, only the blind man and I remained.
Summer cicadas screamed outside.
"You're... not blind?" I asked, hesitating.
He was silent for a moment, then removed his sunglasses.
Before me were large patches of pale red in the whites of his eyes. A diseased, withered lens.
Like a shattered glass marble.
I'd heard of this condition. Essentially, total blindness.
"I'm sorry," I said, turning to leave.
"Cats will abandon their young," he said suddenly.
I turned back. He stood motionless. On the ground was his scattered trash, some bloodied cat fur among it.
"Not... not every cat does that, right?"
"The ones that abandoned their kittens have a special scent." He gave a strange smile.
The cryptic words unsettled me.
I went downstairs. The kid was already long gone.
The summer heat was oppressive. A delayed realization crept down my spine, turning my blood cold.
He knew every corner of this building.
He had held that kid out the window intending to drop him.
What I had witnessed was an attempted murder.
I called 911.
During the break between classes, I stood in the corridor and dialed the emergency number.
Someone bumped into me. My phone flew from my hand, clattering hard against the floor.
A group of girls walked away, chatting and laughing.
They were my roommates.
The girl in the center — that was the woman who had slept with my child's father.
They heard the commotion but didn't look back. Intentional or not, I no longer needed to ask.
"Ah!"
The girl yelped as a messy-haired boy, squinting with sleepy eyes, rammed into her shoulder.
She rubbed her arm and glared at him.
"Sorry," he said. "I don't watch where I'm going."
She swallowed whatever curse she'd been about to shout.
He picked up my phone and handed it to me. I checked it — the screen was glitchy, but it still worked.
"I saw you in the apartment complex," he said, hands in his pockets, casual.
His name was Lucas — my classmate. He rarely came to class, always kept to himself.
Our only interaction was at the end of each semester, when he'd ask me to highlight the key material for exams.
He kept talking, and I learned that he lived in the same complex.
He'd been living there since freshman year.
"The doctor says there's something wrong with me. Bipolar disorder, or something like that." He pointed at his head. "Had to move out of the dorms."
"What about you?" he asked.
I couldn't answer.
He was tactful enough not to press. He leaned his arms on the railing, staring out silently.
"If you can't go back to the dorms, move somewhere else soon," he said abruptly.
"What?"
"That blind man next door — I've run into him a few times. He smells weird."
"Let's call it a patient's intuition. His problems..." He tapped his head. "Way worse than mine."
"You live alone. Be careful."
That evening, I went home.
When I opened my door, I noticed the blind man's door was ajar. Inside, it was empty.
He was gone.
Neighbors were gossiping.
After asking around, I learned that during the day, the kid's parents had come to confront him.
But his door was wide open, and there was no sign of him.
He'd been missing all day.
I went home.
Maybe he was hiding from the parents. Maybe he'd moved away.
Either way, I'd never have to see him again. That thought settled something inside me.
The wind outside was fierce. I gathered laundry from the balcony.
Someone's awning rattled loudly.
A storm was coming.
I remembered what Lucas had said and deadbolted the front door.
That night, probably because I'd been sleeping so poorly for so long, I fell into an unusually deep sleep.
The storm was closing in. The air was thick and heavy, the pressure suffocating.
In the dead of night, I was jolted awake again by a stabbing pain in my lower abdomen. My head was foggy, my whole body drained of strength.
I tried to roll over but couldn't even muster the energy to get out of bed.
Total darkness.
Then I heard a clattering sound.
I turned my head. A thermos from the living room had fallen over and rolled to the bedroom doorway.
The silver thermos caught the moonlight.
In that moonlight, I saw the most terrifying thing in my life.
A hand reached into the doorway and picked up the thermos.
It lifted the thermos, then withdrew, vanishing from the doorframe.
In the silent, dark living room, I heard soft footsteps.
And then — the sound of the thermos being set back on the table.
Every hair on my body stood on end.
Someone was in my apartment.
Someone who didn't speak.
Who?!
No matter who it was, one thought blazed through my brain: I'm in danger right now.
Careful not to make a sound, I reached for my phone to call 911.
But when I picked it up, I realized— probably because of the fall earlier— the screen wouldn't turn on no matter how I tapped it.
Then the bedroom flooded with light.
The thunderclouds that had been gathering all day finally unleashed their fury with a colossal bolt of lightning.
Thunder roared.
In that instant, I knew exactly what I had to do.
Use the thunder to mask my movements. Lock the bedroom door as fast as possible.
At least, it would take him time to break through— time I could use to scream for help from the window.
Move!
I threw off the covers, took bounding steps across the floor, my hand reaching for the door—
Heart pounding.
That was when I realized I'd forgotten one crucial thing.
The thunder also masked his footsteps.
Lightning split the sky outside.
It illuminated the entire bedroom.
A pale figure stood in the doorway.
It was him.
The blind man who lived next door.
He stood there, eyes half-open, pupils dilated. His lips curled faintly— a smile that wasn't a smile.
He wore dark clothing. In his right hand, he held a long knife.
The kind used for butchering.
He was completely silent, listening.
Thunder faded. In the quiet that followed, I heard my own ragged breathing.
He heard it too. His head turned in my direction.
At that moment, I didn't think. I threw myself sideways, crashing against the wall beside the bed.
Almost simultaneously, the knife came down — straight into the mattress where I'd been lying.
Thwack.
The blade sank deep into the bedding, right where my chest had been a second before.
He pulled the knife free. Stood still. Listening.
I pressed my back to the wall, barely breathing.
The thunder rumbled again, distant now.
He tilted his head, then began to move. He dragged the tip of his knife along the wall, feeling his way toward me.
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
The sound was deliberate. Like playing with prey.
Each scrape was a few inches closer.
The wall was cold against my back. Nowhere to go.
Scrape. Scrape.
The blade was less than a foot away from where I crouched.
A flash of lightning lit the room again— and I saw his face.
Those clouded eyes. That faint, horrible smile.
Then I heard it— the low growl of approaching thunder.
I had seconds.
When the thunder cracked, I threw myself to the side again, scrambling across the floor toward the living room.
The blind man's knife struck the wall where my head had been, chips of plaster flying.
I clamped my hand over my mouth to muffle my breathing.
Thunder faded. Silence.
He listened. The knife scraped the wall again, searching.
But I'd moved further this time.
Running now, I bolted for the front door.
My fingers closed around the handle—
A hand clamped around my throat from behind.
I was lifted off the ground. The world spun. My vision darkened at the edges.
I couldn't breathe.
I was dragged backward, watching the door handle grow farther and farther away.
When I came to, I was in the bathroom.
My wrists and ankles were bound with rope. A strip of cloth was wedged between my teeth, cutting into the corners of my mouth. I could taste blood.
In the darkness, I heard a rustling sound.
My eyes adjusted slowly.
The blind man was spreading a sheet of plastic across the floor.
I'd seen this in movies. It made cleaning up blood easier.
I thrashed against my bonds, but the gag turned my screams into muffled whimpers.
He heard me stir. He came closer, leaning down, sniffing.
"The first day I saw you, I smelled it," he said.
What?
"Your fault," he murmured.
"You have the scent of someone who abandoned their young."
I shook my head frantically, trying to back away, but I couldn't move.
He pointed the knife at my stomach, the tip pressing through my clothes, a sharp sting piercing my skin.
"You're just a cat. You're not a person."
"Just a slightly bigger cat..."
Help me...
Someone help me...
I wept helplessly.
Then, a knock at the front door.
"Hey, you home?"
The casual voice was Lucas's.
The blind man froze like a statue.
My pupils shrank.
I knew this was my only chance to survive.
I thrashed with everything I had, trying to make any sound that Lucas could hear—
But the blind man clamped a hand over my mouth, pinning my body down.
My muffled cries, my weak struggles — they were almost inaudible through the door.
Finally, I managed to brace my back against the toilet tank, found my leverage point, and slammed my body into his shin with all my strength.
He stumbled, crashing into the sink—
A deafening crack of thunder drowned out the sound of falling toiletries.
My heart sank.
It was over. No one had heard a thing.
Lucas's knocking stopped.
The blind man straightened up.
I saw a grotesque smile spread across his face.
Nobody was coming to save me.
Then—
Bang!
The front door shuddered under a violent kick. Then another. And another.
Lucas was kicking the door with pure rage.
Bipolar disorder.
I had never been so grateful for that condition.
The kicks kept coming.
The blind man didn't speak. He rose silently, placed his hand on the wall, and walked out of the bathroom.
Toward the front door. With his knife.
Lucas.
I didn't know him well. Our only real interaction was highlighting exam material at the end of each semester.
I'd heard rumors that he'd beaten up a roommate once. Because that roommate had made a crude joke about a girl, and Lucas had broken his nose without a second thought.
Whether that girl was me, I didn't know. The rumor was old.
But I didn't want anything to happen to him.
I thrashed against the floor, inching my body forward until I could peer out the bathroom door.
A pair of rain-soaked shoes stood in front of me.
I looked up. It was Lucas.
There were no marks of a fight on Lucas's body.
Only shock and bewilderment on his face.
That was wrong— if the blind man had opened the door for him, why had the blind man disappeared?
Then I saw it, and my blood ran cold.
The front door, which had been open, was slowly closing.
Revealing the blind man, who had been hiding behind it.
He'd let Lucas in on purpose.
I struggled frantically, trying to warn Lucas.
He reacted in an instant, spinning around.
The blind man was already lunging, knife plunging toward his stomach.
The knife stopped inches from Lucas's abdomen.
Lucas had caught the blind man's wrist in a iron grip.
I could hear the muscles in both their arms trembling with the strain.
Then Lucas snapped his head forward, a brutal headbutt straight into the blind man's nose.
The impact broke the blind man's grip. The knife clattered to the floor.
Lucas didn't hesitate. He grabbed the blind man by the collar and drove his knee into the man's gut.
Lucas's face was twisted with fury, like a wild animal unleashed. Knee strike after knee strike, each one landing with a sickening thud.
But then the blind man's hand shot out and grabbed Lucas by the throat.
Lucas lost his footing. The blind man shoved him with terrifying force. Lucas's head cracked against the wall.
He staggered but stayed upright— only to have his head grabbed and slammed again. And again.
Blood sprayed across the floor.
I twisted frantically, my fingers finally closing around the knife on the floor.
I sawed at the ropes around my wrists— the blade nicked my skin, sharp pain, but I kept going.
Faster. I had to go faster.
The rope snapped.
I sat up, cut the bonds around my ankles, and staggered to my feet—
Lucas lay unconscious on the floor.
The blind man, covered in blood, stood over him.
He tilted his head, listening.
He'd heard me stand up.
He knew where I was.
I gripped the knife tighter.
He charged.
My heart felt like it would explode. I thrust the knife forward with all my strength.
He didn't dodge.