I unlock the door, but as I should have known by the state of the key, the door did not open. Not only did it not open, when I tried to get my key back out of the door it snapped in the lock.

"Ha! That makes sense. Okay, I figured it wasn't going to be that great based on the price, but this is a bit bad."

I went back to my car and pulled out my screwdriver. Walking back to the door I managed to wedge the screwdriver into the lock just behind the piece of broken key.

"If I'm right, the key is technically still holding the little pins in the right place, so if I-". click The door finally unlocked. After putting my shoulder to the door it also opened.

I looked inside with a sense of pride that quickly faded. "Oh my-" I looked at the living room in horror. There were stains, rough patches, most of a couch, and a tipped over box of tangled cords and wires. I didn't dare to look in the kitchen.

I take a deep breath and nearly choke on the smell, it smelled of stale pork skins and sweaty socks, not to mention I could smell the dishes in the sink from here.

I take a deep breath...once I got back outside, then I went back in to find my room.

Two days later

I smile happily as I look upon what, admittedly, is still a trashy apartment, but it is much better. I've taken out the trash, I've cleaned the sink of it's dishes, I even spent two hours yesterday untangling the cords in that box...which thankfully means the tv works properly again.

There is however, one minor issue. Whenever I try to sleep, I hear...the others. They're always doing something around midnight, but I can never tell what they're doing. I'm aware that I have two roommates, but I haven't seen them yet.

I've never heard them leave their rooms or the apartment, I have however heard them in the kitchen late in the night. They're always whispering to each other about something. I swear I've heard my name mentioned at least twice.

The reason I know they're here though, is because my things randomly go missing. Not only that but I keep finding their dishes in the sink and my food missing from the fridge. That ends tonight.

I wait by my door, my hand sweating as I tight fist the door knob, ready to open it with dramatic substance.

I wait, and I keep waiting, and by 1:30am, I'm mad. But the anger immediately subsides as I hear it. The dishes in the dishwasher moved!

I open the door as swiftly as I can only to see the dark empty apartment hallway, the kitchen at the end of said hallway to the right. I couldn't even be mad, it was dark, there was clearly nobody there, and it's all too possible that the dishes moved on their own.

So, with equal amounts of fear of the unknown and sad that I wasted the last hour and a half standing by my door, I walked into the kitchen.

I flipped the light switch and look around the kitchen. I didn't even notice it at first, but it was so unnatural that it actually made me jump. The dishes in the sink, they were all clean and in the dryer rack. Beside the sink was a small note written on with red ink. It read, "Hey, we are aware that you've been fixing up the apartment, we decided to stop taking advantage of you."

I looked at the note for a while, the message was strange, but what bothered me more was if that was them washing the dishes, how did I miss them? I decided it was late, nothing is wrong, and judging by the note things might actually improve. Before going to bed I grabbed a pencil and wrote, "Thank you" on the note.

I had so mucht trouble sleeping that night though, waking up several times for no apparent reason, my attention always being drawn back to my closet. But by morning it all made sense as the note had more writing on it, this time it said, "You look freaking ugly when you sleep dude."