My eyes snapped wide open, greeted with the soft orange light from the street that filtered down through the narrow walk way between the buildings. The light barely extended past the end of the futon bed that I slept in. Sitting up, unsure what it was exactly that had woken me. Just something didn't feel right.

The futon was located beneath the two large windows that faced out to the narrow passage and the fire escape, the view nothing more then the building next door. But, I hadn't rented the large studio apartment for the view. I was just fortunate enough to find it going so cheaply and, for being in the Tenderloin of San Francisco, considered this a great boon to my meager wages. Nothing was cheap in the City by the Bay.

I looked across the room, my eyes adjusting to the darkness, down the short hallway that lead to the small kitchen, the equally small bathroom and the door leading out into the lobby foyer. The flickering incandescent lighting of the foyer filled the space of the door that stood ajar. I could've sworn I had locked the door, putting on the security chain and deadbolting it. Anyone would be foolish to not use such measures. This was not the safest neighborhood in San Francisco. The Streets swarmed with drug addicts, the pushers, prostitutes and other degenerates.

Tossing back the black comforter, I swung my feet out of my warm bed, dressed only in a t-shirt and briefs. I slowly made my way through the apartment, careful not to bang into any of the second hand furniture. I was concerned that my two cats would be enticed to go out to explore beyond the confines of our living quarters. As I drew closer to the door way, a chill hung ominously in the air. What the hell was with that? My studio was located over the boiler room and, generally, it stayed very warm in here, regardless of the season.

I reached out a hand to the old brass doorknob, when a sudden darkness filled the recess of the open door. It wasn't just that the lights had gone out, this darkness was palpable and malign. I stopped moving. The thin paneled door exploded inward with such a force that I was knocked backwards, painfully hitting a corner of the wall with my right shoulder. I heard a growl of anger, my bowels turned to jelly, my blood froze in my veins. I scrambled backwards, my feet burning from the friction of the cheap carpeting, trying to put some space between me and the black entity that surged towards me. A soft soothing voice, though unintelligable, spoke, not to me but to the blackness. It answered in a harsh feminine voice, filled with vehemence. I wasn't particularly set on eaves dropping and continued my backwards crab walk further away, until I ran into the foot of the futon.

It was then that I pulled out of the nightmare, my body bathed in a cold sweat, gasping for air, my right shoulder throbbing painfully. I turned on the lamp next to the futon, the sixty watts of lighting washed away most of the darkness. The farthest corners still remained shadowed. I looked to the door, it was still tightly secured, the chain hanging in place.

Hugging myself, trying to get my trembling under control, I went looking for the cats. When I opened the door to the walk-in closet, pulling the chain to the bare bulb above me, Tosha hissed at me. She was perched up on top of a couple of extra blankets high on the shelf , bristling with fear. Sassy I found hiding in the bathtub, cowering down by the drain. Her pathetic meow, greeted me. I lifted her out, holding her close, her head hiding up under my chin. I placed her on my bed, she immediately burrowed under the covers.

Later, I sat out in the kitchen with a mug of Earl Grey tea, the receptacle shaking in my hands, trying to sort out the dream. Was it really a nightmare? Or, was it the explanation for the strange things that had been going on for several months now? Catching movement out of the corner of my eye, attributing it to one of the cats, only to find them slumbering peacefully on top of the entertainment center. Then there was the touches, a caress of my brow as I lay in bed reading. A light touch on a shoulder as I sat in front of the computer. It was all unnerving, I thought I was going mad.

Could it be some lost soul that had died in this apartment? The building was after all pretty damn old, dating back to the early forties. Even now, we had had some of the older residents passing away only to be found days later, by some relative concerned about them or from the smell of death that would alert a neighbor that something was amiss. One thing troubled me, this entity that occupied my small abode, didn't strike me as being elderly. A suicide by a jilted lover? A homicide? I shudder to think of the last two. I could never get up the nerve to push into the history of my studio. I just dealt with it. Occassionally getting irate with it, speaking out for it to "leave me the fuck alone", which it generally would for a few days. And I could never be sure which one it was from the dream. The Malevolent one or the serene one. It didn't matter. It was ruining my life and I was becoming desperate to get away from it.

My dreams became more plagued by it until I stopped going to sleep, staying up all night, chatting on the internet until either there no one was left to talk to or I fell into an exhausted sleep. It soon started to effect me at work. I was too tired to effectively do my job. I was sinking into the pit of depression.

My manager saw my decline, calling me into his office to find out what was going on in my life that my work was suffering. How could I tell him that I was being haunted by a ghost? I made up something, telling him it was probably an imbalance in my system, some long stemming virus. To placate him, I underwent a complete physical, which, of course, turned up nothing out of the ordinary. I finally admitted to him that it was job stress. I was then asked to turn in my resignation, I was no longer fit to do my job.

I took this as a blow for freedom, seeking out employment in another state, the further away from San Francisco, the better. I relocated to the Eastern Seaboard. For two years, I prospered. Until.........Yes, it found me again.