(A/N: Based off a Regrethinks short. Regrethinks 14 September 2025)

Ever since your mum died and left you a good amount of money from her inheritance a couple months ago, you'd been looking to move out of your small trailer and find a cozy apartment to live in.

It took a while, but after about four days of searching, you found an apartment in a neighbourhood that was right next to an amazing city. The price was, for some reason, super low, with it only being 1200 dollars per month when similar apartments around that area were triple that amount.

And ontop of that, it was on the top floor of the building and had a perfect view of the park right infront of your side of the building.

You should've known something was wrong. But after years of bad luck, you assumed it was just karma repaying all the bad luck it gave you all your life.

So after an hour of signing contracts, you moved into the flat last night and spent the whole night unpacking your stuff. The next morning you woke up, you got out of bed and went to the kitchen to make some coffee (or tea), but found a note next to the stove written in cursive and on an aged paper.

*It read; "New occupier of Flat 42. Dear resident, I'm Eleanor Blackwood. If you want to survive in this apartment like I've been for 35 years, follow these rules."

Your hands shook but you continued reading; "1. The owner never visits, always pay on time, only contact the rental agent for repairs. 2. Never use the elevator between 2:22AM and 4:44AM, this is life or death. 3. Ignore the howling from flat 37. 4. Don't talk to the maintenance man that appears on your balcony, he'll leave after 45 minutes. 5. Never leave food scraps out, the things that hunt between 2:22AM and 4:44AM are attracted to organic matter, they especially love fish. 6. Don't talk with anyone claiming to live in flats 71-78, those flats burned in 1991 and everyone died. 7. Keep something sharp in every room. 8. Join the residents association, but never watch Margaret's son. 9. Grab the hairless cat in the corridor if you see someone from flats 71-78, the cat doesn't deserve to get hurt. 10. The water stain on your bedroom ceiling can't be fixed no matter what. 11. Trust the mailman, Dennis Heartly has delivered here for over 40 years, ask him questions that you want answered that aren't on this paper. 12. The first month is hell, you'll want to leave but don't. After about six weeks, you'll understand the rhythm here. This is a good home if you follow the instructions.".

It was hell for the first month, but you somehow made friends with the monsters- sometimes you go into the elevator between 2:22AM and 4:44AM and talk with the monster that eats whatever is in the elevator between that time, you sometimes talk with the monsters in the basement, and you especially talk with and leave food out for the monsters that hunt in your apartment between 2:22AM and 4:44AM, to be honest, those ones just act like glorified gremlin children sometimes and are probably the most immature out if the monsters.