The next day, a knock came from the door. Stanley begrudgingly got up from the bed and walked over to check the hole above the door to see who it was. He hoped the Landlord didn’t ask for him to pay the rent so soon. To Stanley’s surprise, the person at the front had an orange police hat on top of their heads.

Stanley unlocked the chains and opened the door, only to find two police officers. These seem to be different from the others, as one had yellow eyes, and the other had red eyes.

“Good morning to you, sir.” The officer with yellow eyes tipped his orange hat and greeted him. “Do I happen to be addressing Mr. Stanley Jordan?”

“Uh, yes.” Stanley nodded. He tilted his head in confusion, not sure why they were here and wanted to see him. “What’s going on here?”

“Ah, so you don’t know? Perhaps you should follow us outside for a bit.”

The person whispered something to the one with red eyes before heading out with their hats lowered, covering their faces. Stanley put on some slippers and followed the two outside.

.-.-.-.

Stanley and the officers headed out, only to find a big bag on the floor near the doormat. The officer walked over to unzip the bag and revealed an unconscious person inside. Stanley’s eyes widened in shock as he stared at a body bag.

“What the—? How did this happen?” Stanley asked, stepping back and trying to catch his breath.

“It appears this person died from—”

“I know he died, but why?”

“Well, I think there might be a connection to this building. Legends say that there’s a wicked secret within this building...” The individual with yellow eyes explained.

“What? Are you serious?!”

“Nah, I’m just messing with you there.” The officer chuckled before going back to serious mode.

“That wasn’t funny,” Stanley muttered.

“But in all seriousness, people seem to love this spot when it comes to committing suicide.”

“They must hate their lives...” The officer with red eyes added. The other one glared at them in response to that.

“Um, is it a common thing in this strange town?” Stanley inquired.

“Oh, yeah.” The one with yellow eyes replied, “Someone would always do this around once every week.”

“Wait, didn’t one of your pals state the other day that it was once a month?” Stanley pointed out.

“Oh, did he?”

“In fact,” Stanley continued while squinting his eyes. “I don’t know why, but somehow, I feel like I’ve seen your face somewhere before... but I can’t quite put my finger on—”

“You must’ve mistaken us for someone else...”

“Ok...?”

Stanley wondered if he should find the Landlord and ask him what to do about the situation. However, as if the officer read his mind, the guy stopped him from leaving.

“Nonsense, there’s nothing to worry about.” The officer reassured him. “We’ll try to clean up the loose ends for you.”

“You can?” Stanley inquired, feeling a bit puzzled.

“Yeah, sure, just try not to get yourself into a lot of trouble, alright?”

“Sounds easier said than done...”

“Actually, can you wait here for a moment? I need to get something, so I’ll be right back.” The officer mentioned as it rushed off back to the apartment for something brief.

Stanley looked over at the corner of his eyes. Hilary got out of the building and rubbed her eyes. She stretched her arms and walked over to where Stanley was standing.

“Hey, what’s going on over here?” Hilary asked.

“Oh, hi, it’s a little complicated.” Stanley said while he scratched the back of his head, “But I’m afraid I might be late for work today, so you’ll have to go on without me—”

“What? But how come?”

“Yeah, you wouldn’t want to stay, get going to work.” The two turned toward the other officer with red eyes speaking. He walked up to Hilary and looked at her in the eyes. “Hey, you look kind of cute.” Hilary stepped back and scrunched her nose, feeling very uncomfortable as he checked her out. “Say, on second thought, how about after I finish my shift, we can—”

“Whatever you’re about to say, I don’t want to accept! EW!” Hilary interrupted in recoil. She turned to Stanley and told him she would go on ahead and dashed off.

The two men sighed in disbelief as the leader walked back with a pen and notepad in their hands.

“Alright, I got the—” They stood there as the situation strangely got quiet. “Did something happen? What did you do?” The yellow-eyed officer asked, turning to the other officer and glaring at them.

What is with those two? Stanley thought, rolling his eyes.

While that went on, Stanley had enough of their shenanigans and snuck out to work.