Matt Hagen

Living in the Narrows was nobody's first choice, but sometimes, it was the only option.

Unfortunately, that was precisely the situation you found yourself in.

Times were hard, money was tight, and moving to the good side of Gotham was no simple feat. Between the outrageous rent prices, the questionable landlords, and the general expectation that you somehow possessed enough money to afford a decent life and then some, finding somewhere better to live had proven considerably more difficult than you'd hoped.

Still, you tried.

You worked hard, saved what you could, and kept an eye out for any opportunity that might help you get out of the Narrows for good. You told yourself that things would eventually get better, that all your effort would amount to something, that you wouldn't be stuck here forever.

But the money never seemed to stretch far enough, and every time you thought you were finally getting somewhere, something came along to knock you back down.

And wasn't that just the story of your life?

The Narrows had a way of doing that to people. It wore them down, little by little, until surviving from one paycheck to the next became the closest thing to a long-term plan. The streets were grimy, the buildings were falling apart, and the constant distant wail of police sirens had become so familiar that you barely noticed it anymore.

You'd learned to make do.

You'd also learned to keep your expectations low.

Especially when it came to your neighbors.

Which brings us to Stan.

Stan had been your neighbor for the better part of a year, and in all that time, you'd struggled to find a single redeeming quality about the man. He was a raging alcoholic, a miserable bastard, and the sort of person who seemed to take personal offense at the idea that other people might want to enjoy a little peace and quiet.

The walls were thin. The floors creaked. The plumbing sounded like it was possessed.

And Stan had somehow managed to make all of it worse.

Between the drunken shouting matches, the obnoxiously loud television, and the occasional late-night pounding on your door because he'd apparently forgotten which apartment was his, living next to the man had been an exercise in patience you weren't entirely convinced you possessed in the first place.

So, when Stan finally drank himself to death, you couldn't honestly say you'd been particularly heartbroken.

You weren't proud of that fact, exactly.

But you weren't losing sleep over it either.

Which was why, when you returned home from work one evening, exhausted and thoroughly ready to collapse into bed, the sight of a small stack of cardboard boxes outside the apartment next to yours caught your attention.

You paused by your own door.

Boxes...

Several of them, anyway. Nothing particularly impressive. Just a few battered ones stacked beside the door, along with what appeared to be a duffel bag and a plastic bin.

Someone was moving in.

Fantastic.

You stared at the little collection of belongings for a moment, trying to decide whether this was good news or the beginning of another year of misery.

On the one hand, Stan was gone.

On the other, there was absolutely no guarantee his replacement would be any better.

Still, you allowed yourself a small, cautiously optimistic glimmer of hope.

Maybe this one would be normal. Maybe they'd keep to themselves. Maybe they'd understand the unspoken rules of living in an apartment, such as not blasting music at three in the morning or treating the communal hallway like their personal garbage disposal.

Maybe they'd even say hello occasionally.

What a novelty that would be.

You were still contemplating the possibilities when the sound of footsteps caught your attention.

A man appeared around the corner at the far end of the hallway, carrying what you assumed was the last of his belongings. He were dressed in dark, unremarkable clothing, his hood pulled low over his head. His posture was slightly hunched, as though he were trying to make himself smaller, and he held the box in front of he with a sort of defeat.

He made it about three steps before noticing you.

And then froze.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

The stranger's head dipped almost immediately, the hood casting his face into shadow. You caught only the briefest glimpse of what appeared to be a mask covering part of his face, though you couldn't be entirely certain from where you stood.

Huh.

That was unusual.

You weren't about to judge someone for dressing strangely. Gotham was full of people with questionable fashion choices, and frankly, you'd seen far weirder things on your way home from work.

Still, you couldn't help being curious.

The stranger shifted the box in his arms and turned toward his new apartment, apparently deciding that the most sensible course of action was to pretend you weren't there.

He fumbled with their keys.

Once.

Twice.

Then dropped he them.

The resulting clatter echoed obnoxiously through the otherwise quiet hallway.

You watched as he muttered something under his breath and crouched to retrieve them, the box balanced precariously against his knee.

Well.

Your new neighbor was certainly making an impression...

Matt had moved in a couple of weeks ago, and in that time, you'd managed to bump into him a handful of times.

Calling them pleasant might have been a little generous.

Your new neighbor wasn't exactly a conversationalist. Every time you crossed paths in the hallway, he seemed to become acutely aware of your existence, immediately ducking his head or turning away as though eye contact alone might somehow spell his doom.

On the rare occasions you'd exchanged words, he'd been polite enough, if a little awkward. His answers were usually short, his voice occasionally strained, and his attention seemed to wander toward the nearest exit whenever a conversation lasted longer than a few seconds.

It was almost impressive how thoroughly a grown man could appear to be plotting his escape from a simple greeting.

And yet, despite his strange behavior, Matt was still at least ten times better than Stan had ever been.

There was no obnoxious music blaring through the walls at two in the morning. No drunken shouting matches in the hallway. No waking up to discover your neighbor had somehow passed out directly in front of your door, leaving you to debate whether stepping over him counted as a reasonable response.

Compared to Stan, Matt was practically a dream come true.

A strange dream, perhaps. The sort that left you wondering whether you'd forgotten something important when you woke up.

But a dream nonetheless.

In fact, Matt was so quiet that you could have been forgiven for forgetting he lived next door at all. As far as you could tell, his entire existence consisted of grocery shopping, doing his laundry, and disappearing back into his apartment for the foreseeable future.

You'd never seen him have anyone over. You'd never heard him talking on the phone. You'd never even caught so much as a glimpse of him actually enjoying himself.

Sometimes, you wondered if he was lonely.

Other times, you wondered if he was hiding a body.

Given that you lived in Gotham, neither possibility seemed particularly outlandish.

Still, it wasn't your business.

If Matt wanted to keep to himself, you weren't about to complain. You had your own problems to worry about, and as long as he wasn't actively making your life miserable, you were perfectly happy to let him exist in his little corner of the building.

—-

The overhead lights flickered ominously as you reached the bottom floor, casting the narrow corridor in alternating patches of sickly yellow and shadow. Somewhere behind the walls, a pipe groaned. The building's ancient heating system rattled like it was preparing for its final moments.

Home sweet home...

You pushed open the laundry room door with your shoulder and slipped inside.

And then promptly stopped.

Standing in the far corner, waiting for his clothes to finish drying, was none other than Matt.

He looked up at the sound of the door opening and for one brief moment, your eyes met.

Then his expression changed.

It was subtle, but unmistakable. His shoulders tensed, his posture stiffened, and he seemed to become suddenly fascinated by something on the opposite wall.

Oh, for God's sake.

You weren't going to bite him.

Probably...

Matt glanced at you again, apparently realizing that outright ignoring your existence might be considered a little rude. He shifted, straightened his back, and attempted to arrange himself into what you could only assume was meant to be a relaxed, perfectly ordinary pose.

He failed spectacularly.

There was something almost comical about the effort. He looked like a man who'd been instructed to act natural and had immediately forgotten what the word natural meant.

You stared at him for a moment.

He seemed determined to stare at the washing machines.

It was finally one of your few and far-between days off.

And you intended to spend every last second of it doing absolutely nothing.

No errands. No chores. No dragging yourself around Gotham pretending you were a functioning member of society. You planned to remain firmly planted in your bed, wrapped in whatever blankets you could find, until the mere thought of getting up no longer felt like the end of the world.

Was it productive?

Absolutely not.

Did you deserve a break every now and then?

Without a doubt.

—

You were on the verge of falling asleep when a hesitant knock shattered the peace and quiet.

You lay perfectly still.

Perhaps whoever it was would assume nobody was home...

Another knock followed.

You let out a long, deeply offended sigh.

So much for that.

Dragging yourself upright, you shuffled toward the door with all the enthusiasm of someone being marched to their execution. You hadn't even bothered to change out of your pjs and your didn’t care to. Whoever was on the other side would simply have to live with the consequences of interrupting your precious day off.

You pulled the door open and blinked.

Standing in the hallway was Matt, your rather peculiar neighbor.

For a moment, you simply stared at him.

Matt, meanwhile, looked as though he was seriously reconsidering every decision that had led him to your doorstep.

This was unexpected, to say the least.

In the few weeks since he'd moved into the apartment next door, you'd come to understand that Matt wasn't particularly fond of social interaction. He rarely spoke unless spoken to, seemed perpetually uncomfortable whenever you crossed paths, and had perfected the art of disappearing into his apartment before you could even finish saying hello.

Frankly, you were beginning to suspect he might be a ghost.

So the fact that he'd actually gone out of his way to knock on your door was nothing short of astonishing.

"Hey..." he greeted awkwardly.

Very awkwardly...

You waited.

Matt looked at you.

You looked at Matt.

A long, uncomfortable silence stretched between you, during which he seemed to struggle with the concept of actually talking to you.

Finally, he cleared his throat.

"I know we don't really know each other, but—"

He stopped.

His gaze flickered toward your face, then away again.

"But..." he continued, before trailing off once more.

You waited patiently, although you were beginning to wonder whether you ought to offer him a chair. At this rate, he might be standing in your doorway until the next decade.

Matt took a breath.

"I just... I was trying to wash my dishes, and I couldn't get the water to turn on."

He paused, as though that was supposed to explain everything.

Then, apparently deciding it didn't, he continued.

"I tried fiddling with it, obviously. I mean, it's a sink. You turn the faucet, water comes out. Simple enough, right? Except it didn't, and I thought maybe there was some kind of trick to it, because this building is very clearly held together with duct tape and a prayer, so who knows what kind of plumbing situation we're dealing with here."

He gestured vaguely toward his apartment.

"And I tried looking up a video on YouTube but the guy in the video started talking about valves and pipes and all sorts of things that I swear were in a different language. So I thought, fine, I'll just see if I can figure it out myself."

He paused, his expression grew increasingly sheepish.

"Which, in hindsight, was probably a mistake."

You had a feeling you weren't going to like where this was going.

"Because I might have loosened something I wasn't supposed to loosen. And then there was this noise, and I thought I'd broken a pipe, and I tried tightening it again, but now I'm not entirely sure I've made things better."

Matt ran a hand over the back of his neck.

"And before you ask, no, I haven't flooded the place."

A beat.

"...Yet."

He winced.

"Sorry. That probably wasn't reassuring."

You couldn't help staring at him.

Not because of the plumbing disaster he was describing, although that was certainly a concern, but because of the sheer amount of information he'd managed to deliver in the space of a minute.

For someone who usually seemed determined to communicate exclusively through nervous glances and the occasional greeting, Matt had apparently discovered an entirely new personality when confronted with a problem.

And he was still going.

"I just figured that since you've lived here longer than me, you might know how the plumbing works. Or at least know which parts I'm not supposed to touch. I did consider calling the landlord, but I don't particularly feel like waiting three days for someone to show up and tell me it's not their problem."

He let out a small, humorless laugh.

There was a pause before he finally got to the point.

"What I’m trying to say is- Could you please just take a look at my sink?”

You were jolted awake by what you could only describe as muffled screaming.

For a moment, you didn't know where you were.

You scrambled upright in bed, your heart racing as your eyes searched the darkness. Sleep clung stubbornly to your mind, leaving you disoriented and struggling to make sense of your surroundings. You half expected to find someone, or something, lurking in the shadows of your bedroom.

There was nothing.

Just your familiar room, the faint glow of streetlights slipping through the curtains, and the distant hum of Gotham carrying on outside your window.

You blinked several times, trying to convince yourself that you'd imagined the whole thing.

Perhaps it had been a nightmare. Maybe you'd woken yourself up with some embarrassing noise and your half-asleep brain had decided to make a production out of it.

You rubbed at your eyes and sank back against your pillows.

Then you heard it again.

A frightened, strangled cry.

You froze.

That most certainly hadn't come from you.

Frowning, you tilted your head toward the wall separating your apartment from the one next door. For a few seconds, you sat perfectly still, listening.

The building was hardly known for its soundproofing. The walls were practically made of paper, and on particularly quiet evenings, you could hear your neighbors' televisions, conversations, and the occasional argument as though they were happening right beside you.

You'd learned to live with it.

But this?

This didn't sound like a television.

It sounded like someone was terrified.

Another cry broke through the silence, followed by a muffled noise you couldn't quite identify.

And suddenly, you were fairly certain you knew exactly where it was coming from.

Matt's apartment.

You sat there for a moment, staring at the wall.

Your neighbor had always struck you as a peculiar man, but over the past few weeks, you'd begun to get a better sense of him. He was awkward, quiet, and seemingly determined to avoid unnecessary human interaction, but he hadn't been unkind. Since you'd helped him with his sink, you'd even exchanged a few more words in the hallway.

Nothing particularly meaningful, of course.

Still, you were beginning to think there might be a perfectly decent person beneath all that nervousness.

Which made the sounds coming from his apartment all the more concerning.

You listened again.

Silence.

Perhaps it had stopped.

You hesitated, glancing toward your bedside clock. The hour was unforgivably late, and the last thing you wanted was to drag yourself out of bed in the middle of the night because your neighbor was having a strange dream.

You had work in the morning. You were exhausted. You'd spent the entire day looking forward to the luxury of sleeping at least for a few hours tonight.

Surely, whatever was happening next door would resolve itself.

You pulled the blankets up to your chin.

Then came another cry.

This one was worse.

It was followed by a desperate, broken sound that made the back of your neck prickle.

You sat up again with a silent curse.

There was no way you were going to fall asleep now...

Run in

(Still workshopping this bit.)