We finally reached the destination; it was a low-rise building but not very short, the walls were made out of grey concrete but mostly were placed with glass, shaped perfectly with no cracks, the roof was flat with overlapping black mosaic designs, the doors were made out of glass,

  I saw a person walking in and the doors opened without any contact at all, it was sensor-built doors. I watched as I got out of the car after Adithi onto the grey road.

  The shop name was ‘Filter Wither’ and the slogan was: “Filtering while wiping away all your worries!” written in thick, bold, roman-style text. The name was bigger than the slogan and both were on a sign together that was stuck onto the roof.

  But as I was walking closer to the shop, I saw something odd with the customer that I saw earlier… Through the glass windows, I could see their hands behind their back as they were waiting for the clerk to assist them, their nails were unnaturally long and had a disgusting color shade of green and brown mixed, like infected nails.

  I felt a weird sense of Déjà vu as me and my friends walked closer to the shop, Fuji’s arm was over Akira’s shoulder as he was talking about some random stuff about sports, I was with Diana and Adithi, I walked with them in the middle as they were having a conversation, but I wasn’t interested nor had the strength to speak.

  The sun was setting behind the shop, which turned the sky into a beautiful blue and orange gradient, there was even an ocean behind the shop below, the water reflected the sun and sky’s colors, forming a dreamy glittery pattern along the waves, even though it looked calming, I was still restless after the weird events.

  As the golden sun reflected on my face, I looked up from the ground below and I was instantly startled by the same person who had those disgusting nails.

  They stared directly through the window like as if I was their supper for tonight, their smile stretched until it even covered their cheeks, their lips were a bloody dark red and their bottom lip started dripping blood too, their front teeth was jagged… sharper than a knife.

  I felt my heart starting to pound again, but I felt like it would burst out of my chest by the amount of terror I witnessed and held. The longer I stared back at them, I could hear a growing ringing noise in my ears.

  I stopped strolling and watched as my friends as they went further to the shop. I held my hands to my ears to try and block out the ringing as I continued to glare at the abnormal person… I saw them opening their mouth and my vision went blur as I tried to stay upright on the ground beneath me, I felt my breath becoming shorter and faster, through my blurry vision I could see my hands becoming pale and shaky.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I wanted to yell, claw at the person (or the creature or whatever the heck it was), run away from the place, but the fear and terror paralyzed me in place, I felt like I was being pinned down.

  I felt something being placed on my hand, my terror increased as I assumed it was the monster catching up to me… My brain decided to go against my fear and look over to what was holding my shoulder.

  I breathe out a sigh of relief as I could see Adithi’s blurred face, my eyes became clear in vision and I could notice Adithi’s panic and her worry lines forming again.

  “Are you sure you’re alright?” inquired Adithi, her voice was soft and that really helped me calm down quickly as I knew my best friend was there to ease my fears just by her presence.

  I gave her a nod and tried to force a smile, “I am fine,” I told her as she put her arm around my shoulder started talking about her Indian dramas she watched recently.

  ------*------

  The gang entered inside the shop, when the doors swung open it made a melodic short burst of a bell ring, kind of like corner shops, it was cool inside because of the air conditioner, the counter cut the interior in half, behind the counter there were computers, some unique-looking wired projects that I couldn’t form words of description for.

  I could see two men behind the counter, one was typing something on the computer while the other was cleaning the transparent counter with a wiping cloth and some cleaner spray.

  Akira went up to the clerks, he leaned on the counter, “Hello, mind if you can take out the filler word of this tape?” he asked as he reached into his bag and pulled out the tape and held it up for the clerk to see it.

  “I am sorry my little guy,” said the clerk cleaning, he was tall, wore a white tucked-in shirt with a small logo of the shop on his chest pocket and he wore black sweatpants, his hair was a low taper cut, he looked about twenty-five years old. “But we are closed until the weekend, it’s our tradition holiday.”

  He was really nice about telling a teenager that they were closed. Most people would roll their eyes or speak with attitude to us.

  I managed to put my scared side aside and proclaimed to the clerk: “But I saw someone you were assisting before we came in!”

  The clerk looked confused, “I beg your pardon se?ora? We were serving someone before you came in?” asked the clerk.

  “Yes,” I replied, the clerk showed more confusion, he went up to his partner and discussed with him about the ‘customer’ that they served. The partner turned his chair to face us.

  “We never had anyone for the past hour ma’am,” he stated, “It hasn’t been a busy day because of the tradition’s holiday rituals, we only had one client come in the morning.”

  I felt my heart beating harder and slower as the clerk's words ricocheted off the wall... I felt like I could hear it thud from my chest, I began to pull my trousers, just hoping for the clerk to tell that he was joking...

  But the silence gave me the answer back... No one was here anyway...

  The clerk went up to a drawer and gave us business cards, “You can contact us about our open hours and days when we are closed, but otherwise, have a good evening to the five of you,” he smiled and raised his hand low to wave at us a goodbye as we left the shop.