The figure without

As the sun rose on the horizon, it became clear what had happened. Femi, my neighbor and classmate, had given myself and Kate, my roommate, free tickets to the cinema, knowing fully well that I had longed for an outing to the cinema.

"Hello ladies, is someone excited for a cinema movie?" Femi spread the three tickets for us to see, which made us scream an excited "yeah, yeah." It was my third year in college, and being in the penultimate year, I wanted to explore the different places in Bama City where my campus was. The "view palace" was pretty new in town, barely 4 months old, and I had yet to visit it despite the tales told by colleagues; thus, I made it a bucket list before graduating from college.

My roommate, Kate, was the extrovert, and she had visited all sorts of places in town due to the many friends she had, unlike me, the 21-year-old chocolate-skinned girl with a 5 foot and 4 inch height, always adjusting her spectacles, ready to read any book that came across, barely stepping beyond my self-created walls. I felt unusually excited to go out to the movies in the company of my roommate, Kemi, and my neighbor, Femi.

By 6:30 pm, we had arrived at the cinema, and Femi did the honors of scouting for a good movie to watch within the time frame of our return to the hostel, which thankfully was off campus.

"I'm sorry, ladies; movies were rescheduled; only one is available." Femi said, turning to us with a flyer containing the supposed movies for the day. "And it's, 'army of darkness'". He continued, scratching his head, suspecting we would not be comfortable with it.

"It's fine; we can't let our tickets go to waste." I said, trying to lighten his mood. I was not particularly comfortable with horror movies, but as it stood, I was out of options.

"Can we at least get some popcorn?" Kate chipped in, causing me to burst into laughter.

"Kate and food, 5 and 6." You're covered; tonight's bill is all on me, ladies. Femi said it excitedly.

We picked up popcorn and a drink each and entered the cinema. The hall was cozy and dark, illuminated only by the giant screen downstage. A cold chill ran through my spine, making me wonder if my body reacted only to the chilled weather or if the movie scene already playing had its effect on me. I clung onto my jeans and occasionally squeezed Femi's hand (who sat between myself and Kate) when the movie scenes scared me to the marrow.
The movie took forever to finish, and I could barely wait to leave the cinema, constantly haunted by scenes from the movie. Kate seemed not to be flustered, and Femi enjoyed talking about the scary scenes from the movie as we made our way back home.

The breeze felt unusually strong as we walked into our compound. The tree in the compound seemed to dance to different tunes sung by unseen forces. I scurried into the room and hissed uncontrollably as a power outage welcomed us home. Femi had retired to his room, and Kate and I entered our room.

The crescent moon outside cast a partial shadow in the room, offering dim but appreciable illumination. Spontaneously, my attention was drawn to the window, hearing the whooshing sound of the air blowing outside. My eyes caught the shape of a human that seemed to stand right outside our window; occasionally, he moved his arms in different directions. The beat in my heart hit hard against my chest as it became erratic, wondering if I had visitors from the movie I had just watched.

"Is someone there?" I managed to ask Kate almost in a whisper. She joined my gaze and gasped, causing me to panic even more. "Definitely, she saw him too," I thought as we held each other's hands. We moved our mattress far away from the window pane, holding each other's hands as a helpless defense.

"Do you think he'll charge at us?" Kate asked. I gave her a mute response and only squeezed her hand tightly. None of us was bold enough to approach the window, and fear would not permit us to run outside. Femi's line was switched off already; it was his custom whenever he slept at night.

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We continued our solidarity hug late into the night, basking in the fear of the unknown stranger who kept us company, unwilling to depart from his post. We barely blinked our eyes till daybreak, and only when dawn clasped its countenance upon us—with the ceasing of the incessant wind and the gradual surrender of darkness to light—did we begin to decipher the figure that kept us awake through the night—a shirt with a human face hung right outside our window by a neighbor.