Day 718

The entire block of flats had been up for sale for years before anyone moved in. Honestly the apartment's price should have been the first tip-off that something about the area was very wrong but only £270 for rent and utilities was too good to pass up. Perhaps it was because the city zoo was just opposite and certain directional winds blew a somewhat fragrant aroma over from the many animals therein. Perhaps it was the somewhat remote location and the fifteen minute walk to the nearest bus stop.

It was certainly odd to have a zoo nearly in the middle of nowhere, or at least on the edges of nowhere. The surrounding areas (aside from the three blocks of flats) were the infamous Moors of many, many books. They weren't as bleak as they're described, at least not during the day. During the night all sorts of strange sounds float about, possibly from wild animals, local drunks or from the zoo across the road. There was no definite answer.

This aside the rest of the area seemed quote nice and living so close to such a pleasant attraction only made things better, even if he was the sole occupant of the entire five floor building. It was lonely but he hoped that more people would move in soon enough, bringing the familiar noise of busy lives and possible friendships.

Four years later he gave up on the idea that anyone else would ever move in. He began to doubt that the rest of the building was even up for rent. Perhaps he'd somehow rented the entire building and didn't know it. Perhaps there were hidden cameras everywhere and he was being constantly monitored.

Was someone putting something in his food or the water and seeing how it would affect him? Was the zoo just something to keep him distracted so he didn't suspect that something else had been going on the whole time? He had to know.

He purchased hidden cameras over the next few weeks (using cash, trying to be as untraceable as possible). He stopped using the tap water for drinking, cleaning or bathing in case it was contaminated with some secret chemical that would give him cancer or worse. He'd scoured every inch of the apartment, pulling up the carpets and stripping the wallpaper, removing as much potentially bugged furniture as possible until he was left sitting in empty rooms with a knife by his side at all times and a single computer showing him every room of the house that he wasn't in as well as the hallways of every floor.

He saw nothing for the first few days, just him sitting in his bare rooms, the hallways outside where he'd stacked his belongings and the other hallways that were almost clinically barren. What began to irritate him soon after was that he couldn't see outside, he couldn't see if anyone was loitering outside and waiting for him to fall asleep before they could break in and kill him.

Three days later every window he could access had two cameras on it, one pointing at the window and one facing down. A second monitor was added to fit all of these new videos on and he waited. It was only a matter of hours before he saw the first creature approach, his suspicions utterly shattered and his fears kickstarted into overdrive as more creatures joined the first, peering into the ground floor windows before one of them spotted the cameras.