My Neighbors are Weird

 One night, a loud, booming noise from outside jolted me awake. I shot up in my bed, frantically glancing around to find the source of the sound. I looked over at my cat, Tom. He had heard it too, as he was acting startled, himself.

Then I guess I went back to sleep.

A few days later, I saw someone move into the apartment across from mine.

“New neighbors, huh?” I had mused to Tom. He just blinked at me, and I just ran my hand through his soft fur. For a while now, it was just me and him on this floor in this rather average apartment complex. It wasn’t extravagant, and it wasn’t run down, just a happy middle. Kinda like me.

Anyways, now, we seemed to have some new neighbors. To be honest, I was a little glad. It got lonely here sometimes.

A few days or so passed since they had moved in. I continued with my life as usual, however, I kinda hoped that I would run into them out in the hall. 

...And funny enough, one day, as I was returning from an errand, I actually did.

“Hello there!” I heard a soft voice from behind me as I was going to unlock my door. I turned to see who it was, and there she stood. 

And then I noticed there was two of her… I was rather confused, until I realized, Oh,they’re twins! Duh.

So my new neighbors are twins. Interesting. Anyways, upon seeing the two I smiled and returned their greeting sheepishly. I like talking to people, but sometimes I can be a bit shy and awkward.

“Oh, hey.” There was a small pause followed by that.

“...Um, I apologize for such weird timing,” The first one began. She wore an eye patch on her right eye, the other eye being a vibrant green color. “but I actually have been trying to catch you this whole week now.”

She talked kind of funny, but who am I to judge?

“Oh! I’m sorry about that.” I rubbed the back of my head, my face becoming a bit hot as I was embarrassed for not seeing her sooner. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much. We just moved in several days ago, and we did not know someone else lived on this floor. But when we found out, we wanted to introduce ourselves!” She smiled warmly. “My name is Mei, and this is my sister, Mai.” Mei motioned towards her twin. Mai wore a band-aid on the bridge of her nose, and she smiled at me as well, silent. I suppose she doesn’t talk much.

Mei and Mai were strange (and kinda confusing) names to me. Though, again, who am I to judge? The both of them had oddly bright green eyes, long, dark, and wavy hair, and their faces were dotted with freckles. They both seemed like kind souls.

“Well, pleased to meet you two,” I grinned, extending my hand out to them for a handshake. “I’m Nico.”

And at that moment, things got weird.

They both looked at my hand, seemingly bewildered. I raised an eyebrow. There we stood in the hall, with me awkwardly holding my hand out and the two of them staring at it. I slowly pulled my hand away, and they looked back up at me.

“Uhh,” I cleared my throat. “...yeah!”

“It is a pleasure to meet you too, Nico,” was all Mei had to say. She smiled uncomfortably.

After that we all headed back to our homes. I went to watch some TV that day, but found myself thinking about the awkwardness of that whole ordeal, a strange feeling of something being off stirring in my chest.

And it gets weirder.

One evening, I had been making dinner and I thought of the two again. I like to cook, and I like to share, so I came and knocked on their door to invite them over to eat. Mei had answered the door, and said that they would love to, so I brought them on over. 

“Make yourselves at home!” I said as I went to prepare the rather bland looking table I had in the small kitchen area. I went to gather plates and silverware from the cabinets, and when I turned around… Mei and Mai had apparently discovered Tom, who was just lounging on the old couch by the windows.

These two were for sure very closely examining my cat. I mean, Mei had a look of pure concentration on her face, while Mai looked like she was in awe. 

Mei looked up for a moment and saw that I had caught her looking down my cat, and immediately her pale face grew red, embarrassed. What they were doing was… really weird. It was like they had never seen a cat before.

However, despite that, I flashed her a friendly smile to put her at ease, as she was still looking at me. Mai was still focused on the lazy tuxedo cat.

“You can pet him if you want.” I said, starting to place and arrange plates and silverware onto the table. The spicy smell from the meal was making my stomach grumble.

And so she did. After that we ate dinner, and we hung out for a short bit before they said they had to get going. I found myself still thinking about their reactions to my cat after they had left, that strange feeling of something being out of place coming back.

And that’s not all!

The more and more we interacted with each other, the more and more odd things I noticed with both Mei and Mai. One time, I came out into the hall and found Mei examining a piece of trash, holding a device I had never seen before. In this day of age, there’s tons of devices and gadgets out there. Floating cars, A.I., even androids! But this thing looked… otherworldly. 

Then, I had them over again, and as we were hanging out and watching a movie, I happened to have heard Mai softly whispering to Mei about something. That’s fine and all, but the thing is, I overheard, and the way she spoke sounded different. It sounded like a foreign language… but not a foreign language I’ve ever heard.

I mean, I really shouldn’t care about how other people live their lives, but everything they did was so out of place! How they walked, talked, acted, it was straight up weird! My neighbors are weird! Are they hiding something? I found myself becoming more suspicious of the two.

And then, one day, I finally discovered what was going on. And it all made sense.

I had been returning from work that night (I work at a comic book shop). I went to go unlock my door, and right at that moment, I hear someone running into the hall. I turn around and see that it was Mei, and she looked very panicked.

I saw her frantically try the door, but it was locked. She banged on it hard, shouting. That was when I heard that odd language clearly. She seemed to be calling for her sister to come and unlock the door.

Something was obviously very wrong, so I spoke up and tried to offer help.

Mei whipped around, and her uncovered eye widened when she looked at me. I saw terror in that eye.

“O-oh, Hi there, N-Nico!” She stammered, followed by a very nervous and forced sounding laugh. “What are you d-doing out here s-so late?!”

“Don’t worry about that, what’s going on?!” I came closer, and she seemed to plaster herself to the door.

“I-it is nothing! Nothing at all, nope!” Mei spoke quickly. This only made me more worried.

“Mei, it’s okay, I want to help--”

“No! Everything is fine!”

Before I could say anything else, I noticed something off about her eye. It was…flickering.

“Mei...” I began. “What’s wrong with your eye…?”

And at that moment, I heard a strange Beep! Beep! Beep! And her facade blinked and collapsed… to reveal her true form.

Blue skin, orange markings, green hair that looked sorta like tentacles… We both stood there in the hall, dead silent. 

Mei was an alien.

Without a single thought, I quickly went back to my door and unlocked it.

“Mei, hurry, come in,” I found myself speaking erratically. She came in without hesitation.

I quickly shut the door behind me, and then I took a look at the alien in front of me. She still looked terrified. What the hell do I say? We stood there in my small apartment for what seemed like an eternity. 

“...I won’t tell anyone.” Was the first thing that came to mind, and the first thing I said.

“Huh? R-really?”

“Really.”

She seemed to instantly relax a bit when I told her this. 

“So, this explains a lot.” I stated. “You aren’t from here, are you?”

“Correct. I am not from Earth.” Mei responded. “Neither is Mai. My disguise was malfunctioning.”

From that point, Mei began to explain her reason for being on Earth. Apparently she is an astronaut and scientist, and Earth was her assigned planet for her mission, and her sister got to tag along. Unfortunately, the both of them crash landed here, with the accident taking her eye. 

That explains the loud noise I heard that one night, I mused to myself. She reassured me that she isn’t here to do any harm, but just to collect data and study Earth. 

“That’s so rad!” I exclaimed.

“Rad?” Mei repeated the word.

“Err… Cool, it’s cool.”

“...Cool?”

I sighed. “It’s awesome.”

“Ah!” With that, she beamed. “I am glad.”

We stood there for a moment, once again filling the place with silence. I searched for something to say, but before I could find something to talk about, she spoke up.

“Nico,” Mei started. “Please do us a favor. Do not tell anyone about this, it could endanger us.” I paused for a moment. 

“I promise to not tell anyone, Mei.” I began. “In fact, I can help with your mission.”

“Oh?” The alien’s face lit up.

“Yeah! Whatever you need to know, I will do my best to explain it to you.” I beamed.

Upon hearing that, a wide grin came to her face. “Any help is much appreciated! Thank you so much.”

“Anytime.” 

After that, I let Mei fix her disguise here. When she was finished, I walked her back to her apartment (Mai had unlocked the door and was waiting for her sister), and then went to go to bed. 

Crawling into my rather messy bed, I thought to myself, Things just got interesting here in this boring apartment complex.

I shut my eyes, wondering what life would be like from now on, having aliens as neighbors, helping them with their mission… It was exciting. 

Eventually, I fell asleep.