Moving into a new apartment should’ve been the fresh start I needed. After months of searching, I’d finally found the perfect place—decent rent, good light, and just a short walk from my favorite coffee shop. The lease agreement even came with a cheerful ‘Welcome Home!’ note from the landlord. But within days, that optimism curdled into something darker.
It began with the small things. My keys vanished from the bowl by the door where I always left them. My phone charger disappeared from its usual spot next to the bed. Then my favorite mug went missing, followed by a nearly full bottle of ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet. At first, I chalked it up to my own scatterbrained nature—after all, this wasn’t exactly new territory for me. There was that time in college when I spent twenty minutes searching for my glasses while they were perched on my head, or last year when I filed a police report for a ‘stolen’ wallet that turned up in my own jacket pocket three days later.
But this felt different. These weren’t momentary lapses—items would be there one moment and gone the next, with no logical explanation. I’d set my keys down while unlocking the door, turn around to grab my grocery bags, and find them vanished when I turned back. The charger would be plugged in when I went to sleep but missing when I woke up with a dying phone battery. The ibuprofen bottle disappeared between me taking two pills for a headache and reaching for it again twenty minutes later.
I tried all the rational explanations—maybe the super had come in for maintenance? But management required 24-hour notice for entry. Could I have a mouse problem? But there were no chew marks or droppings. I even checked the carbon monoxide detector, remembering that viral Reddit post about the guy who thought his landlord was leaving him notes when he was actually writing them himself while poisoned.
Everything came back normal. Which left me with two possibilities: either I was losing my mind in spectacular fashion, or my charming new apartment had other plans for me. The truth, as I’d soon discover, was far worse than either option.
The Whispering Walls
The scratching started on my third night in the apartment. At first, I thought it was just the building settling—you know, that creaky symphony old places perform when no one’s watching. But this was different. It had rhythm. Purpose. Like something with claws was methodically working its way through the drywall behind my bed.
Then came the whispers.
Not the indistinct murmur of neighbors through thin walls. These were crisp, deliberate syllables that hovered just below comprehension. I’d catch a sibilant ‘s’ or a guttural ‘k’ sound, but never enough to form words. They always stopped the moment I held my breath to listen closer.
The Neighbor’s Explanation
Mrs. Henderson in 3B waved a dismissive hand when I mentioned it. ‘That’s just the steam pipes, dear,’ she said, adjusting her cat-eye glasses. ‘This building’s nearly a hundred years old. The walls talk sometimes.’ Her laugh sounded like rustling newspaper. ‘Why, back in ’87, old Mr. Petrovitch swore the radiators were singing him Russian lullabies!’
But radiators don’t whisper your name. I know because I heard it—clear as day—during last Tuesday’s insomnia marathon: ‘Ssssamiksssha.’ Drawn out like a serpent’s hiss. My fingers still remember how the bedsheet fibers felt when I clenched them tight enough to tear.
The Body’s Betrayal
Your body keeps score in these situations. The way your shoulders creep toward your ears without permission. How your jaw locks so tight you wake with molars aching. I developed a permanent indentation between my eyebrows from frowning at every unexplained sound.
The worst was the sweating. Not the warm glow of summer heat, but the cold, clammy perspiration of primal fear. I’d lie perfectly still, watching the digital clock numbers flip, while icy trickles ran down my spine. The AC unit’s hum became my enemy—masking whatever might be moving in the dark.
The Pattern Emerges
By week two, I’d mapped the phenomena:
- 11:37 PM: First scratch behind the headboard (always three precise strokes)
- 2:14 AM: Whispering begins (lasts exactly 17 minutes)
- 3:02 AM: Distant knocking from what sounds like inside the west wall
The sleep deprivation made me reckless. One night I actually pressed my ear to the wallpaper, like some protagonist in a horror movie who clearly deserves what’s coming. The plaster felt unnaturally warm against my cheek. And beneath the whispers, I could swear I heard… breathing. Steady. Patient. Waiting.
That’s when I started sleeping with the lights on.
The Breaking Point
Last night changed everything. The scratching came earlier—9:52 PM—and louder. Like whatever was making it had grown impatient. Then a new sound: fingernails dragging down the length of the hallway door. Slow. Deliberate. Testing.
I did something stupid then. I screamed ‘Stop it!’ at the empty apartment. And for one blissful second, the noises did stop.
Then the whispering came back with a vengeance. This time in stereo—from the walls and under the bed simultaneously. And though I’ll never admit this to my therapist, I think some of those whispers were in my own voice.
Now I’m sitting here at 4 AM, typing this on my phone with the bathroom light blazing. Because here’s the thing no paranormal investigation show prepares you for: real terror isn’t about what you see. It’s about what you hear in the dark, and the dreadful certainty that tonight might finally be the night it decides to show itself.
The Thirst That Wasn’t Normal
It hit me at 3:17 AM according to the glowing digits of my alarm clock – a thirst so violent it tore through sleep like tissue paper. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth like dried glue, and when I tried to swallow, it felt like dragging sandpaper down my throat. The headache came in waves, pulsing behind my left eyeball with a rhythm that matched the digital clock’s flickering colon.
I’d been thirsty before. This wasn’t that. This was my body screaming for water like it had crossed a desert buried beneath my studio apartment’s hardwood floors. The rational part of my brain (what little remained after weeks of sleep deprivation) noted this wasn’t medically possible – I’d drunk two glasses of water before bed. The other part, the primal part, didn’t care.
When my feet hit the floorboards, the wood groaned like it hadn’t borne weight in decades. The air changed three steps from my bed – summer’s humid stickiness giving way to a chill that raised every hair on my arms. My breath fogged before me, though the thermostat read 72°F. That’s when I noticed the silence. No refrigerator hum. No traffic sounds from the street below. Just the wet click of my sticky mouth opening.
Halfway to the kitchen, my bare foot landed on something damp. I looked down expecting a spilled drink, but the darkness clung too thick. When I lifted my toes, they came up stringy with cobwebs that hadn’t been there at bedtime. The hallway seemed longer tonight, the ceiling lower, as if the apartment had exhaled while I slept and forgot to reinflate.
Then came the smell – not the mildew I’d complained about to the super, but something older. Like opening a schoolbook from the 1920s and inhaling yellowed pages. My thirst vanished. Every survival instinct I’d ever ignored suddenly sat up straight. That’s when I saw it. Not the kitchen doorway I’d been stumbling toward, but another door entirely. One that absolutely, positively hadn’t been on my lease agreement.
It stood slightly ajar, the gap darker than the hallway’s shadows. From within came a sound that stopped my heart mid-beat: the unmistakable glug-glug of water pouring into a glass.
My throat burned anew.
The Door That Shouldn’t Be There
My bare feet stuck to the hardwood floor as I stood frozen in the hallway. The air smelled faintly of mildew and something metallic—like old coins left in a damp basement. Moonlight from the kitchen window sliced across the unfamiliar door’s surface, revealing wood grain that swirled in patterns too symmetrical to be natural.
It wasn’t just the door’s sudden appearance that stopped my breath. It was how it fit. The frame bulged slightly at the sides, as if the wall had exhaled to make space for this intruder. No hinges were visible, just smooth wood continuing uninterrupted until it met the doorknob—a tarnished brass sphere with what looked like tiny teeth marks around its base.
Three things registered simultaneously:
- This doorway occupied the exact space where my fire extinguisher cabinet had been
- A faint warmth radiated from the wood, like skin after fever breaks
- My reflection in the hallway mirror showed me reaching for the knob, though my arms remained locked at my sides
‘Don’t.’ The word formed in my dry throat but never made it past my lips. Every horror movie cliché screamed in my head, yet my fingers twitched forward. What if this was just sleep deprivation? That time in college when I’d hallucinated a parking attendant…
A floorboard creaked behind the door.
Not the random settling of an old building—this was the deliberate sound of weight shifting. My pulse hammered in my fingertips as they hovered an inch from the knob. The metal began rotating on its own, slow as the minute hand on a broken clock.
Later, I’d remember the sticky resistance when I finally grasped it, like turning a knob coated in half-dried glue. The smell of damp newspaper and lavender hand soap rushed out as the door gave way. But in that suspended moment, there was only the electric certainty that whatever waited inside had been expecting me.
The apartment’s layout hadn’t changed, I told myself as my palm met the wood. You’re just disoriented. The knob turned with a click that traveled up my arm like a dentist’s drill hitting nerve.
From beyond the threshold came a sound no pipes could explain—the wet, rhythmic click of a tongue against teeth. Tasting the air. Tasting my fear.
I should have run. Called the super. Burned sage. Anything but what I actually did—step forward as the door swung inward on darkness so complete it seemed to swallow the hallway light whole.
The Other Me
The door creaked open with a sound like a dying breath. Inside, the air smelled of old paper and something metallic—like dried blood or rust. My fingers trembled against the doorknob as I took in the room. Dust floated in slanted moonlight from a grimy window I was certain hadn’t existed in my apartment’s floor plan.
Bookshelves sagged under leather-bound volumes with cracked spines. Titles flashed at me as my gaze darted around: Doppelgänger Myths of Northern Europe, The Psychology of Self, Mirrors and Their Dark Reflections. A layer of gray powder coated everything, undisturbed except for… footprints. Small, barefoot prints leading to the room’s centerpiece.
A full-length mirror stood opposite the door, its silvering speckled with age. The wooden chair in front of it looked recently used—the dust there had been brushed away. And sitting on it…
My breath hitched.
She had my face. My messy bedhead. My faded NASA t-shirt and plaid pajama pants. But where my clothes were clean, hers were streaked with dirt and what might’ve been old bloodstains. Dark circles hollowed her eyes, and her lips were chapped raw. When she turned from the mirror to face me, I saw my own features twisted by exhaustion and something darker.
‘Finally.’ Her voice scraped like fingernails on slate. ‘I’ve been waiting for you, Samiksha.’
Every hair on my body stood erect. This wasn’t some stranger playing a sick joke—the way she said my name held intimate familiarity, the slight lisp I’d had since childhood perfectly replicated. She knew things only I should know.
Before I could scream or run, the door behind me slammed shut with earthquake force. The last thing I saw was her reflection in the mirror—not smiling, not threatening—just watching me with weary resignation, like someone greeting an inevitable fate.
Then darkness swallowed everything.
The End… Or Is It?
The door slammed shut with a finality that echoed through my bones. Darkness swallowed me whole, so complete I couldn’t see my own trembling hands in front of my face. The only sound was my ragged breathing—or was it ours? In that suffocating blackness, I couldn’t tell if the second set of shallow breaths came from me or… her.
My fingers scrambled against the door’s smooth surface, nails digging for purchase where there was none. No knob. No hinges. Just unbroken wood that felt strangely warm beneath my fingertips, like living flesh. From the other side, a sound froze my blood—fingernails lightly dragging down the door in perfect synchronization with my own movements.
Then laughter. My laughter, but wrong. Stretched too thin, like a recording played at half-speed. “Don’t you see?” the voice that was mine-but-not-mine whispered through the wood. “We’ve always been here.”
Something brushed my shoulder in the dark.
I woke up gasping in my own bed, sheets tangled around my legs. Morning light streamed through the curtains. My phone alarm blared its cheerful tune. Everything looked normal. Felt normal. Even the mysterious door was gone—just my familiar hallway leading to the kitchen.
Maybe it had been a nightmare. Maybe the stress of moving had gotten to me. I almost convinced myself until I reached for my keys on the nightstand.
The keyring sat exactly where I’d left it. But the apartment key was missing—just like before. And when I lifted the pillow to check underneath, my fingers closed around something cold and metallic. A tarnished key I’d never seen before, its teeth worn smooth with age.
From down the hall, a floorboard creaked.
The next morning, my keys disappeared again.
