When I finally arrived home that evening, the motion sensor lights in the hallway flickered to life, spilling a muted amber glow across the familiar corridor. I had barely stepped inside when my neighbor’s door opened across from mine. He stood there with his arms crossed, jaw tight, irritation written plainly across his face.
“Your apartment gets really loud late at night,” he said flatly. “I’m not looking to start problems, but this isn’t the first time.”
Discover more
luggage
Movies
Healthy
I apologized immediately, genuinely puzzled by the complaint. I lived alone. I didn’t host guests. Music was rare, and when I did play it, the volume barely reached beyond my walls. He didn’t seem convinced. He muttered something under his breath, shook his head, and retreated back into his apartment. The door closed with a firm click, leaving me standing in the hallway with a sense of unease I couldn’t quite explain.
I pushed the encounter out of my mind and stepped inside my apartment. Everything looked exactly as I had left it earlier that day. The air was still, the furniture untouched, the silence unbroken. I cooked dinner, checked my email, and tried to relax, but my neighbor’s words lingered like an unresolved question. The idea that something might be happening in my apartment without my awareness gnawed at me more than I wanted to admit.
Sleep came slowly that night.
At some point in the early hours, I woke suddenly, my heart pounding as if an alarm had gone off inside my chest. The room was dark and quiet except for the faint mechanical hum coming from the kitchen. I lay still, listening intently, my senses heightened by an instinct I couldn’t explain.
Then I heard it.
A subtle sound, barely perceptible. Not a crash or a bang, but something deliberate. Something controlled.
Before logic had time to intervene, my body reacted. I slid off the bed and lowered myself to the floor, easing underneath the frame and pressing myself flat against the cool wood. I slowed my breathing, forcing it into shallow, measured rhythms as my thoughts raced through possibilities.
Footsteps moved through the bedroom.
They weren’t rushed. Whoever it was moved with confidence, as though they knew the layout well. I watched the shadow stretch across the floor as light from the hallway slipped under the doorframe. It paused briefly, then shifted.
A tight pressure settled in my chest. Not panic exactly, but a deep awareness that something was profoundly wrong.
Discover more
luggage
Healthy
Movies
The figure moved toward the dresser. I heard drawers being opened one after another. The sounds echoed unnaturally in the quiet room—the soft scrape of wood, the rustle of paper, the faint sound of breathing.
Then a voice broke the silence.
“Marcus.”
My name.
It wasn’t shouted. It wasn’t aggressive. It was spoken casually, with familiarity, as if addressing someone well known.
Cold spread through my body.
The voice continued in a low murmur. “Always leaving things half done.”
I pressed my hand over my mouth, my thoughts colliding in confusion. How did this person know my name? Why did the voice feel unsettlingly familiar? The tone, the rhythm, the pauses between words stirred something deep in my memory.
The rummaging continued, more frantic now.
“Where did you put it?” the voice muttered, frustration creeping in.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears. I focused on the details—the weight of the bed frame above me, the grain of the wood beneath my fingers, the precise pattern of footsteps. I needed to stay grounded.
Time stretched in strange ways.
Seconds felt endless.
Then something shifted, not in the room, but in my understanding.
The voice.
The more I heard it, the more undeniable the truth became.
It wasn’t just familiar.
It was identical.
It was my voice.
The realization landed quietly but forcefully. There was no mistaking it. The inflection, the cadence, even the subtle hesitations were exactly mine. Fear mixed with disbelief as my thoughts spiraled.
The figure eventually left the bedroom, footsteps fading toward the living room. I heard a chair slide softly across the floor. Then silence returned.
