It began with a sound no one else seemed to notice.
Every morning at exactly 3:17 a.m., nineteen-year-old Aaron woke to a faint knock coming from somewhere inside his apartment. Not at the front door. Not at the windows. Three slow knocks... pause... three more. Thunk... thunk... thunk.
He searched every room. The plumbing was fine. The walls were solid. His neighbours denied hearing anything. After a week, exhaustion won. Instead of investigating, he simply whispered into the darkness, "I'm not answering."
The knocking stopped immediately.
The next morning, his bedroom door was open.
Aaron always slept with it shut.
He convinced himself he'd forgotten to close it. The following night he wedged a chair beneath the doorknob.
At 3:17 a.m...
Thunk... thunk... thunk.
"I'm not answering."
Silence.
When he opened his eyes at sunrise, the chair was still in place.
The door, however, was standing wide open.
His phone began recording things by itself.
Every morning there was a new video in his gallery, all exactly seventeen seconds long. Each one showed him asleep from somewhere inside the room.
The first was filmed from the corner.
The second from inside the closet.
The third from beneath the bed.
The fourth...
...from behind his pillow.
Aaron deleted them. They returned.
He smashed the phone with a hammer.
The next morning, it sat charging on his bedside table with a fresh video waiting.
He finally decided to stay awake.
At 3:16 he sat on the edge of his bed holding a flashlight and a baseball bat.
3:17.
Thunk... thunk... thunk.
The knocking came from beneath the floorboards.
Then a voice.
His own voice.
"Please..."
Thunk.
"Don't answer it."
Aaron froze.
The voice sounded terrified.
Another knock.
This time from inside the wall behind him.
Then another from the ceiling.
Then another from inside the bathroom mirror.
The apartment wasn't making noises anymore.
It was full of doors.
Doors no architect had built.
The wallpaper split open.
A black rectangle appeared where no doorway had ever existed.
Something knocked from the other side.
Three slow knocks.
Aaron stepped backwards.
The rectangle slowly opened inward.
Inside wasn't another room.
It was his apartment.
Everything was identical.
Except...
Another Aaron stood there.
Older.
Much thinner.
His fingernails had been worn to the bone.
He looked as though he hadn't slept in years.
The older Aaron immediately slammed the door shut from his side and screamed—
"GO TO SLEEP! IF YOU'RE AWAKE, IT CAN SEE YOU!"
Something on the other side grabbed him.
His scream ended abruptly.
Blood seeped beneath the impossible doorway.
Three knocks followed.
Aaron fled into the hallway.
Every apartment door in the building now stood open.
Every tenant was asleep standing upright.
Eyes closed.
Smiling.
Each one slowly raised a hand...
...and pointed at Apartment 317.
His apartment.
Their mouths opened together.
Not to scream.
To knock.
Their teeth clicked three times.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Police found Aaron wandering the streets at dawn.
He kept repeating one sentence.
"There are doors that only exist if you refuse to open them."
His apartment was empty.
No blood.
No strange walls.
No mysterious doors.
Just one bedroom.
One bed.
One phone.
The detectives watched the recovered phone anyway.
It contained a single seventeen-second video.
Aaron was sleeping peacefully.
Nothing unusual happened.
Until the final second.
Someone behind the camera whispered:
"He answered."
The footage ended.
The detective reviewing it looked up to ask his partner whether he had heard the whisper.
His partner's chair was empty.
The office door stood open.
Three slow knocks echoed from somewhere inside the walls.
Thunk.
Thunk.
No comments:
Post a Comment