The apartment wasn’t haunted.
That’s what Connor told himself, standing in the middle of his too-quiet living room, staring at the spot where, just minutes ago, he swore he’d heard something move inside the walls.
Not just the usual old-building creaks—pipes settling, wood shifting, air pushing through vents. No, this had been different. A deliberate sound. A scraping. A slow, careful drag, like fingernails scraping against plaster.
He hadn’t imagined it. He was sure of that much. But when he pressed his palm flat against the wall, the surface was cool and solid beneath his touch.
Nothing. He let out a breath, shaking his head. “Just the building,” he muttered. “Just old pipes. Just—”
The scrape came again. Connor froze, hand still on the wall, pulse slamming in his throat.
It came from the other side. From inside. A long, slow drag, moving downward.
He told himself he wouldn’t go looking. That it was nothing. That he’d lived in this apartment for three years, and if there had been something behind those walls, he would have noticed it before now.
But as he lay awake in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, he heard it again.
Soft at first. A faint shift, a whisper of movement. Then a knock—light, but intentional.
Connor sat up fast, his breath shuddering out in the cold air. He turned his head slowly toward the far side of the bedroom, where the sound had come from.
There was nothing there.
But the knock had been right beside his bed.
The wall was solid. He had knocked against it himself, searching for some kind of hollow space, some sign that this wasn’t just his own exhaustion warping reality.
But it was solid.
No pipes. No vents. No space for anything to move inside.
So what had knocked?
He didn’t sleep.
The next day, he skipped work. He sat on his couch with his laptop, fingers flying over the keyboard, searching for anything that would explain what he was hearing.
Old buildings settled, sure, but this wasn’t that. And it wasn’t rats, either—he had lived in New York long enough to know the sharp, frantic sound of rodents in the walls. This was deliberate. A presence. A waiting.
He pulled up the building’s blueprints from the city records, scanning them quickly. His apartment, 4B, was on the end of the hall. That meant there should only be one neighboring unit—4A.
But that wasn’t right. There was a space.
A narrow sliver of emptiness between his bedroom and 4A’s living room.
Connor squinted at the screen, his pulse picking up. The space wasn’t marked as a closet. It wasn’t labeled as storage or maintenance access. It wasn’t labeled at all.
A small, empty void.
A hidden room.
By the time the sun went down, he had convinced himself not to investigate.
And by midnight, he had convinced himself that he had to.
He didn’t own any tools, but his neighbor across the hall, an old man named Sal, was always leaving his toolbox out in the hallway when he worked on things. Connor found it next to Sal’s door, the lid already cracked open. He grabbed a hammer.
He didn’t hesitate.
Back in his apartment, he dragged his dresser away from the bedroom wall, exposing the smooth expanse of off-white paint. It looked like any other wall—except now, he knew better.
He pressed his ear against it.
Silence.
Connor exhaled, then lifted the hammer and swung. The drywall gave way easily, crumbling inward, exposing wooden beams and darkness beyond. He reached in carefully, tearing more away, widening the hole, his breath hitching as he peered inside.
There was a door. A narrow, wooden door, set deep into the hidden space. The paint was faded, chipped at the edges—but it had once been red. A door, inside his apartment. A door he had never known was there.
And now, as he crouched there, staring at it, he could feel it. Something on the other side.
Something waiting.
He didn’t touch it that night. He left the hole in the wall open, dragged his dresser back in front of it, and slept on the couch with every light on. But the next day, something changed.
He couldn’t focus. He paced the apartment, glanced at the hole every few minutes, felt his breath shorten every time he walked away from it. By noon, he was standing in front of the dresser, fingers curling into fists.
By three, he had shoved it aside.
By four, his hand was on the doorknob. It turned easily.
And the door swung inward.
The air inside was wrong. Thick. Stale. Like the breath of something that had been waiting a long, long time.
The space was narrow, no more than six feet across, stretching into darkness. His phone flashlight barely cut through the gloom, revealing only dust-covered floorboards and wallpaper that had once been a deep, rust-colored red. Connor stepped inside.
The air moved. Not a breeze. Not the shift of old, still air. Something else.
Something alive.
He turned slowly, sweeping the flashlight across the walls. And that was when he saw them.
Handprints. Hundreds of them. Pressed into the wallpaper, smearing outward in dark, faded streaks. Some were large. Some were small. They covered the walls, reaching toward the door.
And as Connor stood there, frozen, his breath caught in his throat, he heard something behind him.
A slow, shuddering breath.
The door slammed shut.
He turned so fast he nearly dropped his phone, fingers slipping against the smooth case, his heart hammering. The door was shut. He reached for it immediately, twisting the knob. It didn’t move.
The air pressed against him, thick and heavy, his skin clammy with sweat. His flashlight flickered. The shadows in the corners stretched.
And then—
The breathing again. Not his own. Slow, deliberate, from inside the room. Connor’s pulse slammed against his ribs, his breath quickening. His eyes darted wildly, searching, searching—And then he saw it.
Not in the corner. Not against the far wall. In the reflection. A mirror stood at the back of the room, its glass smeared with age. And in it—
A figure stood behind him. Not moving. Not breathing.
Just waiting.
Connor turned, a scream caught in his throat—
The flashlight flickered once.
Twice.
And then the room was dark.
©Genevieve Mazer, 2025
