The Room With Nothing In It
Clara didn’t remember why she chose this building. Only that it had been raining, she had been tired, and the woman at the front desk had said, “Unit 3A is always available.”
It wasn’t beautiful. The hallway smelled faintly of old laundry and something citrusy. The walls were beige, and the elevator made a mechanical sigh each time it stopped on a floor. But something about it felt... still. Like it had been waiting.
Her new apartment was small but manageable. A kitchenette, a narrow balcony facing a brick wall, and a bedroom with soft creaks in the floorboards. She unpacked slowly, lining up mugs in the cupboard with more care than she needed. It had been a hard year. She wanted quiet. She wanted no surprises.
The next morning, she found the door at the end of the hallway.
It was barely noticeable—no number, no handle, just a blank gray slab where a door should not be. She stared at it for several seconds, unsure if it had been there the night before. She could have sworn— But she turned away. She wasn’t here to entertain oddities.
By the third day, she started losing things.
First, her left slipper. Then a glass she had just washed and set down. Nothing big, nothing important—yet. But the unease began to settle, like a thin layer of dust on her skin. She would walk into the kitchen and forget why she came. She would open drawers to find things that should not be there: a half-burned match, a rusted key, a movie ticket from a year that hadn't come yet.
Her phone glitched too. Calls dropped without signal. Messages disappeared. She began keeping a physical journal.
Day 5: The gray door is slightly open. She hadn’t touched it. She hadn’t gone near it. But it was open now—maybe two inches. A sliver of black beyond. And cold. That was what hit her first when she stepped closer: a breath of cold air that didn’t belong indoors. She reached for it. Stopped. Backed away. Closed her own apartment door and locked it twice.
That night, she dreamed of a man.
He stood in the empty hallway, back turned. No voice, no movement. Just presence. When she woke up, her front door was unlocked.
On the seventh day, she stepped into the gray door.
It shouldn’t have opened. She hadn’t even pushed—it simply let her in.
The room was… blank. No furniture. No windows. No dust. Just walls and air and silence. And then she saw him.
A man. Mid-thirties, maybe. Clean white shirt, black slacks. His shoes made no sound on the floor, and his eyes were the color of iron. But the strangest thing was how unsurprised he looked to see her.
"You're late," he said gently. His voice was warm. Familiar. Like a song you forget until someone hums it again.
She opened her mouth, but no words came.
"You don’t remember yet," he said, stepping closer. "That’s okay. You always forget the first few times."
She blinked. “I don’t know you.”
He smiled. "No. But I know you."
She backed toward the door, breath catching. “Who are you?”
But before he answered, the lights flickered— And the door slammed shut behind her.
