Liam sat frozen in the middle of his living room, the dim lamp above casting long shadows across the floor. Sleep was impossible. Since the knocking at 3:00 AM, his nerves had been stretched thin.
Just when he thought it was over, he heard it again.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
He stood slowly, moving toward the hallway. The corridor outside was deathly silent. Unit 403's red door stood as it always had—ominous and wrong.
But this time, something changed.
A voice.
Soft. Familiar.
"Liam… open the door."
He stopped breathing.
It sounded like someone he should remember—someone from a memory long buried.
"Who's there?" he whispered, voice dry.
No answer. But then he noticed something impossible:
There was a doorknob.