The red door creaked open, slow and reluctant — as if something behind it didn't want to be disturbed.
Liam hesitated before stepping in.
The air inside was wrong.
The lighting didn't match the hallway. It was dimmer, with a faint bluish hue that seemed to come from nowhere. The air was cold, unnaturally still. It felt like stepping into a preserved moment in time — dead and untouched.
The unit wasn't like any other apartment on the floor.
It wasn't even really a room.
It was a long, narrow corridor lined with mirrors on both sides. Floor to ceiling. But these weren't ordinary mirrors. Every single one was cracked — some slightly, others shattered like spiderwebs.
He took one cautious step forward.
His reflection followed — fractured, broken.
Each mirror distorted his image in strange ways. One showed him older, another younger. One didn't show him at all.
At the end of the corridor, there was a single object: a small, round table with a journal resting on it.
Liam's heart pounded as he approached it.
He picked up the journal carefully. It was thick, bound in cracked brown leather, and dusty with age. On the cover, in fading ink, were the initials:
E.J.
His hands trembled.
Ethan J.
The missing tenant.
The one who vanished.
He opened the first page.
"If you're reading this, then the door has opened for you too. That means you're marked. It knows you're here."
Liam snapped the book shut, chest rising with panic.
The mirrors around him began to hum, a low vibration like something alive. He looked up—and his reflection had changed.
It was smiling.
But Liam wasn't.
His reflection lifted its hand slowly, pointing toward him.
And then, from behind the mirror — something knocked back.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
But this time, the sound was coming from inside the mirror.