I still remember how cold the doorknob felt.
Not from the weather. The building's heating was fine. But there was something wrong behind that door. A pressure. An invisible fog hanging in the air like stale breath. I twisted the knob and—nothing.
Locked.
Odd. I never locked it when I just stepped out for a minute. Maybe I was losing it.
I tried my key.
Didn't fit.
The ridges scraped uselessly, like trying to unlock someone else's life.
I double-checked the number: 4C. My apartment. My space. My silence.
I knocked.
No answer.
Then… footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Moving from within. They stopped just behind the door. I could feel them. Watching.
Another knock. "Hey… I think there's been a mix-up. This is my apartment."
The door cracked open.
A man stood there.
Wearing my hoodie.
My hoodie. The one with the tear on the left cuff and the pizza stain I never could scrub out.
He looked at me—not with aggression. Worse. With indifference. Like I was the mailman. Like I was background noise.
"I—this is my apartment," I said. "You're in my place."
He said nothing.
He closed the door.
Click.
Locked.
I stood there, frozen. The hallway felt suddenly too long, the light too yellow.
I knocked harder. "HEY!"
Nothing.
I turned and stormed downstairs to the front desk, heart pounding. The landlord, Mr. Gorden—or at least that's what his old brass nameplate read—sat inside the little glass booth like always, nose in a crossword.
I slapped my hand on the counter. "Someone just moved into my apartment. 4C. I live there. This is serious."
He didn't flinch. Didn't look up. Just circled something with his pen.
"I'm talking to you, man. What's going on? This is my apartment!"
Nothing.
I stepped to the side, right in his view.
His eyes slid through me like I wasn't even there.
I knocked on the glass.
He turned the page.
"What the hell is happening…" I muttered, backing away.
I ran to the tenant list board behind the lobby counter. My name—Rhysho—used to be there. Middle column, fourth row down.
Gone.
4C: J. Murrow.
Who the hell is J. Murrow?
I ran outside and tried calling Jamie.
Straight to static. Not voicemail. Not "number unreachable."
Just… static.
I returned upstairs. Knocked again.
Silence.
Then… music.
Jazz. Something slow and old and not mine.
I slumped against the opposite wall, staring at my door—his door—feeling the air compress around me like the walls themselves wanted me gone.
The apartment wasn't just taken.
I'd been removed.
No questions asked. No signs of struggle.
Like I never existed.
And the worst part?
No one—not the stranger, not the landlord, not the world—seemed to care.