Darkness swallowed the room the moment the bulb burst overhead. The only light left was the phone — cracked screen flickering like a dying heartbeat on the floor.
Chris pressed himself against the wall, knees pulled tight to his chest. He could feel the cold radiating from the wardrobe like an open grave.
The chair still jammed the door handle — but Chris knew it wouldn't matter. Not now. Not after everything the phone had shown him.
He forced himself to crawl toward the bed, fingers scraping the floorboards. The phone buzzed once, the sound too loud in the dead room. He didn't want to touch it, but he knew he had no choice. It wanted him to see.
He grabbed it, shards of the broken screen biting into his palm. A new message glowed in the darkness:
Unknown Number: You kept me out too long.
Chris's breath came in short gasps. He could hear it — a faint dragging sound, like someone pulling their feet across the concrete hallway outside. Slow. Patient. Closer.
He pressed his ear to the door. The corridor was silent — no voices, no footsteps. But the dragging continued, right behind the thin wooden door, as if something waited for him to open it wide and invite it in.
The phone buzzed again. Another message forced itself onto the screen:
Unknown Number: Chris… come to the door.
Chris shook his head, whispering to himself. No. No. No. But his body moved anyway, like the words pulled his bones like puppet strings. He stepped over the broken chair, over Dozie's blanket on the floor, until his palm hovered over the cold metal doorknob.
He could feel it on the other side — waiting. Its breath leaked through the keyhole like cold mist. He squeezed his eyes shut.
Don't open it.
But the phone screen flared bright in his free hand:
Let me in.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
This time the door shuddered against the frame. The handle twitched under his palm — not from him, but from whatever pressed its weight from the other side.
Chris backed away. He threw the phone on the bed, grabbed the chair again, tried to wedge it under the knob — but the pounding grew stronger. The whole door rattled like it would fly off its hinges.
A voice slid through the crack beneath the door — a whisper, soft and sickly sweet:
"Chris… open up. It's cold out here."
He stumbled back, tripping over his own feet until his back slammed against the wardrobe. The door behind him gave a soft creak — like it wanted to open too.
The phone on the bed vibrated so violently it fell to the floor again, spinning face up. A video started playing by itself — Chris's door, filmed from the hallway.
On screen, the shape pressed against his door wasn't a man — it was tall, shoulders too wide, head twisted at a broken angle. Its arms hung wrong — too long, dragging its fingertips along the floor as it knocked again and again.
The thing turned — as if it could see him watching through the screen. A smile split its shadow face — too many teeth, too white in the dark.
Chris's breath caught. He clamped a hand over his mouth to keep the scream inside.
On the phone screen, the creature lifted a finger — long, thin, black as rot — and tapped the camera lens.
Then the knocks stopped. Silence swallowed the room whole. Chris stayed frozen, waiting for the pounding to start again. But nothing came.
Then — the handle clicked. Slowly, carefully, it turned by itself. The chair legs squealed across the floor as they were pushed aside by an invisible hand.
The door swung open.
Chris didn't want to look — but his eyes dragged up anyway.
In the hallway, the bulb flickered weakly. Shadows pooled where the creature should be — but there was nothing there. Just empty air and the sound of something wet breathing just beyond the light.
The phone buzzed again in his hand, the screen now cracked so badly that the message barely glowed through the web of lines:
Unknown Number: Don't hide.
A cold hand brushed Chris's ankle. He flinched backward so hard he hit his head on the wardrobe door — pain flared white behind his eyes. He stumbled to his feet, breathing ragged.
He could feel it inside now — in the room, the cold thickening the air, pressing on his ribs like ice.
The phone flickered to life one last time. This time, a voice — dry, broken, whispering through the speaker in a way that felt like it was whispering inside his skull:
"You brought me home, Chris. Now let me see your face…"
Chris backed into the corner, tears brimming in his eyes. He squeezed the phone so hard he felt the glass dig deep into his palm. Blood dripped onto the floor — tiny red flowers blooming on the cracked tiles.
The wardrobe door behind him swung open. Darkness spilled out like a living thing. Cold fingers wrapped around his wrist, tugging him backward — into the dark he'd tried to keep shut for so long.
The phone buzzed in his hand one final time:
Unknown Number: Welcome back.
And then the lightbulb flickered out. The door slammed shut. The phone fell from Chris's hand, screen still glowing, the last thing he'd ever see — before the dark took him whole.