Noah woke up to the sound of knocking.
Not the usual kind — not polite, not impatient, not even angry.
This knock had rhythm. Like a heartbeat.
Thump. Thump. Pause. Thump. Thump. Pause.
He glanced at the clock: 3:03 a.m.
Figures. The building didn't believe in normal hours.
He sat up in bed, blinking at the faint blue light seeping under his door. He could've sworn he turned off the hallway lamp before sleeping.
"Maybe I'm just dreaming," he muttered, though his voice trembled a bit.
Then came the whisper.
"...open the door…"
Noah froze.
"Open your own damn door," he whispered back instinctively.
The knocking stopped.
Silence.
Then, footsteps — slow, deliberate — pacing right outside his apartment.
Noah grabbed the only weapon within reach: a frying pan. Because of course he'd left his baseball bat in the moving boxes.
He crept to the door and peered through the peephole.
Nothing.
Just the flickering hallway light and a faint shadow that didn't belong to anything visible.
Suddenly, the elevator at the far end dinged.
Out stepped Mrs. Delgado — the old lady from apartment 3B — in a nightgown, carrying a goldfish bowl.
At 3 a.m..
"Mrs. Delgado?" Noah whispered.
She looked up, eyes blank. "Shh," she hissed. "He's listening."
"Who's—"
"The one that never sleeps."
The hallway light went out.
A low hum began — deep and electric, as if the whole building had inhaled.
Noah's door vibrated under his hand, and his TV flicked on by itself, playing a static-filled cartoon with distorted laughter.
He backed away slowly. "Okay… okay… just a bad dream. Stress. Or carbon monoxide."
Then his phone buzzed.
A message popped up from an unknown number:
WELCOME TO THE BUILDING, NOAH. WE'RE GLAD YOU'RE AWAKE.
He stared at the screen.
Then at the door.
Then back at the goldfish bowl still faintly glowing in the hallway.
And that's when the knocking started again — from inside the wall.