Jul 29
The Knocking
Every night at 3:17 the knocking began. Soft at first, then harder, always from inside the walls of the empty bedroom across the hall.
I had lived alone for six months. No one else had a key. Still the sound came, measured, patient, as if something were counting the space between each strike.
On the seventh night I opened the door. The room was dark and still. The knocking continued, louder now, directly behind the plaster.
I pressed my ear to the wall. A voice, thin and wet, whispered my name.
The next morning the wall was smooth again. No cracks. No holes. Only a single damp handprint, child-sized, slowly fading as I watched.
That night the knocking stopped.
Something colder had already found its way inside.