I couldn't remain in the living room. The shadows had become impatient, curling slowly toward me, stretching unnaturally. Every corner, every reflection seemed aware of my presence. The couch sagged under me like a trap. I needed to move.
The door to the corridor called me. A faint draft whispered through the crack, carrying a scent I knew and feared: damp earth, faint smoke, metal. My fingers brushed the cold knob. It was solid, unyielding, and yet it seemed to pulse, as if the apartment itself was breathing.
The hum rose again, vibrating in my ribs, in my teeth, threading into my thoughts. The whispers followed, soft, amused, insistent.
"Hy… step forward."
"Hy… we want to show you something."
"Hy… don't resist."
I opened the door slowly. The hallway stretched impossibly long. The walls leaned inward, subtle but undeniable. Shadows twisted, twisting around corners that hadn't existed a moment ago. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered irregularly, each flash casting impossible angles of reflection across the polished floor.
Every step I took echoed, though there was no one else. I felt their presence behind the walls, in the ceiling, under the floor.
The wardrobe appeared at the far end, one I had never noticed before. Its door slightly ajar. The damp smell grew stronger as I approached, curling under my fingernails, wrapping around my wrists.
Then I saw it. Not in the mirror, but in the wall itself. Paint shimmered, pulsing with light, and shapes emerged fleeting faces, blurred and smiling, whispering silently. They moved as if they were breathing, though the air was still.
My chest tightened. Heart racing. I wanted to scream, but the apartment swallowed the sound. I wanted to run, but my legs felt heavy, stuck to the polished floor.
I remembered every detail from the last nights: the hum, the photo under the bed, the letters on the mirror, the wardrobe knocks. All of it existed simultaneously. Memories, reflections, whispers, shadows… intertwined in a maze I could not escape.
The lights flickered. Shadows shifted. A corner of the hallway grew darker, deeper than possible. And in that darkness, I heard my name, repeated endlessly, intimate, polite, cruel:
"Hy… come back to us."
I realized then: every reflection I had seen, every whisper I had heard, every shadow I had feared… they were not just around me. They were inside me. The apartment wasn't a place. It was a living presence. And I was already part of it.
I took another step. The air thickened. My breath formed clouds in front of me, though it was warm. The floor warped slightly under my feet. I could see faint outlines of things furniture, doors, corridors that did not exist when I turned my head. Time stretched; each second dragged longer than it should.
A sudden movement. The wardrobe door creaked, wider this time. I froze. My heartbeat was deafening. I wanted to run, but I was rooted. The voices whispered together now:
"Hy… closer."
"Hy… look."
"Hy… you belong here."
And I understood. The hallway wasn't just a hallway. It was a corridor into my mind, a reflection of every fear, every memory, every whisper. I was walking through my own consciousness, and it had taken a form I could see, touch, and feel.
The hallway bent. Shadows multiplied. The reflections in the walls no longer matched me. They moved independently, leaning, breathing, laughing softly. My legs burned, yet I kept moving forward, compelled by something I could not name.
At the far end, the darkness seemed alive. Something waited there. Something patient. Something that had known I would come. And the whispers, now a chorus, filled the air, vibrating in my chest and bones:
"Hy… we've been waiting."
I swallowed hard. Step by step, I walked forward. The maze was alive. And I was inside it.
The hallway shifted with every step I took. The walls breathed, expanding and contracting like lungs. Shadows curled around corners that shouldn't exist. I felt something brush past my shoulder. Not air. Not solid. Something else, watching, waiting.
"Hy… closer," they whispered, a chorus now, weaving through my mind.
I turned toward the wardrobe at the far end. Its door was wide open, darkness spilling out. The smell of damp soil stronger than before. My chest tightened so much I could barely breathe.
A reflection appeared not in the mirror, not in glass but on the wall itself. Faces blurred and multiplied. Lips moved silently, eyes staring, laughing softly. They leaned forward as if trying to reach me, to pull me into their realm.
I raised my hand. Fingers trembled. The reflection raised a dozen hands of its own, bending and twisting impossibly. The air felt alive, vibrating with every whispered word I'd ever heard in this apartment.
"Hy… remember."
"Hy… belong."
"Hy… stay."
I screamed. My voice sounded wrong, swallowed by walls that should have been solid. The floor beneath me rippled slightly. Shadows danced around my feet. The wardrobe door slammed shut behind me. I jumped back. Heart racing, sweat pouring, my legs quivering like fragile glass.
The whispers became a wave, crashing in my skull. Polite, cruel, intimate. They seeped into my chest, my lungs, into the core of me. They weren't outside anymore. They weren't just reflections. They were me, and I was them.
I sank to the floor. Hands clutched my head. Eyes squeezed tight. I wanted to run, to break free, but every corner, every shadow, every whisper followed.
The hallway had become a maze of my mind. Every door, every reflection, every flicker of light, a fragment of memory, fear, desire. And they were all alive. Watching. Waiting. Laughing softly.
I realized then: I was never alone. And I never would be.
I had to move. I had to stop letting them control me.
Every shadow, every whisper, every distorted reflection they were part of me, but I refused to let them take the lead.
I rose from the floor, trembling, chest tight. The hallway bent, twisted, stretching impossibly as if the walls were breathing around me. The wardrobe at the end seemed to lean toward me, blackness spilling like ink.
"Hy… closer," the voices whispered, soft and cruel.
"No," Ishouted. "Notanymore!"
The air thickened, vibrating with their presence. Reflections in the walls multiplied, dozens of hands, dozens of faces, all leaning, all laughing, all watching. I felt them inside me, in my bones, in my lungs, in my mind.
I closed my eyes. Focused. One step at a time. Breathe. Control. Resist.
The whisper became louder, angry now. "Hy… you cannot escape!"
I swung my arms, breaking through the distorted reflections. The walls quivered. The shadows hissed. The wardrobe shivered at the end of the hallway.
I yelled. Real, raw, human sound. It tore through the apartment, vibrating in every corner, challenging every presence. For a moment, the hum dropped, the whispers paused, the shadows froze.
I took another step, and the hallway stretched back into something almost familiar. The darkness receded slightly, though the feeling of eyes, of awareness, remained.
I realized then: I couldn't destroy them. I couldn't run.
But I could fight. I could push back. I could exist without surrendering completely.
And for the first time since I arrived, I felt… power. A fragile, trembling power, but mine.
The hallway pulsed with a rhythm now theirs and mine intertwined. And I stepped forward, ready to meet whatever waited at the end.