2:59 A.M.
The building had gone quiet in a way that didn't feel like silence more like the world was holding its breath.
Even the hum of the fluorescent lights had faded.
Hy stood halfway down the corridor, facing the elevator at the far end.
The red light above it flickered unevenly, a dying pulse against the darkness.
It blinked once... twice... then steadied just enough to show her the number.
–20–.
She froze.
There was no twentieth floor.
There had never been one.
Her mouth went dry. She remembered every hallway in this building she had lived here long enough to map it by instinct, by smell, by sound.
But now, it felt wrong. The floor beneath her shoes had the faint elasticity of a dream, too soft, like stepping on something that remembered being alive.
She blinked, trying to steady her breath.
A low hum vibrated through the walls, so soft it could've been her own heartbeat.
ding
The elevator.
The sound was faint, distant, yet it cut through her chest like cold glass.
Her reflection shimmered in the polished floor, splitting into fragments as she took one step forward.
And then another.
The corridor stretched subtly at first, then noticeably.
She could feel it: the distance between her and the elevator wasn't closing as fast as it should.
Each step was swallowed, muffled, lost.
Her breathing turned uneven. She glanced at the nearest door Apartment 19B and saw the peephole still glowing faintly, as if someone inside was watching her.
But there was no one here. She could feel that. She could feel the emptiness thick, wet, like fog pressing against her skull.
The beep that came next was sharp.
It didn't echo it sank.
Metal shifted, protesting against itself.
The elevator doors dragged open inch by inch, releasing a stale gust of air that smelled faintly like rust and something else like rainwater that's been trapped too long underground.
Light spilled out. Sick yellow. Artificial.
It painted the walls and her face with the same dead tone hospitals have at 3 a.m.
Hy's reflection appeared across the mirrored panels inside.
But each reflection lagged, delayed by a blink.
Her real eyes moved; the others followed half a breath later.
A flicker ran down her spine.
She swallowed, but her throat didn't move.
Inside, the floor was spotless. Not clean erased.
Not a speck of dust, no trace of use, not even the faint scuff marks elevators always carry.
The sound came again.
Soft. Wet. scrrrkkk.
Metal on metal, somewhere deep inside the shaft.
Hy leaned forward slightly, tilting her head.
Her heart was a drum against her ribs.
The noise repeated longer this time.
Not random.
Rhythmic. Almost... conversational.
She whispered, "Hello?"
And the sound stopped.
Then
"...hello."
Her own voice came back, distorted, dragged through water.
Not echo. Not mimicry. Something that heard her and wanted to sound right.
Hy stumbled back a step. Her reflection did not.
It stayed in place, lips still parted as if still whispering that word.
For the first time, she noticed the faint pulse of the elevator light a steady, mechanical heartbeat.
Every flicker seemed to sync with her chest, one beat too slow.
Like it was listening. Matching her rhythm.
Then the lights in the corridor went out.
All at once.
Like someone flipped a single invisible switch.
The sound vanished too. No hum, no electricity, no life.
Only the glow from the elevator remained trembling, thin, and sickly.
But the light didn't spread.
It bent inward, sucking itself toward the threshold, as though the air was a curtain being pulled into the open box.
Hy's shadow reached forward, stretching toward the doors.
The longer she stared, the less sure she was that it was her shadow at all.
It twitched once.
She couldn't look away. Her legs felt nailed to the carpet.
Her heart slowed not from calm, but from the kind of stillness that comes before panic.
Then a whisper.
Soft. Near her right ear.
"Hy…"
She didn't move.
The voice was warm. Familiar.
It carried her own cadence, her breath. It was like hearing a thought escape into sound.
"Come in."
A beat of silence.
She looked at the elevator again.
Her reflection was gone.
Only the empty box of yellow light remained humming faintly, like something alive pretending to be still.
Hy stepped closer.
Not because she wanted to but because the air behind her had gone heavier, thicker, colder, like the hallway itself was pushing her forward.
And then the elevator spoke.
Not with a voice.
With breath.
The metal exhaled.
It fogged the mirror inside, and for a moment, words appeared there written from the inside, in perfect reverse:
"You've already been here."