Do you know what it feels like to be ruled "not home" by a machine?
Do you know what it's like to stand in the middle of your own living room while your apartment's maintenance system insists the "resident cannot be reached"?
I've lived in this apartment for six years. Never missed a single rent payment. But now I suspect that, somewhere in a system I can't see, I've already been marked as "non-existent."
It started with a fly.
---
The fly was sitting on the rim of my cup, right where my mouth was about to touch.
I live in an old residential building. Sixth floor, no elevator. The property fees are absurdly cheap. Half the fluorescent tube above the kitchen sink doesn't light up anymore. The other half buzzes and flickers, clinging to life.
The cup was fresh out of the sterilizer. The water was straight from the municipal mains, ice-cold in winter, enough to sting your teeth.
The fly was the common kind. Grey-green body, wings with a faint oily sheen, rubbing its front legs together like it was working out some kind of ledger.
I stared at it for two seconds. Dumped the water. Washed the cup. Grabbed a new one.
By the time the new cup was full, there were two flies on the faucet.
A third one sat on the edge of the stovetop. A fourth — I looked harder — was pacing across the heat vent on top of the fridge, as leisurely as someone taking an after-dinner stroll.
This wasn't how flies were supposed to behave.
I've lived in this city thirty-four years. I know flies. They're supposed to be skittish. Jumpy. You lift a hand and they shoot up to the ceiling, bounce off the light twice before finding a new spot to land.
These flies weren't skittish. They acted like they'd lived in this kitchen their whole lives.
I turned off the water. Didn't drink.
---
I took a half-day off work that afternoon. Nothing strange about that — end of the year, I had comp time piling up. I went home and posted in the residents' group chat:
"Unit 6-4, flies in kitchen. Can property management send someone to check?"
The chat stayed dead for fifteen minutes. Then Sister Liu from downstairs replied with a "+1" and said she had them too. Property management didn't respond. I called their office. Rang nine times. Hung up. Called the neighborhood committee. Busy signal.
Around eight that night, I checked the kitchen. On the dead half of the fluorescent tube, the flies had gathered into a small cluster, clinging quietly to the glass, their wings folded neat and tidy.
I didn't count. Maybe twenty or so. Their breathing had changed the color of the dust on the tube.
I didn't eat that night. Wasn't hungry. I sniffed the rice bin. Normal. Sniffed the soy sauce bottle. Normal.
But the air in the kitchen carried something faint. Not a stench. More like... a greasy sweetness. I couldn't put it into words.
By the next morning, things had changed.
---
The flies on the kitchen counter had formed a line.
A real line. One after another. Heads facing the windowsill. Evenly spaced. Stretching about forty centimeters along the stovetop edge. More were falling in at the rear.
I stood in the kitchen doorway for maybe ten seconds, then backed into the living room and shut the kitchen door.
I pulled up property management's "Repair Platform" mini-app on my phone. The UI was ugly enough to make you angry. The homepage header was a photo of the community garden, pixelated to the point where you couldn't tell grass from moss.
Under the "Other" category, I submitted a request:
"Unit 6-4 kitchen, massive fly infestation. Possible dead rodent or pipe issue. Please address ASAP."
Submission successful. Work order number: 2026112803.
---
I went out to buy groceries that morning. On the way, my phone buzzed. Mini-app notification: "Work Order 2026112803 Status: Pending."
Another buzz in the afternoon: "Work Order 2026112803 Status: Assigned." I waited until seven p.m. No one knocked.
But the flies kept coming.
Three in the bedroom. One in the study. A small swarm circling inside the living room ceiling light's glass shade, maybe a dozen of them, looping around and around.
I stood in the middle of the living room, looking up at them. It felt like the flies were drawing something. A circle. Another circle. Occasionally one would break off, land on the armrest of the sofa for two seconds, then fly back, like it was running an errand.
I opened the window. Minus five degrees outside. Cold wind rushed in. The swarm shuddered once, then kept circling. Not a single fly flew out.
I shut the window and checked my phone. The work order status had changed to: "Awaiting Resident Confirmation of Entry Time."
I hit "Confirm." A pop-up appeared: "Please select a convenient time slot." I chose "Immediately." Below that, a line of small text: "A staff member will contact you within 30 minutes."
I waited forty minutes. My phone didn't ring. I checked the work order again. Status had changed to: "Entry Failed — Resident Not Home."
Resident Not Home.
---
I screenshotted those words. Then I called the property management night-duty line. The call lasted about two minutes. The guy on the other end was young, sounded like his voice had just been fished out of a warm bed.
I told him I'd been home the whole time. No one knocked. He said the system showed the entry had failed — maybe the maintenance guy came by and no one answered.
I said that's impossible. I didn't leave the house all day. He went quiet for two seconds. Then said, "I'll dispatch again," and hung up.
After the call ended, I noticed something. The flies in the living room — at some point, they had all landed.
The ceiling-light squadron had disbanded. They perched on the metal arms of the chandelier. Two or three on the wall. One on the back of the sofa. One on the TV screen, sitting right on top of my reflection, right where my face was.
I've lived in this apartment six years. In that time, property management has come up to fix the drain, replace the gas hose, check the electric meter, clean the AC unit. Every single time: knock, I open the door, the guy comes in, does the work, leaves. Never once has there been a "Resident Not Home."
I sat on the sofa, spaced out for a bit, then remembered I had dinner plans with a classmate tonight.
I pulled out my phone. Six unread WeChat messages. One was the restaurant reservation confirmation. One was my classmate asking "You heading out?" The other four were voice messages from my mom, about forty seconds each.
I texted my classmate: "Got held up at work, can't make it, sorry." Texted my mom: "Busy, talk later." Then scrolled back to the work order and stared at those three words again.
Resident Not Home.
---
I slept shallow that night.
After the living room lights went out, the flies went unnervingly quiet. They'd stopped flying. All of them had settled on one area of the ceiling, packed into a dark grey mass.
I woke once in the middle of the night, groped my way to the bathroom. Passing through the living room, I glanced up at that mass. Its shape was different from before I'd gone to sleep.
Before bed, it had been an irregular oval. Now it was a long strip, like a rag hung out to dry on a clothesline.
I stood beneath it for a long moment, watching. I couldn't see it moving. But its shape had definitely changed.
---
Saturday. Nine in the morning. Footsteps in the hallway, the jingle of keys, then the sound of the neighbor in 602 opening and closing their door.
I waited. No one stopped in front of 601. I opened the mini-app to check the work order. Status had changed again: "Work Order 2026112803 Cancelled by Resident."
Cancelled? I didn't cancel it.
I tapped into the operation log: 2026-11-29 08:47:03. Resident cancelled work order via mini-app. The IP address field was blank.
I submitted a new work order. Selected "Urgent." Description: "I did not cancel the previous work order. I am home right now. Please send someone. The kitchen flies have spread to the entire apartment."
Three minutes after submission, the new work order's status updated: "Merged into Work Order 2026112803."
I tapped into 2026112803 again. Status: "Closed." Reason for closure: "Cancelled by resident. Work order terminated."
I took ten screenshots.
Then I called the property management daytime line. A woman answered. Pleasant voice. Heard me out and said, "Probably a system error. I'll have the maintenance guy go knock on your door directly."
I waited forty minutes. No one came. Called again. Different person picked up. Said, "The guy went. You didn't answer the door."
Didn't answer? I was sitting in my living room, facing the front door, ears pricked. I'd even heard the old lady from 601 down the hall taking out her trash.
The rustle of a plastic bag. The tap of a walking stick. The click of a door lock. The ding of the elevator arriving. No one had stopped outside my door.
"Are you sure he went to 601?" I asked.
"The guy says he went to the east unit on the sixth floor. Knocked for a long time. No response."
"I am the east unit on the sixth floor."
Silence on the other end. "Then... just wait a bit longer. I'll hurry him up."
---
I waited. Waited until noon, when the flies started squeezing out from under the kitchen door. The door was shut, but there was a gap between the door and the floor — maybe three millimeters.
Flies came out one by one through that crack. Unhurried. Once out, they'd land on the nearest wall to rest, wings folded, exactly like someone clocking out after a shift.
By two in the afternoon, the living room walls were plastered with flies. Plastered. Evenly spaced. All facing the same direction. Heads up. Six legs gripped firmly onto the latex-painted walls.
I estimated. Roughly two hundred.
I stood in the center of the living room, surrounded by flies on all sides. Silent as a still-life painting. They didn't move. Neither did I.
Then I noticed something. The flies' distribution on the walls was roughly symmetrical. Directly behind me, there was a blank space. About sixty centimeters wide. One meter seventy tall. Human-shaped.
I turned to look. Nothing in the blank space. Turned back. The flies were still nailed in place. I didn't dare move.
---
That evening, I went to the police.
Didn't call 110. Walked ten minutes to the local station.
The officer on duty was young. Listened to my whole story over about five minutes. His expression went from "another noise complaint" to "ma'am, maybe you should sit down." Then he asked: "You have flies in your apartment right now?"
"Yes. A lot."
"How many?"
"Hundreds."
The officer looked at me. "Ma'am, you don't seem well. Do you need—"
"I'm fine. I haven't eaten in three days but I'm fine. I need you to send someone to my apartment to check if something died upstairs or next door. If the smell came up through the pipes. That's why the flies are pouring out of the kitchen."
The officer said they could contact property management and come together. I thanked him. Went home to wait.
At my door, I spotted a sheet of paper shoved under the gap. Community notice. Garbage sorting schedule change.
When I bent down to pick it up, I noticed the notice was clean. Not a single fly on it. The hallway outside my apartment — not a single fly.
I went inside. The apartment: flies at full attendance. Densely nailed to the living room walls. Same symmetrical distribution. Same human-shaped empty space in the middle.
I stood in front of the blank space. A chill crept down my spine. My back sensed a kind of... temperature. Not heat. An indescribable, sticky warmth. Like someone was standing behind me, very close, but I wasn't sure if they were breathing.
---
The officer and property management arrived at eight-thirty that night. I heard footsteps in the hallway. Three people. Voices: "...601, east unit on the sixth floor. That's the one, right?"
A knock.
I stood behind the door, hand already on the handle. But the moment the knock sounded, I didn't move.
A strange feeling washed over me. Like a string had been plucked somewhere inside my brain. People outside were waiting for me to open the door. I could open it. I should open it.
If I opened the door, everything could be resolved. They'd see the flies in my apartment. They'd smell the sweet, cloying odor thickening by the hour. They'd help me find the source.
But I didn't open it.
Through the door, I said: "I'm home."
A beat of silence outside. Then the officer's voice: "Unit 601 resident? This is the police. Property management is here too. Please open the door."
"I'm home." I said it again. The sound leaving my throat felt wrong. It didn't seem to come from my mouth. It came from somewhere behind me.
Rustling outside. The property management person was flipping through something. "That's not right. According to the registered residents in this section... 602 is occupied. 601 is vacant."
601 is vacant.
I stood behind the door, hand still on the handle. 601 vacant. I'd lived in this apartment six years. Paid utilities every month. Gas bill auto-debited from my bank account. Food deliveries and packages all came to this address.
"That's impossible," I said. "Check again."
The voices outside receded a bit. The three of them seemed to have retreated toward the hallway window. Speaking low.
I couldn't make out much. Fragments: "the system shows," "last entry was early this year," "should be vacant." Then footsteps returning. Another knock.
"Ma'am." The officer's voice was more polite now. "Sorry, but our system shows this unit currently has no registered resident. You might be... in the wrong place? Or do you live in 602?"
I looked down at my hands. Nails trimmed short. A mole on the inside of my left ring finger. These were my hands.
I'd lived in 601 for six years. My graduation photo hung on the living room wall. My shoes in the shoe cabinet. Half a bottle of yogurt in the fridge from last week.
"I'm not in the wrong place." My voice drifted out from that strange place again. Like I was speaking through a layer of something.
A long silence outside. Long enough for me to start counting the flies on the walls. They still didn't move. Except two or three swapping positions now and then, like they'd been standing too long and shifted their weight.
The human-shaped blankness was still behind me. So complete I didn't dare turn my head.
Finally, the property management person spoke: "Here's what we'll do. Tomorrow during the day, we'll send someone to check your windows from outside. See if there's anything unusual. If you don't mind, leave us a contact number."
"I'm right behind the door."
"Could you please open it?"
I looked down at the door handle. Brass-colored. Six years of use had dulled it. My fingerprints were on it. The spot I touched every day, opening and closing — worn to a small, shiny patch.
I gripped it. Pressed down. The latch retracting sounded crisp as ripping open a bag of chips.
I pulled the door open.
---
The hallway light was motion-activated. Pale white light. Three people stood in the doorway: the officer, the property management lady, and a maintenance worker in a grey uniform.
They stood there, looking at me. No — looking past me. Into the apartment behind me.
The officer's mouth was open. Eyebrows raised high. Like someone had hit pause on him. The property management lady's tablet was face-down. She was staring at the floor, head lowered.
The maintenance worker was the most dramatic. He'd stepped back, his back pressed against the hallway wall. Eyes wide. The living room light reflected in his pupils.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
No one answered.
I turned to look behind me. The living room: everything normal. Sofa. Coffee table. TV stand. The two hundred flies on the walls — wait. Where were the flies?
The walls were spotless. Latex paint glowing warm white under the living room light.
Not a single fly.
I turned back. The three people in the doorway were still frozen there.
"What did you see?" I asked.
The officer moved first. Blinked twice. Then his gaze slid slowly from the space behind me to my face — no, slightly above my face. He said: "Ma'am, you—"
He didn't finish. The property management lady tugged his sleeve. A low voice: "Let's go. We'll deal with it tomorrow."
The three of them left. Before the elevator doors closed, I heard the maintenance worker say: "That thing inside the—"
The elevator doors shut. The words cut off.
---
I closed the door. Went back to the middle of the living room. The flies were gone from the walls. I searched everywhere. Bathroom. Kitchen. Bedroom. Study. Not a single one. For the first time in three days, my apartment was free of flies.
But that sweet, rotten smell lingered. It wasn't coming from a corner anymore. It permeated the entire space. Uniform. Like a property of the air itself.
I stood in the living room and took a deep breath. The smell clung to my nasal membranes. After a moment it turned sour.
Then I looked down at my hand. Inside of my left ring finger.
The mole was gone.
I spread my hands and examined them for five minutes. Both hands clean. Nails short. Knuckles defined. Fingerprints clear. No mole. There used to be a mole on my ring finger.
I remembered it vividly. In elementary school, a deskmate said it was "right where a wedding ring goes." I'd remembered that for over twenty years.
The mole was gone.
I walked to the full-length mirror by the entryway. It faced the front door. I looked into it every day before leaving. The person in the mirror looked unfamiliar.
It was my face. Eyes, brows, nose, mouth — everything matched. But the expression was wrong. I was standing in front of the mirror with a blank face.
But the person in the mirror had the faintest smile. Very subtle. But definitely smiling.
I grinned. The reflection grinned back. In sync. But when my lips dropped, the reflection's smile lingered. Half a second longer. Then fell.
I stepped back. The reflection stepped back.
I turned around. The reflection turned around. In sync. Perfectly in sync. I stood in front of the mirror for three full minutes, afraid to look away. Every movement matched. Down to the last detail.
Except the corner of that mouth.
---
Two more days passed. It was Monday night now. I was sitting on the living room sofa, writing this.
My phone could only open this one app. All messaging apps were down. Texts wouldn't send. Calls would dial, hit "Connecting," then drop.
Noises in the hallway again.
More people this time. Chaotic footsteps. Voices: "Confirmed from outside. East windows on the sixth floor — definitely a smell coming out." "Can't reach the resident." "The neighborhood committee says someone should be living there, but property management's system shows no registration."
A younger female voice cut in: "What about the landlord? Has anyone contacted the landlord?"
A pause. Then a man's voice: "This apartment's landlord record is... blank."
Blank.
Footsteps reached my door. Stopped.
A middle-aged man cleared his throat: "Unit 601 resident. We're from the subdistrict office and the police. We're going to break in through the window from outside. If you're inside, please respond."
I opened my mouth. I wanted to say, "I'm here. I've always been here." My lips moved. Air rose from my throat. But no sound came out.
It stuck somewhere in my larynx, becoming a lump of something viscous. I pushed harder. My eyeballs throbbed. My temples pounded.
Waiting outside for a few seconds. "No response. Break the window."
The sound of shattering glass from downstairs. Crisp. Close. My window had been broken.
Then footsteps coming from the direction of the kitchen. The external fire escape led to the kitchen window. Someone climbed in. Someone opened the kitchen door. Someone entered the living room.
I sat on the sofa and watched them.
Two in uniform. Behind them, a woman with glasses carrying some kind of device.
They walked past me, through the living room, straight into the bedroom. The woman with glasses glanced toward the sofa as she passed.
Her gaze passed through my body.
She saw nothing. She saw the sofa.
"Over here." Someone called from the bedroom. The woman and the two uniformed men went inside.
I stood up. Followed. Stopped at the bedroom doorway. The curtains were drawn. The room was dim. One uniformed man was opening the window to air it out. The other crouched on the floor, shining a flashlight toward the space under the bed.
The woman's device was beeping. The sound grew faster. Then one long, sustained tone.
"Preliminary time of death: five days or more." The woman spoke. "Female. Between thirty and forty years old... wait. Hold on—"
She stopped. Crouched closer to look. Then slowly stood up. Took a step back. The blood drained from her face.
The thing under the bed was half-lit by the flashlight beam. An arm. On the wrist, by the ring finger — a mole.
I looked down at my hand. The inside of my left ring finger. The mole was back. Sitting quietly on the skin. Together with my fingerprints, forming a shape I recognized completely.
A uniformed man turned toward the door, speaking into the radio on his shoulder as he walked: "Female body discovered in Unit 601. Preliminary time of death five-plus days. Send forensics."
He walked straight toward me. The distance between us shrank. One meter. Half a meter. Twenty centimeters. Then he passed through my body.
I felt nothing. No temperature change. No physical sensation. Not even a stir of air. He walked right through me, the way you walk through an open door.
I stood in the bedroom doorway, looking at the wrist under the bed. The wrist with the mole.
Five-plus days. The last time I'd seen my own reflection's mouth return to normal was last Wednesday. That day in the kitchen, filling a cup with water. A fly on the rim. November twenty-fifth.
"By the way." The uniformed man crouching in the bedroom stood up, shaking his flashlight. "Who's the registered resident of this unit? Has family been contacted?"
The one with the radio at the door answered: "Landlord record is blank. Property management system shows this unit has been vacant for the past six years."
Vacant.
I looked down at my feet. A pair of slippers. Worn for six years. The spot under my right big toe had gone thin.
I lifted my right foot to look at the sole. Beneath that worn patch was dust on the living room floor. The floor I'd just walked across — the dust lay smooth and undisturbed. Not a single footprint.
The bedroom was busy now. They were photographing. Collecting evidence. Calling for backup.
They passed by me. Through me. Back and forth. Not one of them noticed a woman in slippers standing in the bedroom doorway, looking down at the nothing reflected in the dust.
---
I turned and walked back to the living room. On the armrest of the sofa, a fly had landed at some point. Rubbing its front legs together. Wings folded neat and tidy. Sitting there quietly. Like it had been waiting for me.
On the living room walls, flies reappeared one by one. Crawling back to their positions. Forming ranks. Symmetrical distribution. The blank space in the middle slowly taking shape.
I walked over. Stood in front of that blank space. My back to it.
That warm, sticky feeling returned. Someone standing behind me. Very close. Close enough that I could feel something brushing the hair on the back of my neck.
The flies on the walls were as still as a painting. In the middle, the human-shaped blankness — its outline a perfect match for my silhouette.
I turned around slowly. Nothing there.
But the flies moved. Like someone had flipped a switch. Hundreds of them took off at once. A single buzzing roar filled the living room.
I stood in their midst. Watched them circle. Gather. Land again. On the sofa. The coffee table. The chandelier. The TV screen.
On the sofa: a human shape.
I walked over and sat down. The flies didn't scatter. A few landed on my shoulder. A few on my knee. One landed on my phone screen, right next to my fingers.
The fly perched beside my hand, rubbing its front legs together. Wings faintly gleaming with oil.
I lifted my phone and looked at the WeChat posting screen. The cursor was blinking.
You know what it feels like to be ruled "non-existent" by a machine? the cursor seemed to ask me.
I know, I said.
Sirens wailed outside. Getting closer. Coming to a stop right downstairs. Fire trucks. Ambulances. And those black sedans with low-profile roof lights.
Footsteps in the hallway again. More people this time. Urgent.
In the living room, the flies had gone still. Wings folded. Nailed in rows across the furniture and walls around me. They weren't looking toward the door. They were looking at me.
From the bedroom, someone shouted: "Victim's identity needs confirmation. Anyone find ID?"
Another voice answered: "Not yet. But there's a food delivery receipt in the kitchen trash. Addressed to—"
A pause.
"Addressed to... 'Resident.'"
The flies started moving again. Slow. Taking off from the walls one by one. Circling in small loops. Like some ancient dance. Around me. Tighter. Faster.
The living room's motion-sensor light flickered. Went out.
In the darkness, my phone screen still glowed. The WeChat posting screen. The cursor still jumping behind that question mark. I typed a line:
"I live in 601. I've lived here six years. My name is—"
I stopped.
What was my name?
In the darkness, hundreds of pairs of fly wings beat. The humming filled the room. Dense. Like a heartbeat.
Outside the door, someone yelled: "There's movement inside 601!"
Then the sound of a door being rammed.
I sat in the dark, staring at the unfinished sentence on my screen. The cursor kept jumping. Kept jumping. Kept jumping.
A fly landed on my hand. Crawled up my wrist. Stopped at the ring finger. On the mole. Rubbed its front legs. Once. Twice.
Sirens downstairs. The door shaking. Someone shouting for me. Not by name. Just "the person inside."
The person inside.
I turned off my phone screen.
In the darkness, only the flies.