I moved into the haunted apartment because it was cheap, quiet, and close to the MRT. The agent had laughed when he said some tenants called it haunted. He said it the way people say a place has “character.” I needed somewhere that didn’t ask questions.
After the breakup, sleep came in pieces. I wanted walls that would hold still. Beige paint. Tired elevators. A noticeboard layered with old tenant names and newer staples. No blinking camera light in the stairwell.
If the place had a reputation, it hadn’t scared off the rent.
The first week passed without incident. Still, each morning felt slightly off. The shoe rack leaned closer to the wall. The hallway seemed tighter. Corners clung to my vision a second too long.
Most tenants slept through midnight. I didn’t.
When sleep refused to come, I paced. Twenty-eight steps. Pause. Twenty-eight back. I used to count like that during arguments, too. If I kept the rhythm, I didn’t have to think about the silence she left behind.
On the third night, my footsteps echoed longer than they should have, as if the space stretched to meet them.
Inside the walls, something clicked once.
I told myself it was plumbing.
An Apartment That Refused to Stay Still
I came home just after midnight and hesitated at the door.
The number plate read 12A.
It should have been 12B.
The dent beside the lock—comma-shaped from when I dropped my keys—was still there. The door was mine.
Down the hall, the noticeboard listed 12B, 12C, 12D. No 12A.
The corridor felt longer. My breath came out thin.
Inside, the light thinned halfway down the hall, swallowed before it reached the bedroom. The bed stood against a different wall.
I let out a small laugh. It didn’t sound like mine.
The next morning, I taped a bright strip beside the doorframe.
That night, I paced.
At dawn, the tape was gone. In its place was a faint seam in the paint—older than the rest of the wall.
Midnight arrived with a series of clicks, one after another, like locks testing themselves. The floor trembled lightly. Something shifted behind the drywall, slow as bone settling.
On the fifth night, after my twenty-eighth step, a narrow door appeared beside the kitchen cabinet. No handle. Smooth wood etched with faint lines like a floor plan.
The air around it felt warmer.
I sat in the dark and waited.
At 12:00, the clicking returned—closer now. The walls eased apart. The door opened.
Beyond it stretched a narrow corridor lined with identical doors, each stamped with numbers climbing higher than the building’s real floors.
The air smelled like closed rooms.
My phone screen froze at midnight.
I took one step forward.
The corridor felt less empty than my room.
Then something shifted at the far end—a door easing open where no one stood.
I stepped back.
The door beside my kitchen closed.
Midnight Changes Inside the Haunted Apartment
After that, the updates grew bolder.
The kitchen traded places with the bedroom. The bathroom mirror reflected the hallway longer than it should. Once, the front door opened onto that corridor instead of the stairwell. It stayed open long enough for me to see a door at the end with a dent beside its lock.
The same comma shape.
I found the notebook beneath the sink days later.
The handwriting grew smaller toward the end. Pages tore off mid-sentence. On the final intact page, a name had been pressed so hard into the paper it left an indentation.
The page beneath it was blank.
At midnight, the clicking began early.
Then it stopped.
Silence pressed into my ears until they rang.
A door stood in the center of the living room.
My name was carved into it.
The letters slanted the way I used to write them years ago, before I corrected my hand. The grooves were deep, filled with dust—old and new. The wood was warm where the lines cut deepest.
I tried to say my name.
My throat tightened. A metallic taste spread across my tongue. I forced air through my mouth. No sound came. My breath quickened.
The walls leaned inward.
The door did not move.
It waited.
What the Apartment Took
I packed without folding anything, hands shaking. When I reached the front door, it opened onto the corridor again. My unit stood at the far end.
For a moment, I couldn’t remember which number was mine.
The clicking resumed—slow, deliberate.
I turned back.
The carved door stood untouched in the center of the room.
I said my name again and again until it sounded wrong.
The building held its breath.
“I’ll come back,” I whispered, voice thin.
The clicking stopped.
The front door shifted back to the stairwell.
I left before dawn.
Aftermath
Now I live somewhere else.
Still, some nights I wake at exactly midnight. The room feels unfamiliar, as if measuring me. I count without meaning to.
Twenty-eight steps.
Pause.
Twenty-eight back.
Once, I tried not to return.
At 12:00, every lock in my new apartment clicked—one by one. The front door shifted inward. Just enough to widen the frame.
I stood still and counted.
The hinge held, but it didn’t close.
Somewhere in the city, the haunted apartment is waiting for the next name to press too hard into paper.
I don’t miss the date anymore.