KnockBack

I never found out what the rule was until I’d already broken it.
Which, in hindsight, was probably the rule.

The landlord didn’t mention much during the tour. Just handed me the keys, muttered something about the boiler acting up now and then, and asked if I was a light sleeper.
I said no.
He nodded like that was the right answer.

The building had this smell — not rot, not mildew, not quite metal. Something thin, like paper burned just before it turns black. You stop noticing it after a few hours. But the second you leave and come back in, it sticks to your skin again. That faint, invisible weight.

My flat was on the third floor.
No one greeted me.
No one watched, but I still closed the blinds. Not out of fear. Just... habit.

I unpacked in silence. The hallway light kept leaking in through the front door frame, like the corridor was brighter than it should’ve been.
No peephole. No bolt. Just a little sliding chain I never used.

The first night, I dreamt of knocking.
Not hearing it.
Doing it.
Gentle. Rhythmic. Like I was keeping time.

On the second day, I met the man across from me. Thin, expressionless, always barefoot. He stared too long but never smiled. When I nodded, he didn’t nod back — just raised one hand, palm in, like a wave he was giving himself.

That night, I heard someone brushing their teeth through the wall.
Not the sound — the motion.
Slow strokes against plaster. As if their bathroom shared no wall with mine — just sat inches behind my headboard.
I told myself I was imagining it.
Then I heard the spit.

There was a woman on the floor below. Hair always damp. She never made eye contact, but she opened her door the second I stepped into the corridor. Sometimes I’d hear her singing to her dog.
I never saw a dog.

One night, the singing stopped mid-line.
Not the song.
Her voice.
Like someone had switched her off.

The only friendly person was the old man at the end of the hall. He offered me tea once. I declined. Not because I didn’t trust him — but because I almost did.
There was something about the way he asked. Like he already knew my answer. Just needed to hear me say it.

On the fourth night, the door opposite mine opened at 3:12 a.m.
I hadn’t been sleeping.

The hallway was dark. I hadn’t left the lights on, but something was still illuminating the carpet.
Not light — just... less dark.

The man from across stepped out.
Didn’t look at me.
Didn’t knock on anyone’s door.
He walked to mine.

Stood there.
Quiet.

He wasn’t checking if I was awake.
He was waiting.

Then —

The sound.
A knock.
Not from him.
From inside my apartment.

I didn’t move.
I didn’t breathe.
Eventually, both of them left.
Or maybe I did.
Hard to tell, after.

On the fifth day, I took the stairs. The elevator had started making a low, wet sound I didn’t like.

But the stairwell didn’t feel right either.
Too narrow.
Too many corners.

I kept walking down and passed a door that looked like mine.
Then another.
Then another.

I turned back.
Ended up on my floor again.
Or one that looked enough like it.

There’s this thing that happens when you live somewhere strange.
You stop asking if you’re imagining it.
You stop caring if it’s real.
You just adapt. Like something blind and soft-skinned, growing slowly into a space it doesn’t belong in.

No one told me the rule.
But I figured it out eventually.

You never open your door after midnight.
Not even if it’s your own voice asking.

I broke it on the seventh night.
I think.

I heard crying in the hallway.
Not loud. Just... wrong.
It had the rhythm. The breathy breaks. The soft words.
But it was flat. Mechanical.
Like someone performing it.

I knew I shouldn’t open the door.
But curiosity is just hunger for things that shouldn’t be eaten.
So I did.

The hallway was empty.
Except for the man from across.
Sitting cross-legged on my doormat.
Facing the other way.
Naked.

He was holding something in his lap.
A notebook.
My notebook.

The one I write in when I can’t sleep.
The one that never leaves my bedroom.
The one with that entry —
about the knocking.

He didn’t turn around.
Just spoke, softly.
“You shouldn’t have.”

I don’t remember what I did next.

But in the morning, there was red under my nails.
My door was locked.
And his was gone.

Not closed.
Gone.
Just a flat stretch of wall where his door used to be.

The building is quieter now.
No more singing.
No more spit.

Sometimes I hear knocking — soft, unsure, like someone trying not to wake me.
I don’t answer.
But I listen.
And I write.

This morning, my notebook had a new page.
One I didn’t write.
Just a single line:
“You haven’t finished breaking it.”

I stared at the words.

The ink was mine.
The page wasn’t.

I ran my fingers over it — the paper felt warmer than the rest. Almost soft. Like skin after sleep. Like something that remembered being held.

I don’t know what I’m breaking.
I don’t remember starting.
But something does.

And it’s waiting.

Now, every night, I sit by the door.
Notebook in my lap.
Breath held.

Listening.

Sometimes the hallway knocks first.
Sometimes it waits.
Sometimes it calls my name, using a voice I haven’t used in years.

I don’t answer.

Not yet.

But the knock is inside me now.
Faint.
Rhythmic.

One of these nights,
I think I’ll knock back.

Just once.
Slow.
Deliberate.

To see if the hallway still remembers me.
To see if I remember it.