The Man Stands on the 13th Floor

The building was old, but not abandoned. Twelve floors, it said on paper. Twelve floors, the elevator showed. Twelve buttons. Yet everyone who lived there knew there was a 13th floor.

They didn't talk about it—not because they were forbidden, but because some truths stick in your throat like dry bread.

On rainy nights, if you were awake at just the right time, you might glance up and see him: a silhouette framed in the cracked window of the 13th floor. Tall. Still. Watching.

He never moved. Not when lightning struck. Not when storms howled through the alley below. Not when the tenants screamed in drunken fights or whispered in frightened tones.

1. The First Sight

Jamie was new to the building. Twenty-eight, divorced, carrying only a few boxes of books, a cat named Misfit, and a tired sense of optimism. Apartment 1203. Top floor, supposedly. She was told the building had twelve stories. She believed it—until her cat went missing.

Three days of calling, shaking food tins, leaving out water bowls. On the fourth night, she dreamed of Misfit curled up in the lap of a tall man with no face, standing at a cracked window high above the city. When she woke up, she didn’t question it.

She simply looked up—and there he was. Just as the dream had shown her. The 13th floor.

2. The Elevator Trick

It was an old elevator. Sometimes it stopped between floors, as if trying to remember where it was supposed to go. That night, Jamie pressed 12, but the elevator didn't listen. It shuddered past her floor and came to a halt. No button for 13 lit up—but the doors opened.

The hallway was gray, like the air had forgotten how to hold color. The carpet, once red, was now a muddy brown. Doors lined the hallway—none numbered, none locked. And at the end of it, the man stood.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just stared through the window, hands behind his back.

“I’m looking for my cat,” Jamie said.

Nothing.

But Misfit padded out from the shadows and rubbed against her legs, purring.

She picked him up, heart pounding. “Thank you... if you helped.”

The man didn’t reply. His head tilted slightly, as if hearing something she couldn’t. Jamie left without another word. The elevator door was still open, as if waiting for her.

3. The Others

Jamie asked her neighbors.

“You saw the man?” the old woman in 903 said, eyes narrowing. “He’s not real.”

“He’s just a story,” muttered a college kid from 804. “Like Bloody Mary or something.”

But a janitor, nearly ninety and half-blind, told her quietly in the laundry room: “The building was supposed to have thirteen floors. It was built with thirteen. But the thirteenth wasn’t meant to be lived in. The architect—he put it there for his brother. A brother who died before the building was finished.”

“Why?”

“To keep him company,” the janitor whispered. “They say the man stands there, still waiting. Looking. Because his brother never came home.”

4. The Choice

Jamie moved on with her life, mostly. But something about that floor stayed with her. She’d walk her cat at night and find herself looking up, searching for the silhouette.

One night, the window was empty.

No man.

The next night, too.

On the third night, lightning struck, and she saw herself in the window. Not a reflection—no, this was her, standing in the 13th floor window. Pale. Still. Watching.

She ran to the elevator. Pressed every button. Nothing happened.

Then she whispered, “Thirteen.”

The elevator moved.

5. The Ending

No one knows what happened to Jamie. Her apartment was empty, cat and all. The police searched the building, called her family, checked surveillance.

Nothing.

But some tenants, late at night, swear they now see two figures in that window—standing side by side. Still. Silent. Watching.

The 13th floor doesn’t exist.

But the man still stands there.

And now, he’s not alone.