THE QUIET WOMAN ACROSS THE HALL

I first noticed her on a wet Tuesday morning, the kind of morning when the city felt permanently exhausted. She stood in the narrow hallway of our apartment building, staring at the wall as if deciphering invisible handwriting. A pale woman, tall and thin, with dark circles under her eyes that suggested she hadn’t slept in days.

She lived in Apartment 4B. I lived in 4A.

We shared a wall so thin I could hear her breathing.

Her name, she told me later, was Elora Finch—though even then, I suspected it was a lie.

At the time, I didn’t know she would become the center of everything: the late-night whispers, the footsteps in empty rooms, the disappearance, the police, the unraveling of my own sanity.

I just knew she looked afraid.

And something in me—lonely, untethered, freshly divorced—wanted to protect her.

Stupid.

So stupid.

________________________________________

I. THE NIGHT SHE CAME TO MY DOOR

It was 2:14 a.m. I remember the exact time because I had been staring at the microwave clock, eating cereal I didn’t want, trying to numb the loneliness that clung to me like a second skin.

The knock was soft. Too soft. Like someone hoping not to be heard.

When I opened the door, Elora stood there barefoot, hair loose around her shoulders, trembling.

“Did you hear it?” she whispered.

“Hear what?”

“The scratching.”

I blinked. “From inside your apartment?”

“No.” Her eyes darted toward my ceiling. “From the walls. They’re listening.”

My skin prickled. “Who’s listening?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “Never mind. Sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”

She began to turn away, but I caught her arm gently. “Wait. You don’t have to go.”

Her skin was ice.

She stared at me for a long moment, as if weighing whether she could trust me—or whether I was part of whatever terrified her.

Finally, she whispered, “Just… keep your door locked tonight.”

Then she slipped back into her apartment.

I didn’t sleep at all.

________________________________________

II. THE BUILDING’S WHISPERS

Over the next week, the building changed.

The pipes groaned at night.

Footsteps echoed in the hall though no one walked there.

Doors creaked open by themselves.

I told myself it was an old building.

I told myself I was imagining things.

But Elora made everything worse.

Sometimes I heard her crying through the wall—soft, muffled. And other times, I heard her laughing, a sharp, brittle sound that didn’t match her face at all.

Once, I heard her talking to someone.

“No,” she hissed. “You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore.”

I pressed my ear to the wall.

Silence.

Then a thud. Then another.

I almost knocked on her door, but something stopped me. Something cold and instinctive:

Not yet.

________________________________________

III. THE MAN IN THE STAIRWELL

I first saw him on a Thursday morning as I was heading to work. He stood on the mid-landing between floors 3 and 4—tall, well-dressed, eyes like polished glass. Not smiling. Not frowning. Just observing.

“Morning,” I said hesitantly.

He kept staring.

“Do you live here?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.

But it didn’t sound like an answer.

“Which apartment?”

He smiled then, thin and wrong. “You’re a curious little thing.”

My stomach tightened.

Before I could speak again, footsteps echoed down the hall. Elora appeared, eyes wide the second she saw him.

“You,” she whispered. “You shouldn’t be here.”

He didn’t even turn to look at her. “You lost the right to tell me where I can be.”

She grabbed my wrist. Hard. “Don’t talk to him. Don’t ever talk to him.”

The man chuckled. “She always did have a flair for theatrics.”

“Leave,” Elora said.

He walked past us, brushing her shoulder lightly. “See you soon, Elora.”

When he was gone, I asked quietly, “Who is he?”

Her answer chilled me.

“My husband.”

________________________________________

IV. THE WOMAN WHO WASN’T WHO SHE CLAIMED

That night, I confronted her.

“You said you lived alone,” I said through her cracked doorway.

She looked exhausted. Hollow. Like someone whose soul had been scooped out.

“I don’t live with him anymore,” she murmured. “Please, just forget you saw him.”

“I can’t. Elora, if you’re in trouble—”

“I’m always in trouble.” She leaned her head against the wall. “But I survive.”

Her words were soft, almost detached. Like a person repeating someone else’s mantra.

She opened the door wider.

“Come in,” she offered. “If you want the truth.”

Her apartment was nothing like mine. Sparse. Clean. Too clean. No personal items. No photos. No warmth. Almost like a temporary hideout rather than a home.

She handed me a file folder from her coffee table.

Inside were newspaper clippings.

A husband arrested for domestic violence.

A wife hospitalized.

A restraining order.

A disappearance.

My throat tightened. “This woman… she looks like you.”

She smiled thinly. “It is me.”

“Elora, the article says you disappeared two years ago.”

“Yes.”

“But you’re here.”

“I came back.”

“Why?”

She looked toward the door as though expecting someone to burst in. “Because he never stopped looking.”

________________________________________

V. THE NIGHT OF THE SCREAM

I woke at 3:09 a.m.

A scream tore through the wall.

Not pain.

Fear.

I bolted into the hallway. Elora’s door was ajar.

“Elora?” I whispered.

No answer.

I pushed the door open.

Her living room was in disarray—blankets thrown aside, a cup shattered on the floor. A lamp knocked over. And in the center of the room, something dark smeared across the carpet.

A footprint.

A man’s.

I froze.

“Elora?!”

Still nothing.

I grabbed my phone, hands shaking, and dialed the police.

When they arrived, they searched the building but found no trace of her. No struggle in the hallway. No forced entry. Nothing.

Just her empty apartment.

Her husband was nowhere.

But then… he never lived in the building.

The detective asked me, “Are you sure she existed?”

The question rattled me. “Of course she existed! I talked to her every day.”

His expression stayed neutral. Too neutral. “No one else in this building ever saw her.”

“That’s not possible.”

“No mail in her name. No lease. No belongings aside from the clothes in her closet. No bank activity. It’s like she wasn’t here at all.”

My blood turned to ice.

It was possible.

Because Elora lived like a ghost.

________________________________________

VI. THE TAPE IN THE AIR VENT

I didn’t sleep for two nights.

On the third, I heard something rattling inside my bedroom air vent. Something small. Light. I unscrewed the grate.

Inside was a tiny cassette tape.

A label on it read, in jagged handwriting: “PLAY IF I’M GONE.”

My breath caught.

I borrowed an old tape player from a thrift shop and pressed play.

At first—static.

Then her voice.

“If you’re hearing this… he found me.”

My hands began to shake.

“I told you not to trust him. Not to trust any of them. They’ll say I never existed. They’ll say it’s in your head. They always do.”

A crash echoed in the background. A man shouting.

Elora gasped. Then whispered—

“He wants to erase me. Like he erased the others. Don’t let him do it to you.”

A pause.

“He’s watching you now.”

The tape cut off.

My pulse thundered.

Someone knocked on my door.

Three slow knocks.

Then a voice:

“Open up. We need to talk about your friend in 4B.”

It was the detective.

The one who claimed she didn’t exist.

I didn’t make a sound. Didn’t breathe.

His voice hardened. “I know you’re in there.”

The peephole showed him standing completely still.

Smiling.

I stepped back into the darkness of my apartment.

The knock came again.

“Open the door,” he said softly. “We’re very worried about you.”

My breath shook.

Elora was right.

They were all in on it.

________________________________________

VII. THE DISAPPEARANCE

By morning, I had made my decision.

I packed a bag. Grabbed the tape. Locked the door behind me.

As I walked down the hallway, a postcard slipped under my door caught my attention.

No address. No stamp.

Just one sentence in the same handwriting as the tape:

“Run.”

I didn’t look back.

I haven’t been back since.

But sometimes, in the middle of the night, I still hear footsteps in the hallway outside whatever motel I’m staying in.

Slow. Controlled.

Waiting.

And once—just once—I heard a soft whisper through the wall:

“You should have stayed quiet…”

...………….................

THE END