Third Floor, Room 304

Title

“Third Floor, Room 304”

SubTitle

Waking is Just the Deepest Dream

I wake up at 3:04 a.m. every night. No matter when I sleep, no matter what I do. 3:04—on the dot. I used to think it was insomnia. Then I thought it was a haunting. Now I think it’s a message.

The apartment above mine—Room 304—has been empty since I moved in. The landlord insists. “No one's lived there in five years,” he said. “Not since the fire.”

But every night at 3:04, footsteps drag overhead. Not walking—dragging. Something heavy. A body? I don’t want to know. I do. I don’t.

Last week, I finally got brave. Took a flashlight. Climbed to the third floor. The hallway was wrong. Dim, airless, flickering. Like someone cut and pasted a piece of 1974 over 2025. The wallpaper was peeling in vertical ribbons like wet skin.

Room 304's door was ajar. Inside, dust slept on everything—furniture frozen mid-motion. A chair knocked over. A glass half-full of evaporated water. As if someone stood up quickly and never came back.

The bedroom door creaked open by itself.

The bed was made.

There was someone in it.

A pale woman lay tucked beneath pristine white sheets. Eyes closed. Hands folded. Too still.

I whispered, “Hello?”

No response.

I reached out.

As my finger brushed her arm, she vanished.

Not disappeared. Vanished like a projection switching off. The room snapped into disarray. The bed collapsed. The ceiling blackened with soot.

I ran.

Back in my apartment, I locked everything. Laid awake until sunrise. No more 3:04 wake-ups.

Until tonight.

Tonight, I wake to banging. Not above—below.

Room 104 is empty, too. No one’s lived there since the second fire.

But the banging won’t stop.

I get dressed, shaking. I descend the stairs. The hallway is flickering again—yellowed and silent like a paused VHS tape.

Room 104’s door is wide open.

Smoke curls from the floorboards.

Inside: the same layout. The same chair. The same half-full glass. The same bed.

And someone in it.

But it’s not a woman.

It’s me.

Eyes closed. Hands folded.

Too still.

I reach out, breathless.

I touch my own arm—

—and snap awake.

In a hospital room. Bright lights. Beeping machines. Wires in my arms.

A nurse gasps. “He’s awake!”

Voices. Shouts. Running feet.

A doctor: “He’s been in a coma for seven years. Induced hypothermia. We didn’t think…”

I stare. Mute. Listening.

Someone hands me a mirror.

I don’t recognize the face.

Then: a whisper, barely audible.

“3:04.”

The nurse drops her clipboard. I look at the clock.

3:04 a.m.

“No,” I say. “I already woke up.”

They don’t understand.

But I do.

This isn’t waking.

This is another room.

Another layer.

Another coma.

The real me—whoever he is—is still asleep somewhere.

Trying to find the right layer.

Trying to wake up.

Trying to escape.

But now the walls are thinner.

And someone… or something… is trying to follow me out.

From below.

Thank You So Much for Reading