3:17 AM.

The first thing people noticed about Building 9A was how quiet it was.


Too quiet.


No children played in the corridors. No televisions hummed behind closed doors. Even during the day, the building felt frozen in time, as if sound itself refused to stay there for long. But the rent was cheap, and the city was expensive, so people moved in anyway.


Jack didn’t believe in bad signs. He was tired, broke, and desperate for a fresh start. When he moved into Building 9A, he thought he had found peace.


What he found instead was a phone call that would follow him into his grave.


On his third night in the apartment, Jack woke suddenly, his heart racing for no clear reason. The room was dark, the air heavy, and then his phone vibrated on the table beside his bed.


The clock read 3:17 AM.


The screen lit up.


Incoming Call

Caller ID: Jack


His hands trembled as he stared at the screen. Assuming it was some kind of glitch, he answered.


At first, there was silence. Then breathing. Slow. Panicked. Familiar.


“Jack,” a voice whispered.


It was his voice.


“Do not open the door,” the voice said. “No matter what you hear.”


The call ended.


Jack sat frozen, convincing himself it was stress, a prank, anything logical. But logic failed him when screaming echoed through the hallway minutes later.


The next morning, police sealed the apartment across from his. Mrs. D’Souza, a quiet elderly woman, had been found dead inside her locked apartment. According to the report, the time of death was 3:17 AM.


Over the following days, patterns emerged.


Everyone in the building received phone calls. Always at 3:17 AM. Always from their own number. Always in their own voice. The calls warned them—don’t turn on the lights, don’t look in the mirror, don’t open the door.


Those who ignored the calls didn’t survive the night.


One tenant laughed it off and answered his door when someone knocked after the call warned him not to. Neighbors found him collapsed in the hallway, eyes wide open, mouth frozen in a scream.


The building began to feel alive, watching, waiting.


Jack started researching Building 9A. What he found made his blood run cold.


Twenty years ago, the building had burned down in a massive electrical fire. The incident killed everyone inside. The structure was declared unsafe and demolished.


Yet here it stood.


Occupied.


Breathing.


Digging deeper, Jack searched the list of victims.


He found his own name.


Jack — Age 16 — Deceased


Memories flooded back violently. Smoke. Flames. His mother screaming for him. The pain. The darkness.


He remembered dying.


Building 9A wasn’t real. It was a scar in time, a place where the dead relived their final days on repeat, unaware of the truth. The phone calls weren’t warnings—they were messages from the moment of death itself, looping backward, trying to delay the inevitable.


Those who listened survived a little longer. Those who didn’t were pulled back into the fire.


On the seventh night, Jack’s phone rang again.


“Tonight is different,” his future voice said calmly. “Tonight, it ends.”


The walls began to change. Paint peeled away to reveal blackened concrete beneath. The smell of smoke returned. The building groaned as if remembering its final breath.


Jack heard screams echoing through the corridors—screams that had happened twenty years ago and were happening again now.


“You can’t escape,” the voice said. “You already tried.”


The lights flickered violently. The floor grew hot beneath his feet.


At exactly 3:17 AM, the illusion shattered.


Building 9A vanished.


Firefighters arrived to an empty lot after reports of smoke. There was no building. No bodies. No record of anyone ever living there.


Except for one thing.


A smartphone lay in the center of the lot, its screen cracked but glowing.


Incoming Call

Caller ID: Unknown


The clock read 3:17 AM.
.....THE END.....



The real terror isn’t death.

It’s realizing you already died—and never escaped.