Seven Nights in Room 3B.

I found the listing at 1:43 AM, on a forum thread that wasn’t even supposed to exist. The post was basic—no photos, no full sentences. Just a location and this:

Room 3B. One week. $100. Cash only. No questions.

It sounded shady, but I clicked anyway. I was flat broke, crashing on friends’ couches, and working two dead-end gigs. The idea of a private room, even for a week, sounded like a miracle. I figured the worst-case scenario was a roach-infested dump. So I went.

The building was tucked behind a shuttered liquor store on Crescent Avenue. The front door was wide open. Not unlocked—open. No manager, no receptionist. The hallway smelled faintly of lavender and bleach, with polished floors that didn’t match the crumbling bricks outside. There was no sound—not even from outside. Just this weird, unnatural stillness that made the hairs on my arms stand up.

Room 3B was halfway down the corridor. The number plate looked newer than the others, almost like it had been replaced recently. The door wasn’t locked. It creaked open with a push, revealing a modest little space: one bed, one window, one mirror. A nightstand held a small lamp and a thick envelope. I opened it.

Inside was exactly $100 in twenties, and a folded piece of paper.

"Welcome. Seven nights. No early exits.

Rules:

Stay inside after midnight.

Don’t answer knocks.

Don’t look into the mirror between 3:00 and 3:15 AM.

If you hear whispers, stay silent. Pretend to sleep.

If you break a rule, the room breaks you.

— Management."

I stared at the note for a long time, waiting for the punchline. There wasn’t one. No signature. No camera. No catch. And yet, every instinct told me to leave.

But the hundred dollars in my hand said stay.

That night, I followed the rules. Kind of. I stayed inside after midnight, sure. I even covered the mirror with an old T-shirt. But when the knock came—three soft knocks at exactly 12:03 AM—I crept to the door anyway.

“Hello?” I whispered.

No answer.

Just slow, shuffling footsteps retreating down the hallway.

I bolted the door and pushed the chair under the knob. Then I crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours, waiting for more sounds. Nothing came.

The next morning, I told myself it was just a prank. Thin walls. Weird dreams. I ignored the tension in my chest and wrote it off.

The second night, I left the mirror covered and double-locked the door before midnight. I tried to sleep early, but I kept waking up in bursts—like my body knew something was off.

At 3:07 AM, I made a mistake. I lifted the edge of the shirt covering the mirror.

My reflection was still.

Too still.

I blinked. My reflection didn’t. I raised my hand. It stayed limp. Then it smiled—wide, cracked, stretching too far up both cheeks.

I flung the shirt back over the glass and backed away so hard I knocked the lamp over. In the dark, I heard it laugh.

I didn’t sleep the rest of that night.

The third night, I put the mirror face down in the closet. I even turned the bed to face away from it, just in case. The room felt colder. Or maybe I was imagining things. The knock didn’t come that night, but at 3:00 AM, I heard scratching—light at first, then desperate—coming from inside the walls.

Then a voice whispered just inches from my ear:

“Open up, Liam.”

I hadn’t told anyone I was here. No one in this city even knew my real name.

I stayed frozen under the blanket, barely breathing.

The whisper came again.

“Let me in, Liam. I miss your face.”

Then silence.

When morning came, I found a second envelope on the nightstand.

This one had no money—just a message:

“Three nights down. You are watched. You are wanted.”

I tried to leave. I really did. I packed up, stepped into the hallway—and somehow ended up back inside the room.

No matter how far I walked, every stairwell, every hallway circled back to 3B.

The hallway was changing, too. The framed art disappeared. The hallway light flickered constantly. A foul smell—wet soil, mildew, and iron—clung to everything. My watch died. My phone glitched and buzzed with unreadable text.

That fourth night, I stopped pretending it was a joke.

The closet door had fresh scratch marks—from the inside. Claw marks. Deep enough to splinter wood. And written in what looked like dried blood:

“Don’t trust your own shadow.”

I kept every light on.

At 11:59 PM, all the bulbs popped at once.

The room went pitch black.

Then, in the dark, I saw it—my shadow, but not following me. Not syncing. It moved first. Turned its head when I didn’t. Reached toward me while I stood frozen. Then it whispered with my own voice:

“You’re almost ready.”

I passed out in the corner, not from fear but from exhaustion. I dreamed of drowning in a mirror. Waking up in a version of this room that was rotting, decaying, and alive.

The fifth night blurred with the sixth.

I didn’t eat. I barely drank. I only stayed awake and counted time by heartbeats. No clocks worked. I scratched marks into the wall with my fingernails—one for each night survived.

I begged whatever was watching me for mercy. I cried. I offered it everything. My voice. My body. My memory. Anything.

It listened.

That night, it didn’t knock. It just stepped in.

My shadow—my double—peeled itself off the floor and stood over me. It didn’t speak this time. It just leaned close and pressed a hand to my chest. I couldn’t move.

Its fingers sank into my skin—not breaking it, but pushing into me like water, and pulling something out. Something warm, painful, and heavy.

Then it vanished.

The morning came.

The sun rose through the tiny window.

I was alive.

And it was the seventh day.

I waited. Sat on the floor with my back to the wall and watched the room. It didn’t knock. The lights didn’t flicker. No whispers. No shadow.

I didn’t sleep.

When dawn broke, the door opened on its own.

This time, I walked out.

The hallway was normal. The stairs were real. The front door led to the street.

I was free.

I moved into a friend’s place. Told her I’d just needed space. I got a job delivering packages. I stopped talking about it. Tried to forget.

But I couldn’t forget what came with me.

Two days ago, my mirror cracked—by itself.

Yesterday, I heard a knock at 12:03 AM.

Last night, I watched my reflection blink when I didn’t.

And tonight, my shadow is standing in the corner of the room.

Waiting.