The Apartment That Ate People

I never believed in haunted places. Ghost stories were fun — best shared during midnight chai breaks or while walking through graveyards just to prove you weren't scared. But then came Apartment 13B.

It was cheap, too cheap for a place in the city. The landlord barely spoke, just handed me a key and whispered, “Don’t leave your door open after midnight.”

I thought it was a joke. I laughed. He didn’t.

The place was musty, the wallpaper peeling like old skin. But I was broke, desperate, and done living with four roommates who thought deodorant was optional.

The first night, nothing happened.

Second night, I heard scratching from inside the walls. Not rats — something slower, like fingernails dragging across wood. I knocked. Silence. Then a knock back. Three soft taps.

I didn’t sleep.

Third night, the lights flickered at 3:13 AM. My phone turned on by itself and played an old voicemail from my dead mother — the one I had deleted years ago. Her voice said, “Don’t go near the closet.”

I didn’t even have a closet.

But behind the bathroom mirror, I found a hidden door.

It wasn’t there before.

It creaked open on its own. Inside: a small, dark crawlspace filled with polaroid photos — all of people screaming.

Some of them were taped to the wall. One photo had a date: July 12, 1993. It was my birthday.

Another photo looked like me.

Only older.

I ran to the landlord the next morning. His office was gone. Empty. The shop that was there yesterday — a tailor's shop — didn’t exist on Google Maps. The neighbors said the apartment had been abandoned for years.

But I had the keys.

I lived there.

Or did I?

That night I tried to leave. Packed my bag, grabbed my laptop.

The door wouldn’t open.

Windows? Nailed shut. My phone? Dead. The charger melted like wax.

And then the apartment began to shift.

The hallway stretched longer than it should. My kitchen was suddenly filled with dirt. The walls breathed.

And from the crawlspace, a voice whispered, “Stay. You belong to us now.”

I screamed.

Nobody heard.

I tried writing messages on the windows in toothpaste.

I banged on the walls.

But time doesn’t pass here. It feels like I’ve been writing this same article forever.

So if you're reading this... please.

Don’t rent Apartment 13B.

Because it doesn’t just haunt people.

It consumes them.

And I’m writing this from inside.

It feeds on stories.

And now it’s hungry again.

By Huzaifa Khan