The Forgotten Room

The Forgotten Room

The apartment was dirt cheap, and Jacob was broke. After months of couch surfing and sleeping in his car, even the creaky floorboards and sour mildew scent felt like luxury. The landlord, a wiry man with yellowed eyes, had only one request as Jacob signed the lease.

“Don’t open the small door behind the fridge,” he said flatly.

Jacob had laughed at first. “Why? Is it haunted?”

The landlord didn’t laugh. He only repeated, “Don’t open it.”

No context. No explanation.

Just a rule.

Jacob didn’t ask questions. He wanted a roof and a bed, not a mystery. He moved in that evening with two suitcases, a secondhand lamp, and his sanity — which he would later regret not keeping a closer eye on.

The door wasn’t even that interesting. It was barely three feet high, hidden behind the rusty fridge in the kitchen corner. Its frame was chipped, paint flaking off like old skin, and it had no handle—just a keyhole, rusted shut.

For the first few days, Jacob ignored it.

But then, late one night, as the wind scratched the windows like fingernails, he heard it:

Whispers.

So faint he thought they came from the hallway outside. But when he opened the front door, there was nothing. Just silence and a hallway with flickering lights.

The whispers returned the next night.

Then the night after that.

And every time, they seemed to be coming from behind the fridge.

Jacob shoved a rag under the little door’s frame, hoping it was just draft noise. He put on headphones. Slept with white noise. But the whispering didn’t stop.

In fact, it got louder.

Not voices exactly. More like breathy murmurs. Sometimes he could almost make out words. “Come back…” “Don’t forget…” “He’s still here…”

Sleep became a struggle. He found himself staring at the door for long stretches of time, thoughts racing, trying to figure out what could be behind it. A crawlspace? A storage cubby? A prank?

He Googled the building. Nothing.

Asked neighbors. No one had heard of such a room.

By day ten, Jacob was dreaming about it. Vivid dreams of narrow hallways, rooms made of shifting shadows, people with stitched mouths whispering through closed lips.

By day twelve, he gave in.

He waited until midnight.

The fridge groaned as he dragged it away from the wall, revealing the strange door. It looked even more ancient now. Breathing, almost.

He grabbed a screwdriver, trying to pry the edges. The metal resisted. Then—click. The door unlatched on its own.

Inside, there was nothing but black.

Not darkness. Not shadow.

Void.

He leaned in. The air was colder. Heavy. It smelled like forgotten things — damp wood, old clothes, time itself.

Then he saw them.

Eyes. Dozens of them. Floating. Watching.

He jerked back, heart pounding.

But his body moved on its own. Knees bent. Hands pushed the door wider. He was crawling inside before he realized.

The space inside was impossible. Larger than the apartment itself. It opened into a hallway of shifting walls, lined with peeling wallpaper that whispered as he passed.

“Jacob,” one wall hissed. “You came back.”

He ran.

Doors lined the hallway. Behind each one, a memory. Not his — others. Strangers. Fears. Regrets. A man sobbing into a mirror. A child trapped in a room with no ceiling. A woman peeling off her face layer by layer.

It was a gallery of the lost.

And then—he saw himself.

A door at the end creaked open. Inside stood Jacob, older, broken, mouth stitched like those in his dreams. He reached out and whispered:

“Never open the door.”

Jacob turned to run—but the hallway twisted. He was no longer inside the room. The room was inside him.

He screamed.

They found Jacob days later, curled behind the fridge, dehydrated and mumbling nonsense. He never spoke again. Just whispered.

Endlessly.

And always toward the little door.

The landlord moved the fridge back into place. Wrote a new lease. Found another desperate tenant.

As he handed over the keys, he smiled faintly and said:

“Just one rule. Don’t open the small door behind the fridge.”