The Man in Apartment 413: A Real Urban Nightmare You’ll Wish You Never Read

I moved into the Tremont Apartments in downtown Chicago after a rough breakup and a job transfer—one of those half-renovated buildings where the charm is just code for peeling wallpaper and paper-thin walls.

My unit was 412. Quiet. Clean. Mostly.

Except for the man next door in 413.

He never left. Not once. I worked remotely, so I had time to notice. I’d hear him shuffling around at odd hours—1:47 AM, 3:12 AM, 4:06 AM. Sometimes the hallway light flickered when he opened his door, even though building maintenance had supposedly replaced it three times.

The first time I saw him, he was peering through the peephole—his eye magnified, unmoving.

I froze.

Then, he shut the door.

I laughed it off. Told myself he was probably just an old guy with insomnia.

But then I started getting notes.

The first one came under my door. Folded neatly, typewritten. Just three words:

“You hear him?”

No name. No context.

I assumed it was a prank. Maybe another tenant. Maybe someone trying to be funny.

I asked the woman across the hall, Gloria, if she knew anything about 413. She paled instantly.

“There’s no one in that unit,” she whispered. “It’s been vacant since the fire. Since… her.”

I blinked. “Wait—what fire?”

She pulled her door shut a bit and whispered, “You need to move.”

That night, I heard crying from behind the wall we shared. A woman’s voice, low and shaking. But 413 had always been a man’s unit—if it was even occupied.

I knocked.

No answer.

Then a voice came through the door. Deep. Raspy.

“Stop knocking. She’s sleeping.”

I backed away. Cold needles crept over my spine. The air felt off. Heavily charged, like the building itself was holding its breath.

The next day, I called the front desk.

“Who lives in 413?” I asked.

The receptionist paused. “That unit’s sealed. It hasn’t been leased in five years. Are you… are you sure you got the number right?”

I hung up.

The notes continued.

“He’s not dead. Not yet.”

“Don’t open your door after 3 AM.”

“She still cries for help.”

The pounding started the next night. Not fists—heads. It sounded like someone slamming their skull into the wall, over and over. I pressed my ear to the drywall and heard whispers underneath it.

Not in English. Not in any language I recognized. Just… whispers. Like voices trapped inside the plaster.

I didn’t sleep. I barely ate.

Then came the smell.

Rotting meat, burnt hair, wet copper. It seeped under my door from 413, thick and warm like breath. I called the police.

They arrived, knocked on 413.

Nothing.

They unlocked the door.

Empty.

No furniture. No fixtures. Just a burned mattress on the floor, half-sunken into charred wood. And the walls—oh God—the walls were covered in fingernail scratches.

Thousands of them. Some fresh. Some… bleeding.

One officer turned to me.

“This apartment’s been condemned for years. No electricity. No running water.”

“But—he talks to me. He told me not to wake her.”

The other cop glanced at me like I was cracked. “Sir… there’s no ‘he.’ Whoever lived here died in the fire with a woman. Murder-suicide. No survivors. The guy was schizophrenic—claimed voices told him to set her on fire.”

I don’t remember leaving the building.

I stayed at a motel that night. Slept with the light on. But at exactly 3:13 AM, my phone lit up.

Unknown number.

“Why did you leave her alone?”

I threw the phone across the room.

When I came back to pack, my apartment looked untouched—except for one thing.

A note on my kitchen counter.

This one was handwritten. Crimson red ink.

“You’re next. 414 is hungry.”

There is no unit 414.

But every night since, wherever I stay—hotels, friends’ couches, even my car—I hear someone knocking from the room next to mine.

And sometimes… I knock back.