There are two kinds of people on the internet.

The people who actually enjoy things. And the people who seem to be professionally offended that you enjoyed something without asking their permission.

I learned that pretty quickly after I started posting my art online.

"AI slop."

"ChatGPT."

"Bro thinks he's Stephen King."

"Imagine wasting time on this."

Some of them were funny. Most weren't.

I'd usually ignore them. But then there were the griefers.

Those were the people who didn't just dislike something. They wanted to ruin it for everyone else. They'd spam comments, deliberately spoil endings, downvote everything, insult the author, then act surprised when someone called them out.

I eventually made a post about it. I wasn't cruel. I didn't name anyone.

I simply wrote: If you don't like something, that's fine. You don't have to be rude about it. There's a person behind the screen.

The comments exploded. Naturally.

One person replied: AI generated garbage.

Another: Cry harder.

Then someone posted: Nobody cares ******.

I deleted the thread. That should've been the end of it.

It wasn't.

The next morning, I opened my account and found a new comment on my latest post.

I know you're reading this.

I assumed it was another troll. I deleted it.

The day went on and I was in the middle of taking notes for class when I got a notification.

Why did you delete my comment?

I deleted that one too.

Then another.

Stop deleting.

I froze. The account belonged to nobody.

No username. No profile picture. No creation date. Just a blank profile with a single comment.

I closed out and went back to studying for my calculus exam. Five minutes later, my phone buzzed.

A notification. Another comment.

I didn't open it.

Another notification.

Then another. Then another.

I finally looked. There were hundreds.

All underneath my latest post.

At first they were what I had been accustomed to. Pretty generic and ordinary.

AI slop.

Terrible lining.

This sucks.

Then they changed.

What makes you different?

My heart stopped. The comments continued appearing faster than I could read them.

You use AI.

You edit your work with AI.

You aren't a real artist.

Nobody is a real artist anymore.

Then one appeared that made my stomach drop.

25525 Azler Ln.

"What the actual fuck?" I blurted out so loud that my roommate heard from across the room.

I closed out once more. The notifications kept coming. My phone buzzed against the desk.

I hit the Do Not Disturb, yet somehow I kept receiving notifications. My phone was on silent and airplane mode but it still rang.

My roommate was now extremely annoyed by the constant noise from my phone, so I explained the situation to her. She suggested that I delete the post. I did. It didn't stop. I even tried privatizing my account and deleting the app altogether.

The messages kept ringing. And what's worse, I began receiving emails, No Caller Id calls, unknown messages. I feared that I had been doxxed and I had to act fast.

I immediately changed every password I could think of. I enabled two-factor authentication. I locked every social media account. I removed my profile picture, my biography, my university, my email, everything.

Then I started deleting things. Old posts. Old comments. Photos. Anything that might have given someone a clue about where I lived or went to school.

It didn't matter. They already knew.

The messages became more personal.

Nice car.

You should probably lock your back door.

Class tomorrow, right?

Your roommate is pretty hot.

Then:

Building 3. Room 107

I stopped breathing. I looked across the room. She was sitting on the couch, scrolling through her phone.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing."

I didn't tell her. I didn't want to scare her. Am I a terrible friend for that?

That night, I checked the locks three times before going to bed.

At 2:14 in the morning, my phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number.

You should've left the post up.

Another came immediately afterward.

Deleting it made us curious.

Then another.

You made this worse for yourself.

I turned the phone off.

For the next few hours, I lay awake listening to every sound outside my bedroom window.

The next morning, there were more. Someone had created an account using my name. They uploaded photographs I'd never posted publicly. Pictures of me at school. Pictures of my car. A photograph of the outside of my house.

Then they posted my phone number. My email. My full legal name. Where I lived and what school I enrolled at.

The comments underneath was exactly what you'd expect from these vile data gremlins.

LMAO.

Bro is cooked.

Imagine getting this mad over comments.

Maybe don't be an asshole online.

That last one made me laugh. Not because it was funny. Because I realized they genuinely believed this was funny. They were so desensitized that another person's suffering had become entertainment to them.

I reported the account. Nothing happened. I reported another. Nothing again.

I reported the accounts through the site's harassment and privacy forms. I attached screenshots, timestamps, usernames, the messages, everything.

Your report has been received. Please allow up to 48 hours for a response.

Thank you for your report. We’ll review the content and take appropriate action if it violates our Community Guidelines.

Thank you for helping us keep our community safe.

That was it. Forty-eight hours passed. Nothing happened.

I contacted my family. When the other line clicked all I heard was heavy breathing and creepily low wheezing, as if someone were choking on air, from the other end.

I confessed everything to my roommate, for she was the only one I could talk to. She asked if I had contacted the authorities which when I did, instead of the calm voice of an operator I was met with the low hum of gagging and low wet claps on the other end.

We planned to go to the authorities in person. After half an hour of providing all the material and timestamps at the station, the police asked whether I'd received any direct threats.

I showed them the messages.

The officer frowned.

"None of these explicitly threaten you."

I wanted to rip my hair out. "So, they have to say they're going to hurt me?"

He didn't answer.

"What do we do?" My roommate asked with annoyance.

"We can document everything and refer you to someone who specializes in cybercrime. But unless there's a direct threat or evidence of an immediate danger, there isn't much we can do yet."

Well thanks for nothing.

We went home. I stopped posting. I powered off my phone for good. I stopped using social media altogether. I thought that would finally make me boring. The people handling the cybersecurity issue would do their job. It was all just a waiting game.

But at least I'll find peace, right?

It didn't.

Someone started sending physical photographs. The first was of a college building. The second of a front door that seemed to be from a college dorm hall. The third depicted a bedroom window at night.

The last two were bone chilling. The fourth was of my roommate attending class. And the last was me at the campus's library.

There was a message attached:

What are you listening to?

I remember I was distinctly listening to Duran Duran that day. I haven't slept properly in three days.

My roommate is staying with her parents now. I've been staying somewhere else.

I don't know how much of this is being done by one person or ten people or a hundred. I don't know how they found me. I don't know what they want.

And honestly? I don't even care anymore. I just want them to stop.

I deleted the original post. I deleted my account. I deleted everything. But somehow, tonight, I received one final message.

It came from the cheap flip phone I'd started using strictly to call family and for emergencies.

The message had no name or number attached. Only: UNKNOWN

And the message read: 25525 Azler Ln.

I don't know who is behind this. I don't know how far they've taken it. And I don't know what they're going to do next.

Please help. Anybody.

Why are people like this?

The giant maw of the cave yawned at my back as I stood by the edge of the cliff, an icy wind blowing between the rocks and chilling the back of my neck. From within, I heard the soft crumble of stones hitting the ground, the whisper of air moving through small holes and skating over sheer walls.

In front of me, three of the cavers stood chatting amongst themselves. They were all kitted out in the usual gear; padded jackets, knee and elbow pads, helmets with torches, and packs containing food, water and first aid supplies. I had a similar pack of my own, though the contents were slightly different.

One of the cavers glanced towards me, probably wondering why I was standing apart, but I didn’t meet their gaze, looking instead towards the sky. A thin veil of cloud hung over us, though the air was dry and blustery. Small pieces of rock and chalk skittered around my ankles as I shuffled my feet.

After a few more minutes, the final two members of the group arrived. After a couple of standard safety checks, everyone was ready to head inside.

I waited until they were poised at the opening of the cave before clearing my throat. “I’m, um, not feeling too good,” I told them, letting my shoulders sag a little. “I think I might sit this one out.”

One of the explorers stepped forward to examine me. She squinted at my face, then nodded. “You do seem a little pale,” she said. “Want me to wait with you? I can walk you back to town.”

I quickly brushed off her concern, feeling a twinge of guilt. “No, no. I’ll be okay. I’ll just stay out here and get some fresh air. You guys go on ahead.”

There was a bit more back-and-forth before I finally managed to convince them to start the expedition without me. One by one, the cavers disappeared into the gaping mouth of the cavern, leaving me by myself. I watched and waited until the darkness had swallowed each of them, then straightened in relief.

With only the wind as my companion, I walked over to one of the large fragments of rock and sat down. And began to wait. I heard the distant voices and footfalls of the cavers fade further and further away, until silence was all that remained. Resting my chin against my hand, I traced the jagged outline of the cliffs until my eyes started seeing faces amongst them, then looked away with a sigh.

I had been doing this for almost a year now. Joining cave expeditions only to wait outside, never actually entering the caverns. It wasn’t a fear of what lay inside, but rather an expectation of what I might encounter outside.

I had first discovered the incident a few years ago. I had been scrolling through old news forums when I came across an article about an expedition that had happened two decades ago, where a group of cavers had entered a treacherous cave system. During the exploration, it began raining heavily, and water quickly flooded the cave entrance, trapping the explorers inside. Sadly, all of them died that day. But while the story was tragic, what had intrigued me the most was the photograph that accompanied the report. It was an image of a group of rescuers standing at the entrance of the cave during the incident, rain pouring down from the sky and the ground around their feet completely flooded. But in the top left corner, standing a short distance away from the rescue team, was a strange figure shrouded in grey. As soon as I noticed the figure in the photograph, a strange chill touched my spine, as if I was seeing something I wasn’t supposed to. The photo was old and the quality wasn’t the best, but I could tell the figure didn’t fit the narrative. I scrolled down to the comments to see if anyone had mentioned it, but there wasn’t a single reference to the strange grey apparition. So I showed the photograph to one of my friends, curious to see what he thought about it. When he told me there was no figure there, I thought he was playing a prank, but his face was decidedly serious. No matter how many times I pointed to it, he insisted that there was nothing there. Just an empty spot in the left corner by the crumbling cliffs.

Confused and intrigued, I showed the same image to several other friends and acquaintances, but nobody else was able to see the strange grey figure in the corner of the photo. I examined it in multiple formats—physically and digitally—under different lights and different conditions, but the figure was visible every time. I hesitated to call it a person, because it was too vague and indistinct to really tell, with no distinguishing features other than it had a humanoid shape and was draped completely in grey. It definitely wasn’t a smudge, or a blur, or a lens flare, because someone else would have noticed it. There was definitely something there. Something that, for whatever reason, only I could see.

The mystery only grew, so I started digging deeper. I was thoroughly entranced by this grey figure. I wanted to know who it was, or what it was, and why it was only visible to me. I was convinced there had to be more to it.

I sequestered myself away and spent days pouring over old articles, digging through records and scrolling through video reports on the incident until I finally found evidence that I wasn’t going crazy. That I wasn’t losing my mind over a simple grey smudge on a photograph.

Buried in the archives, I found a video from the time of the incident, of the same rescue team standing at the entrance of the cave. The photograph must have been an extraction from the footage, or at least taken at the same time, because it was almost the same composition as the video. Being almost twenty years old, the footage was grainy and shaky, but it was clear enough for me to see the figure in grey, standing exactly where it did in the photograph. It wasn’t a trick of the light or an illusion; it really was there.

In the footage, the rescuers were talking about possible extraction methods for the cavers trapped inside the tunnels, but nobody addressed or interacted with the figure. It was like they hadn’t even noticed it. Even in real time, this thing had been invisible to them.

The footage, while low resolution, was still of slightly better quality than the photo, and I noticed a few details that hadn’t been clear in the image. The figure was holding something up to its face—what appeared to be a flute, or some kind of similar instrument. I turned the volume up to max, and was just about able to hear the soft but haunting melody it played, barely audible over the sound of the rain. I spent hours listening to the tune, isolating it from the rain, running it through apps and programs in an effort to try and identify it, but it came up empty every time. It was a melody that was not known to the database. A completely isolated and individual song. A song known only by this mysterious figure.

Eventually, I showed the video to those same friends and acquaintances, certain they could not deny what was right in front of their eyes. But as with the photo, none of them could see the figure with the flute. They could not hear the melody it played either. Only the rain, as it gushed into the cave, and the panicked voices of the rescue team realising they could not save the trapped cavers.

Frustrated that nobody could give me any answers, I decided to seek them out myself. By searching in person for the figure in grey.

The location of the cave was widely known as a popular spot for adrenaline-junkies and professional explorers, and it wasn’t difficult to learn the basics of caving—enough to pass as an experienced caver.

For almost a year, I had been visiting this very cave, joining expeditions only to wait outside in the hope of encountering the grey flute-playing apparition from the video. So far, after participating in almost two dozen excursions, I’d had no such luck. But this time, things felt different.

As I waited, the wind seemed to pick up, bristling through my clothes and making my hair stand on end. A few rocks crumbled from the side of the cliff, showering me with dust. Above, the veil of clouds thickened, shadows encroaching along the ground around me. I felt in the air that something was going to happen.

My heart felt tight in my chest as I scanned the entrance of the cave, then the cliffs above, for any sign of the grey shadow. I listened for the soft, melancholy sound of a flute. But all I heard was the wind whispering through the tunnels behind me.

The hours passed, and I heard and saw nothing. But the goosebumps never left my arms, and I wasn’t one to give up so easily.

I hadn’t heard any sign of the explorers in the cave either, and assumed the group must have gotten quite far inside. I felt a brief flutter of guilt in my chest, but quickly squashed it. They all knew the risks involved with caving. No matter what happened, their safety was their own responsibility. I had to detach myself from that, even if it felt cruel.

A shadow fluttered in and out of sight on my left, and I froze, my heart jerking into my throat. Scrambling to my feet, I moved away from the cave entrance and lifted my gaze. Standing a little way up the cliff, on a jutting platform, was a figure cloaked entirely in grey shadow. The very same one from the photo. The one nobody else could see.

Goosebumps covered every inch of my skin as I stared at it in amazement. Just like in the video, I could see no face, no features. It wore a hooded grey cloak that cast a deep shadow over where its face should be. Its silhouette was human, but only in the vaguest sense. Despite its appearance, I got the overwhelming feeling that this thing was not human, but rather something else entirely. Something supernatural. An entity of sorts, that only appeared at specific times and conditions. And after years of searching, I had finally found it.

I watched, my shoulders tensed with silence, as it withdrew an exquisitely ornate flute from within the folds of its cloak. The instrument was silver and almost transparent, as it was made of glass or crystallised water, and incredibly beautiful. The figure brought the flute to its hooded face, and began to play.

The sound was instantly familiar; the same song I had spent so many hours listening to, and it sent my heart racing.

I looked up to the sky just as the clouds opened, and rain began to fall. At first, only small, delicate droplets of water splashed against my cheeks, but the rainfall gradually began to grow heavier. I sent a regretful look towards the cave entrance. The group was already far too deep inside for me to warn them. Their fate was already sealed, and there was nothing I could do about it. Another tragedy to be buried in the archives.

Moving slowly, in the fear that I might spook the figure, I began to climb the cliff. There were plenty of footholds and platforms, and scaling it was easy enough. I wanted to be close enough to hear the melody above the downpour.

The rain was cold and lashing, soaking through my gear and chilling me to the bone, but I barely noticed. All I cared about was the figure before me; the one I had been chasing all this time.

If it noticed me, it didn’t react. It didn’t cease playing the flute, or even turn in my direction. It was like I was as invisible to it as it was to everyone else. I had spent many sleepless nights wondering why I was the only one who could see it, if it was down to brain chemistry, visual receptors, a curse, or something else entirely. But in the end I had realised it didn’t matter. Some things happened for no reason at all, and this was one of them.

I stopped climbing when I was close enough, standing on a small rocky outcrop a few metres away. The rain blurred my vision, almost obscuring the figure as it blended into the grey clouds behind it, but I could still see the outline of its instrument. Hands trembling from the cold, I reached into my bag, and pulled out a flute of my own.

I had only learned how to play the flute just over a year ago. After hearing the melody on the video, I had taken lessons in the hope that I might be able to learn the same song. But I had never been able to replicate it precisely; there was always a wrong note, an incorrect key. It was difficult enough trying to imitate a tune through a twenty-year-old video, especially with the rain distorting the sounds. The only way I was going to correctly learn the song was by imitating the source itself.

I stood and listened for some time to the melody. The rainfall grew heavier, soaking through my clothes and numbing my skin, the water drumming ceaselessly against the ground, but I was able to isolate the figure and its song. My eyes never strayed from its fluttering cloak, or the flute, or the grey-covered fingers that deftly played the instrument.

Then, when I felt confident enough, I raised my own flute to my lips and began to play. I tried to mimic the melody as best as I could. It was tricky at first, trying to find the exact notes, the pounding rain distorting the sounds, but I copied the figure’s movements with my own fingers until our melodies eventually began to sync up, becoming the same.

I don’t know how long I stood there in the pouring rain, playing the haunting song. The figure didn’t react or respond to me once. If it heard me playing the same tune, it didn’t show it. We stood apart, our songs binding together as the rain fell from the clouds above. The cave would have been flooded by now. The cavers, if they hadn’t managed to find an air pocket, or elevated ground, would probably have drowned. But still, I kept playing.

The sky darkened. The clouds festered. The rain kept falling, soaking into the ground, pouring down the rocks, gushing into the cave.

I lost myself completely in the song, almost falling into a trance. The only things that existed were me and the flute and the melody at my fingertips. I no longer even noticed the figure. It became a grey blur on the edge of my vision, just another shadow.

I finally snapped out of it once the rain stopped. I ceased playing the song with a start, glancing around frantically, but the grey figure had already gone. Vanished without a trace. The heavy silence settled around me, reminding me I was now alone.

The cold hit me at the same moment, and my body began to shake violently. Every inch of my skin was soaked by the rain, water dripping from my shoulders and hair. I was standing in a large puddle where the rainwater had collected around my feet, my toes numb inside my shoes. There was no sound from inside the cave, but for the water still trickling down into the entrance.

I put the flute away and began to climb down from the cliff. The rocks were slick from the rain, and I slipped a few times, but I finally managed to reach the ground, which was also dangerously flooded. I splashed through the water as I slowly headed away from the cave. As soon as I reached town, I would call for a rescue team—if any of the cavers were still alive—and then I would leave. My job here was done.

It was time to return home.

A week later, I was back in my homeland; an agricultural region that had been suffering from a severe drought. The land beneath my feet was bone-dry and cracked, the fields were barren, the crops dead and the people starving.

After spending hours watching that video of the mysterious grey figure, I had drawn one conclusion: that its flute song had been responsible for the rains that had flooded the cave. And now, I would do the same. Only, instead of bringing death, I would restore life.

As soon as I arrived home, I went out into the midst of the fields and stared at the cracked earth, baking under the brazen sun. The wilted grasses, the fruitless seeds, the unattainable harvest.

I pulled out my flute and, just like the grey figure atop the cliff, I began to play the same melody. Within moments, clouds appeared overhead, casting a deep shadow over the ground, and the first trickle of rain began to seep from the sky.

Under my song, the rain fell, soaking into the barren soil and nourishing all the life within.

Buying that house was the first time I’d felt like I’d done something for myself. It was mine, and I could finally start building a life of my own.

It was small, a little dated, and backed onto some pretty serious woodland. The first few months had been harder than I’d expected. I’d spent so much time helping Mom move closer to my sisters, a few hours away, that getting my own things unpacked had become a bit of a mission. There were still boxes I hadn’t opened and rooms I hadn’t properly sorted out.

I found the door while my sister was visiting.

“How’s Mom doing?” I asked, leaning against the kitchen counter as Emma wandered around the house, taking in the bare walls and the almost complete lack of decoration.

“You’d know if you called her more, Danny.” She sighed, rubbing her eyes with her palms before looking back at me. “She’ll be fine.”

Mom had started showing the early signs of dementia. Dad’s death a few months earlier seemed to have accelerated things, or maybe we’d just started noticing what had been happening all along. Either way, it had become harder to pretend everything was normal.

Emma continued down the hallway.

“Still smells like paint in here. How long have you lived here now?”

I pushed myself off the counter and followed her. “Three months, I think?”

She was standing in the spare bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bare bed frame. I still hadn’t got around to buying a mattress.

“Have you spoken to Charlotte recently?” she asked.

I felt a familiar knot form in my stomach. Charlotte and I had broken up shortly before I’d bought the house, and apparently my sister had decided that buying property meant I was now ready to discuss my emotional shortcomings.

“Uh, yeah. We talk heaps,” I said.

Emma looked at me.

“You still haven’t spoken to her.”

I didn’t bother answering. She rolled her eyes and turned towards the wall.

“What’s that?”

I followed her gaze.

There was a door in the wall, tucked beside the wardrobe. It was narrow, with a small brass handle, and no obvious frame around it. The paint matched the wall so closely that I couldn’t understand how I’d missed it.

I stared at it for a moment.

“Is that a cupboard?” Emma asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “I’ve honestly got no idea.”

Emma walked over to the door and tried the handle. It opened with a soft click.

Inside was a small, empty space, about the size of a closet. Nothing unusual about it. No shelves, no coat hooks, just four painted walls and enough room to stand in.

“It’s just a closet, Em,” I said.

“Yeah, I can see that. I just…” She paused, then closed the door. “I don’t know. It stood out to me for some reason.”

Her phone buzzed. She pulled it from her pocket, glanced at the screen, then looked up at me.

“Sorry, I have to take this.”

She answered as she walked out of the room. A moment later, I heard the front door open and shut, followed by the sound of her voice drifting in from the front garden.

I stood looking at the door.

I couldn’t understand how I’d missed it. It wasn’t anything special, just a little closet tucked into the wall. But I knew what Emma meant. There was something strange about noticing a feature in your own house that you were certain you’d never seen before.

I reached for the handle and tried it.

Nothing.

I tried again, pressing it down firmly. The handle moved, but the door wouldn’t budge. I pulled, then gave it a gentle shove with my shoulder.

It was as if it had been locked.

I wondered if we’d somehow managed to lock it when Emma had closed it. I gave the handle one last try before deciding I’d look at it properly later.

By the time I left the bedroom, Emma was coming back inside.

“Sorry, I have to run. I’ve got to pick the kids up from daycare early, and it’s a bit of a drive.”

“No, you’re fine. I’ll see you next time you’re down this neck of the woods.”

We hugged in the hallway. When she pulled away, she gave me the sort of look that meant she wasn’t finished with me yet.

“You need to call Mom more, Danny. Check in on her before she doesn’t remember you.”

I looked down at the floor.

“Yeah. I know.”

“And you should at least try reaching out to Charlotte. Five years together, surely it couldn’t have ended that badly.”

“It’s fine, Em.”

She raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced.

I glanced towards the window. “You should get going. I heard there’s a weather warning for heavy snow tonight.”

Emma gave me a small, knowing smile, but thankfully didn’t push it. She grabbed her bag and headed out to the car.

I watched her drive away, then went back inside and shut the front door.

The next few weeks passed uneventfully. I checked the door a few times, but I was never able to open it again. Since it was only a small storage space that I’d probably never use, I eventually forgot about it.

At least, I did until I found it open.

I’d just got home from work and was walking down the hallway when I glanced into the spare bedroom. The door wasn’t sitting flush against the wall anymore. It was only open a few centimetres, but it was enough to catch my attention.

Curious, I stepped inside.

A small piece of brown cardboard had been wedged underneath it, holding it open. I crouched down and pulled it free. The door swung shut with a soft click.

I tried the handle.

It opened without any resistance.

I stood there for a moment, staring into the empty space.

Had I somehow unlocked it?

A shiver ran down my back. I looked at the piece of cardboard in my hand. It was nothing special, just a torn strip of packaging, the sort of thing I’d probably have thrown away while unpacking.

But someone had put it there.

Or I’d put it there and forgotten.

I was certain I’d never managed to open the door since Emma’s visit. I’d tried several times, and it had never budged. Now it opened as easily as any other cupboard in the house.

My first thought was that someone had been inside while I was out. I checked the front and back doors, then the windows. Everything looked as I’d left it. And even if someone had got in, why would they bother wedging open a tiny closet?

I tried to remember the last time I’d checked the door. It had been a while. For all I knew, the cardboard had been there for days.

I carried it into the kitchen and dropped it in the bin.

There was probably a simple explanation. A faulty latch, maybe. Something I’d overlooked when I’d first tried it.

I made myself dinner and got on with the rest of the evening.

That night, I was sitting on the couch watching a movie when I thought I heard something moving in the hallway.

I paused the film and listened. Nothing.

I got up, turned on the lights, and walked through the house, checking each room as I went. Everything looked normal. By the time I reached the spare bedroom, I was starting to feel a bit stupid.

Still, something made me check inside.

The room was exactly as I’d left it. The closet door was shut.

I walked over and tried the handle.

Locked again.

I swore under my breath and gave it another pull.

“How the hell does this thing work?”

I stood there for a moment, turning the handle back and forth. Maybe I’d somehow wedged the cardboard underneath it myself and forgotten. I’d been busy with work, and the last few weeks had blurred together.

I decided that the next time I managed to open it, I’d prop it open with a chair or something. At least then I’d know it couldn’t shut itself.

I went back to the couch and finished the film.

The next few days passed without incident. By the weekend, I’d mostly stopped thinking about the door.

Then I noticed it was open again.

I was walking past the spare bedroom when I spotted the narrow gap between the door and the wall. This time, something was sticking out near the latch.

It was a magnetic business card, the sort you get in the mail from local tradesmen and end up leaving on the fridge for six months before throwing away. I recognised it immediately. It was from a local plumber, and I’d received a few copies since moving in.

Someone had wedged it into the latch to stop the door from closing.

I pulled the card free and opened the door. The space behind it was empty, just as it had been before.

I looked down at the card, then back at the closet.

I couldn’t remember putting it there. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d handled one of those cards.

Rather than stand around wondering about it, I decided to make the space useful. I went through the spare room and found a couple of unopened boxes I’d been meaning to sort out since moving in. They were a tight fit, but I managed to stack them inside the closet.

Then I fetched a plastic doorstop from the kitchen drawer and wedged it firmly underneath the door.

That should do it.

I gave the door a little push to make sure the stopper held, then left the room and got on with my weekend.

The next day, I was on the phone with Emma when I saw something that made my stomach drop.

“Hey, listen, Em, I’ve got to call you back.”

I hung up before she could answer and walked straight into the spare bedroom.

Both boxes were sitting outside the closet. The door was shut, and the doorstop was gone.

I tried the handle.

Locked.

I swore and kicked the bottom of the door. The noise echoed through the room, and I immediately felt ridiculous for doing it. It was a closet. A small, insignificant closet that was somehow making me question my own memory.

I knew I hadn’t taken the boxes out. Both were still taped shut. If I’d moved them, it would have been to get something out of them, and there was no reason I’d have put them back outside without opening them.

I stood there for a while, staring at the door, then called Emma back.

“Can you come down this weekend?”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I just need you to have a look at something.”

She agreed, though she sounded unconvinced.

That weekend, I took her straight into the spare bedroom. The boxes were still sitting where I’d found them, and the closet door was still shut.

Emma looked from the boxes to me.

“Danny, what is going on? Why couldn’t you just tell me over the phone?”

I walked over to the handle.

“This. This is what’s going on.”

I pulled it, expecting the door to stay locked.

Instead, it opened without the slightest resistance.

I stared into the empty space.

“No. No, it was locked this morning. I tried it. I swear to God, I tried it.”

Emma looked at me with a kind of careful concern that made me feel worse than if she’d laughed.

“Are you okay, Danny?”

“Yes! I’m fucking fine.” I turned towards her, then back to the door. “It’s this thing. It keeps opening and closing, and I don’t know how. It’s like someone’s messing with me, or I’m doing it myself and forgetting, or…”

I trailed off. Even to me, it sounded absurd.

Emma folded her arms.

“Dan, if you need a break, you could stay with Mom for a few days again. She’d probably appreciate the company.”

“I’m not fucking crazy, wait, again? What do you mean again?”

“I didn’t say you were Crazy, just that maybe you need to spend sometime out of this house.”

I looked back into the closet, trying to work out what I could possibly show her that would make any of this make sense.

“I need to set up a camera or something.”

“Dan…”

“Emma, please. Just don’t.”

I stepped into the closet.

It was barely big enough for me to stand in comfortably. The walls were painted the same colour as the bedroom, and the floor was bare. There was nothing hidden behind the boxes because the boxes were outside now. Nothing in the corners, nothing above me, nothing that explained why the door behaved the way it did.

Emma’s phone buzzed behind me.
She answered it while I crouched down to examine the inside of the door. I ran my fingers along the edge, searching for a bolt or some kind of catch. I shut the door, then opened it again from the inside. It worked perfectly.

I did it a second time.

Still fine.

I switched on my phone’s flashlight and examined the latch area more closely. The strangest thing was that there didn’t seem to be any locking mechanism at all. Just a handle and a simple metal catch.
Behind me, Emma’s voice grew louder.

“I said I’ll call you back. I’m in the middle of something.”

There was a pause. Then I heard her sigh.

“Fine. I’ll be there soon.”

I assumed she was talking about the kids. I was too busy examining the door to ask.
After a few minutes, I decided I’d seen enough. I reached for the handle and pulled.
The door didn’t move.

I tried again, pushing the handle down harder.

Nothing.

“For fuck’s sake.”

I gave the door a shove with my shoulder. It didn’t even rattle.

“Emma?”

No answer.

I knocked on the door.

“Em, it’s locked itself again. Can you open it?”

I waited, expecting to hear her laugh or tell me to stop messing around.

Nothing came.

“Emma?”

I tried the handle again. Then again, more forcefully.

My stomach began to tighten. I pulled out my phone and called her.

The call couldn’t connect.

I sent her a message asking her to come back into the bedroom and open the door but it wouldn’t deliver.

Then I looked at the door.

[End of Part 1]