The Figure at the Window

Lin Wan first noticed the door when she thought the building’s designer had gone mad. Her apartment was an old 90s building, six units per floor, the corridor ending at the fire escape—an iron door welded shut, its paint peeling like age spots, never used by anyone.

But that night, coming home from overtime work, standing in the hallway fumbling for her keys, she clearly heard a cough from behind the door.

Not an echo. Not a rat. A clear human cough, low and wet, as if someone spoke with water in their throat.

Lin Wan’s keys fell to the floor.

She bent down slowly to pick them up, eyes locked on the iron door. From beneath the door’s edge, a faint light flickered.

She didn’t sleep that night. Or the next. Every night at 3 AM, she would hear it—the cough, then footsteps, then silence.

On the seventh night, she pressed her ear to the wall. The sound was clearer now—not simple coughing but words. A conversation. Two voices, speaking in a language she didn’t recognize.

One voice said: “Is it time?”

The other said: “Almost. When she finally sees.”

Lin Wan moved out the next day. She told the landlord it was because of the noise.

She didn’t tell him what she’d finally seen.

On her last night, looking back at the building from the street, she saw a figure in the window of her old apartment. Standing. Watching. Waving.

The figure looked exactly like her.