The Mirror That Watched

In the third month after Marcus moved into the old city’s tube-shaped building, he began to hear someone breathing inside the walls.

At first, he thought it was幻听 from work stress. As art director at a gaming company, pulling all-nighters to revise proposals had become routine. But he soon ruled that out—the sound was too rhythmic, occurring every twelve seconds or so, like some kind of pendulum, precise and unsettling. Occasionally it would be accompanied by a subtle bone-crackling sound, like something hard was being crushed.

On the first rainy day of the fourth month, at 2 AM, he pressed his ear against the cold hallway wall. The sound became clearer—not simple breathing anymore, but words. A conversation happening on the other side of the wall, in a language he couldn’t identify.

He grabbed his phone to record. When he played it back, the recording captured only silence.

But in the silence, if he listened closely enough, he could hear his own voice saying words he hadn’t spoken yet.

“Tonight,” his future voice was saying, “you’re going to open the wall. And you’re going to find her.”

The wall had no door. He checked every inch.

But behind one specific spot, the breathing stopped. And then, a knock. Three times.

The same rhythm as his doorbell.