The Last Phone Call

The third day after Marcus moved into this old apartment, he began hearing sounds inside the walls. Not the muffled gurgling of aging pipes, not the thumping of children running upstairs—this was something more rhythmic, like fingers tapping on the back of the drywall. One. Two. One. Two.

The first day, he dismissed it as neighbors doing crafts. The second night, it returned, positioned precisely in the wall behind his bed. He pressed his ear against the wall. The sound stopped abruptly, as if the person on the other side was holding their breath, waiting for him to approach. He jerked back.

On the fourth night, his phone rang at 3 AM. Unknown number.

He answered. Silence. Then a voice—his father’s voice, dead for ten years—said: “Son, you need to leave that apartment.”

“I don’t understand—”

“The walls aren’t walls. They’re doors. And you just found the handle.”

The line went dead.

Marcus looked at his wall. In the darkness, the paint seemed to shimmer. And then he noticed it—a hairline crack. Expanding.

Opening.