I’ve always considered myself a rational person. I don’t scare easily and I’ve never been one to indulge in ghost stories. That was until the incident with Apartment 404 in my building. It was supposed to be empty. It had been for months, ever since Mrs. Eldridge passed away. But one night changed everything I believed about the world.
It started with a message. My phone pinged with a notification from an app I didn’t remember installing. It was called “Echoes” and the message was simply a set of coordinates and a time. Curiosity got the better of me, and I realized the coordinates led to Apartment 404, right at midnight.
I thought it was a prank, some twisted game orchestrated by a neighbor I hadn’t yet met. Still, something pulled at me, an inexplicable urge to go. So, I did. The door to 404 was slightly ajar, which was odd given that the landlord swore he’d locked it up tight after clearing out Mrs. Eldridge’s things.
The apartment was dark, colder than the hallway outside, and filled with an uneasy silence. My phone vibrated in my hand, another message from “Echoes”: “Welcome. She’s waiting.” Chills ran down my spine, but before I could retreat, the door slammed shut behind me.
I called out, half expecting an answer, but was met with silence. My phone lit up again, guiding me through the apartment with a breadcrumb trail of messages, leading me to the living room. What I found there made my blood run cold.
A phone lay on the floor, its screen glowing with a video call. On the screen was Mrs. Eldridge, or rather, someone who looked exactly like her. She smiled, a twisted grin that didn’t reach her eyes. “Thank you for joining us,” she said, her voice a whisper that filled the room. “Now, we can finally begin.”
The call ended, and the phone vanished before my eyes, leaving no trace it had ever been there. I tried to leave, but the door wouldn’t budge. Messages kept appearing on my phone, each more menacing than the last, telling me I was chosen, that I couldn’t leave until “the game” was over.
Hours passed, or at least it felt like hours. The room shifted around me, walls closing in, then expanding, furniture moving on its own. Whispers filled the air, voices I couldn’t quite make out, speaking in languages I didn’t understand.
Finally, as suddenly as it all began, it stopped. The door swung open, and I stumbled out into the hallway, the early morning light blinding me. I looked back, but the door to Apartment 404 was closed, as if it had never been opened.
I moved out the next week, but I still receive messages from “Echoes,” each a reminder of that night. I’ve tried deleting the app, throwing away my phone, even getting a new number, but it doesn’t matter. The messages find me, always with the same ominous words: “She’s still waiting.”
I’m sharing my story here, in the hope that someone might understand what happened, that maybe, just maybe, I’m not alone in this. Because I know one thing for certain: Apartment 404 is not empty, and whatever resides within it, it’s far from human.