Chapter 1: Three Taps at Midnight

Chapter 1: Three Taps at Midnight

The Blackwood wasn’t a choice; it was a surrender. It stood on the corner of a forgotten street, a Victorian-era carcass of dark brick and wrought-iron flourishes that looked like skeletal fingers clutching at the sky. For Willow Hayes, whose entire life was currently crammed into the back of her wheezing 2008 sedan, it was also the only place in the city that had said “yes.”

Yes to her shaky job history. Yes to her non-existent credit score, obliterated by student loans for a degree she never finished. Yes to a security deposit that was, frankly, insulting in its affordability.

“Fourth floor. Apartment 4B,” Mr. Petrov, the building manager, had rasped, his breath smelling of stale coffee and something faintly chemical. He was a man made of sharp angles and ill-fitting polyester, whose smile never quite reached his eyes. “Elevator’s… temperamental. Best to take the stairs.”

Willow had nodded, clutching her keys. The lobby was grand in a decaying sort of way, with a vaulted ceiling from which dust motes danced like ghosts in the slivers of afternoon light. The air was thick with the cloying scent of lemon polish failing to mask a deeper, older smell of damp and decay. It was the smell of secrets.

But desperation was a powerful anesthetic. It numbed the primal part of her brain that screamed run. The part that noticed the unnerving stillness, the sepulchral silence that seemed to swallow sound. The part that saw how the ornate wallpaper, a pattern of dark, swirling flowers, seemed to peel in places to reveal something black and slick underneath.

Her breakup had been a spectacular flameout, leaving her couch-surfing until her friends’ patience wore thin. Her family, after a series of static-filled phone calls about her “lack of direction,” had retreated into a disapproving silence. Her job, a mind-numbing data-entry position, paid just enough to cover cheap ramen and gas. So, the Blackwood, with its disturbingly low rent, was not a red flag. It was a lifeline.

Apartment 4B was small, but it was hers. A living room that bled into a tiny kitchen, a bathroom with a faucet that dripped with rhythmic persistence, and a bedroom with a single, large window overlooking the building’s rear. It was a sheer drop—four stories of stained brick, no fire escape, no ledges, no trees close enough to brush against the glass. Just an abrupt fall to a grimy alley below.

The first day was a blur of hauling boxes, of sweat and aching muscles. She set up her drawing tablet and her worn sketchbook on a rickety card table—her one sacred space. The exhaustion that settled over her was profound, a heavy blanket that promised dreamless sleep. She collapsed into her sleeping bag on the floor, too tired to even assemble her bed frame, and was out before her head hit the pillow.

The first time it happened, she thought it was part of a dream.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A light, distinct sound. Like a single fingernail striking glass.

Willow’s eyes fluttered open. The room was bathed in the sickly orange glow of a distant streetlamp. She lay perfectly still, her heart a slow, heavy drum in her chest. The digital clock on her phone read 12:00 AM. Midnight, on the dot.

She listened. The only sound was the drip-drip-drip from the bathroom. She must have imagined it. The stress of the move, the unfamiliar building… her mind was playing tricks. It had happened before, during the worst of her anxiety spirals after dropping out of college. Shadows that writhed in her peripheral vision, whispers that evaporated when she tried to focus on them. Her therapist had called them stress-induced hallucinations. She called them the first crack in the thin ice of her sanity.

Shaking it off, she rolled over, pulling the sleeping bag tighter around her shoulders. It was nothing.

The next night, after a grueling day of unpacking and organizing, she felt a sliver of hope. The apartment was starting to look less like a crime scene and more like a home. Her sketches were pinned to the wall, her clothes were in the closet, and she’d even bought a small, cheerful-looking succulent. This was a new start. A real one.

She fell asleep with a sense of cautious optimism.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

This time, she was instantly awake. Her eyes shot open, locking on the window. The sound was clearer, more deliberate. It was sharp, precise, and undeniably real. It came directly from the large pane of glass.

12:00 AM.

A cold dread, slick and oily, slid down her spine. She sat up slowly, every muscle tensed. Who? What? A bird? At midnight? A branch? She’d already checked; there were no trees.

Her feet were silent on the bare wooden floor as she crept towards the window. Her breath hitched in her throat. The old, familiar serpent of doubt coiled in her gut. You’re just stressed. You’re overtired. This isn’t real.

But it felt real. The sound had been as clear as the dripping faucet.

She reached the window, her hand hovering over the grimy glass. The air beside it was frigid. With a surge of desperate courage, she peered outside.

Nothing.

Just the sheer, unbroken expanse of dark brick plunging into the blackness of the alley. No scaffolding. No ladder. No ledge wide enough for a mouse. Above, there was only the indifferent, starless sky. There was absolutely nothing out there that could be making that sound.

She stumbled back, a gasp escaping her lips. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She spent the rest of the night huddled in her sleeping bag, her back pressed against the wall furthest from the window, watching the glass as if a face might materialize at any moment.

The third night was the worst. She tried to stay awake, fueled by cheap coffee, her sketchbook open on her lap. But she couldn’t focus. Her pencil strokes were jagged and angry. Every creak of the old building was an approaching footstep. Every groan of the pipes was a low moan. The silence was heavier than ever, pressing in on her, thick and suffocating.

Despite her best efforts, her eyelids grew heavy. Her head drooped, and she drifted into a shallow, uneasy doze.

She was jolted awake not by the sound itself, but by the sudden absence of it. She knew, with a certainty that defied logic, that it had just happened. Her phone screen lit up the darkness: 12:00 AM.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

It came again, as if on cue. Patient. Persistent.

This time, Willow didn’t move. She didn’t look. She squeezed her eyes shut, hot tears leaking from the corners. It wasn’t a branch. It wasn’t an animal. It wasn’t a hallucination. A hallucination wouldn’t be so punctual.

The sound was an intelligent thing. It was a knock on the door of her sanity. It was a question.

Four floors up. A sheer brick wall. Midnight.

Something was out there. Perched in the empty air, just beyond the glass.

Willow pressed herself against the cold plaster of the wall, making herself as small as possible. The tapping had stopped, but she could still feel it, a phantom vibration against her skin. It wasn't an aggressive sound. It wasn't a threat. It was something far more unnerving. It was an introduction. A greeting.

And it was waiting for her to answer.