Chapter 4: The Locked Door

Chapter 4: The Locked Door

The question hung in the stale, flickering air of the hallway, sharp and precise. "So, are you ever going to open your blinds?"

Trevor’s mind went into a catastrophic freefall. She knew. She’d seen him watching. No, worse—she’d noticed him hiding. The accidental Instagram like from the night before flashed in his mind, a glowing red beacon of his guilt. He was a creep, a stalker, cornered outside his own door by the object of his pathetic obsession. His throat closed up, the carton of milk in his grocery bag suddenly feeling as heavy as a block of cement.

“I… uh…” he stammered, his gaze darting from her piercing emerald eyes to the scuffed linoleum floor. He could feel the heat rising in his neck, a desperate flush of shame. “The glare. On my monitors. It’s bad.”

It was the lamest excuse he could have possibly conceived, and they both knew it.

A strange, slow smile spread across Anna’s lips. It wasn’t mocking. It was… curious. Analytical. Like he was a particularly interesting beetle she’d found on the pavement. She shifted the weight of her sketchbook in her arms.

“Right. The glare,” she said, her voice soft but carrying an edge of amusement. “I’m an artist. I work with light and shadow. I notice things. And your window is a perfect square of pitch black, all day, all night. It’s like a hole in the building. I was starting to wonder if anyone actually lived there.”

Her directness was disarming. He was so used to hiding, to living behind screens and drawn blinds, that being seen so clearly felt like a physical shock.

“I’m… mostly up at night,” he managed to say, the words feeling thick and clumsy.

“A creature of the dark,” she mused, more to herself than to him. Her eyes held his, and for the first time, he saw not accusation, but a flicker of something else. Empathy? Recognition? “I get it. Some of the most interesting things happen when the sun goes down.”

The tension in Trevor’s shoulders eased by a fraction of an inch. This wasn't the confrontation he had dreaded. It was something else entirely, something he couldn't begin to process.

“I work part-time at The Daily Grind, the coffee shop just off campus,” she said suddenly, shifting her sketchbook to her other hip. “I have the morning shift tomorrow. You look like you could use a real coffee.”

Trevor stared at her, dumbfounded. Was this… an invitation? Was this real? A lifeline thrown into the churning sea of his paranoia. The possibility of a normal human interaction, of a connection that didn’t involve a one-way screen, was so overwhelming it almost brought him to his knees.

“Yeah,” he breathed, the word coming out with more relief than he intended. “Yeah, I… I’d like that.”

“Cool,” she said with a final, genuine smile that lit up her face. “See you around, creature of the dark.”

And with that, she turned and walked down the hall to her own apartment, her footsteps echoing softly before the click of her door sealed the silence.

Trevor stood frozen for a full minute, his heart doing a frantic, joyful stutter-step in his chest. He felt light, buoyant. The crushing weight of the eye in the wall, the story of the asylum, the name wx11flow3r_75—it all receded, pushed back by the blindingly bright possibility of a cup of coffee. He let out a shaky laugh, a sound of pure, unadulterated relief.

Feeling more hopeful than he had in months, he turned back to his door, a real smile on his face for the first time in weeks. He slid the key into the lock.

It stopped, hitting solid resistance halfway in.

He jiggled it. Nothing. He pulled it out, checked to make sure it was the right key—it was the only one on the ring—and tried again. It wouldn't go. It was like the inside of the lock was filled with cement.

The euphoria drained out of him as quickly as it had come, replaced by a creeping, familiar cold.

“No, no, no,” he muttered, his voice tight with frustration. He pushed harder, rattling the doorknob with his other hand. The door was solid, immovable. He pressed his ear against the wood, listening. Silence. The heavy, listening silence he knew so well.

This was impossible. He’d just left ten minutes ago. The lock had worked perfectly fine. He tried again and again, his movements growing more frantic until he was practically slamming his shoulder against the door, the cheap grocery bag splitting and sending the carton of milk crashing to the floor with a wet smack.

Defeated, he slid down the wall, his head in his hands. He was locked out. The one place he was terrified of, the place that was supposed to be his sanctuary, was now physically rejecting him. Humiliation warred with a rising tide of terror. He pulled out his phone, his thumb shaking as he looked up the building’s emergency maintenance number.

It took forty-five agonizing minutes for the maintenance man to arrive. He was a portly, grumpy man named Sal, with a tool belt that hung low on his hips and a weary expression that suggested he’d seen everything.

“Alright, what’s the problem?” he grunted, not bothering with a greeting.

“My key won’t work,” Trevor said, his voice small. “It was fine when I left, but now it’s just… stuck.”

Sal sighed heavily, as if Trevor’s predicament was a personal affront. “Let me guess,” he said, looking at the number on the door. “3B. Figures.”

Trevor’s blood went cold, remembering Gary's story from the convenience store. "What's wrong with 3B?"

Sal pulled a massive ring of keys from his belt. "Nothing, if you don't mind calls at 2 a.m. The last kid in here, the spackle kid, was always calling me. Said his locks were jamming, his windows were sticking. Anything to get someone to come over." Sal shook his head. "He was a weird one. Always talking nonsense about things in the walls. Wallflowers, he called 'em. Kept buying tubs of plaster, trying to patch up holes that weren't there."

The word hit Trevor like a punch to the gut. Wallflowers. It was the second time he’d heard it tonight. It wasn't just a story. It was real.

Sal jammed a master key into the lock. It met the same resistance. "Huh," he grunted, surprised. He pushed harder, wiggling it with a practiced motion. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a loud, metallic thunk, the mechanism gave way. The door swung inward a few inches, opening into the absolute darkness of the apartment beyond.

A draft of cold, stale air washed over Trevor.

"There," Sal said, pulling his key out. He looked at the lock, then at Trevor, his expression a mixture of annoyance and confusion. "Problem wasn't your key, kid."

He reached out and pushed the door fully open, pointing a thick finger at the inside of the door.

"The deadbolt was thrown," he said, his voice flat. "From the inside. You must've hit it by accident on your way out."

Sal turned and started trudging back down the hallway, muttering about overtime and idiot students.

But Trevor didn't hear him. He was frozen in the doorway, staring at the small, brass knob of the deadbolt. It was fully extended, securely in the locked position.

It was a lock that could only be turned by a hand. A hand that had to have been on the inside of the door.

Someone, or something, had been in his apartment just moments ago. It had listened to his entire conversation with Anna. It had waited for him to leave. And then, from within the suffocating darkness of his own home, it had locked the door behind him.