At the time, I was staying at my cousin's house.
The house was fairly large, but since there were only the two of us that night, it felt much lonelier than usual.
We slept on the second floor.
There were several bedrooms up there, but I was the only one using mine. My cousin slept in the room right next to it.
Before going to sleep, we still spent quite a while talking. Around eleven that night, my cousin finally went into their room.
“I'm going to bed first, okay?”
“Yeah.”
I turned off the light and tried to sleep.
I had no idea how long I'd been asleep when I heard footsteps coming from the hallway.
Tap... tap... tap...
I opened my eyes. At first, I thought my cousin had come out of their room. The footsteps stopped right in front of my door.
I waited for someone to knock.
Nothing.
A few seconds later, I heard the doorknob move, but the door didn't actually open.
I immediately sat up in bed.
“Who is it?”
There was no answer.
I waited for a while, and then I heard those footsteps again.
This time, they were moving away.
Tap... tap... tap...
I eventually assumed my cousin had only gone to the bathroom.
I lay back down. A few minutes later, I heard the same sound.
Footsteps approached my room from the end of the hallway, stopped in front of the door, then moved away again.
I started to feel uneasy. I picked up my phone and checked the time.
02:13 a.m.
I thought about going outside to see who was walking around in the middle of the night like that. But my laziness won out over my curiosity.
I decided to stay in bed. Not long after, I heard a knock.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Three times.
I immediately turned toward the door.
“Who is it?”
There was no answer.
I waited.
Then I heard my cousin's voice from the other side of the door.
“Open up.”
I furrowed my brow.
It sounded like my cousin, but something about it felt strange.
“Why?” I asked.
There was no answer.
“Why?” I asked again.
This time, the voice sounded quieter.
“Open the door.”
I started getting out of bed.
My hand was almost touching the doorknob when suddenly I heard a voice from the room next door.
“Don't open it.”
I froze. It was my cousin's voice.
Coming from their room.
I stared at the door, then at the wall separating our rooms.
“Why?”
My cousin answered from inside their room.
“I've been in here the whole time.”
I didn't move. The room suddenly became completely silent. The voice from behind my door had also stopped. A few seconds later, I heard my cousin's bedroom door open, and then they came into the room I was staying in.
They looked sleepy.
“Did you hear the knocking?”
I nodded, and my cousin looked toward my door.
“You almost opened it?”
“Yeah.”
They were silent for a moment, then said,
“Never open the door if someone knocks in the middle of the night.”
I asked why.
They didn't answer.
In the end, we decided to sleep in the living room until morning.
The next day, I learned something.
My cousin told me that the room I was staying in hadn't been used for a long time.
Not because it was damaged.
Not because it was uncomfortable.
But because several years earlier, someone had lived in that room, and after that person died, their family had never used it for sleeping again.
I asked why they were only telling me now.
My cousin simply replied,
“If I'd told you from the start, you wouldn't have wanted to sleep in there.”
I let out a small laugh. I thought they might just be joking. Until I finally noticed something in front of that room's door.
A small room number was mounted on the wall.
“4”
I had never noticed it before, and even now, there's one thing I still don't know.
That night, if my cousin really had been in their room from the beginning...
who was standing in front of my door, asking me to open it?