On a night during Ghost Month, the air in the city was hot and heavy, clinging to the old housing compound like a layer of invisible fog. This run-down apartment building had been constructed in the nineties, its gray plaster walls peeling away in large patches like mottled scars. The damp, moldy smell of green moss mingled with the stench of garbage piled up in the shared courtyard, creating a distinctive odor so suffocating it was hard to breathe.
Lam An sat before his flickering computer screen, its blue light shining directly onto his haggard face and dark circles from too many sleepless nights. His fingers hammered continuously at the keyboard, the clicking sounds echoing steadily through the late-night silence—so quiet it was frightening. He was trying to finish a design report for a client before the deadline the next morning. Freelance life in this expensive city had never been easy.
Exactly 2:59 A.M.
A soft click came from the main circuit breaker out in the hallway. The entire room was instantly plunged into pitch darkness. The ceiling fan, which had been whirring overhead, gradually slowed and came to a complete stop. The faint streetlight filtering through the small window went out as well. The whole housing compound fell into an undefined void, pitch-black and utterly silent.
An let out a weary sigh, took off his glasses, and rubbed his head in frustration. The cramped fifteen-square-meter rental room at the end of the fourth floor had already been gloomy enough; now that the power was out, it felt even more stifling and hopeless. He braced one hand against the desk and stood up, intending to step onto the balcony for some fresh air. Reaching for the phone lying in the corner of the desk, he turned on the flashlight. A white beam spilled from the camera, illuminating a long streak and making the dust motes floating in the air stand out.
Knock... knock... knock...
The sound of knocking rang out. Dry and muffled, it abruptly cut through the stillness of the dark night.
An froze halfway across the room, one foot suspended over the icy patterned-tile floor. It was already three in the morning. Everyone in the housing compound—from the elderly who rose early to the students who stayed up late—should have been fast asleep by now. His room was tucked into the most secluded corner of the narrow hallway, where hardly anyone ever passed by, let alone at this hour between midnight and dawn.
“Who is it?” An called out, his voice hoarse and gravelly from working nonstop for hours and not drinking enough water.
There was no answer. Only the summer wind slipping through the window cracks, whistling softly like someone whispering through clenched teeth.
An clicked his tongue, figuring it was probably some kid who had come home late from playing outside and knocked on the wrong door, or a drunk who had wandered onto the wrong floor. He walked slowly toward the entrance, still gripping the glowing phone. But the moment his palm lightly touched the freezing iron lock, a wave of cold suddenly rushed through the gap beneath the door and brushed against his skin.
This was not the chill of air-conditioning or a fresh breeze. It was spirit-cold, carrying the reek of wet earth and old blood. Gooseflesh erupted across An’s body, and it felt as though an electric current ran up his spine all the way to the crown of his head.
Knock... knock... knock...
This time, the knocking was slower, its echo much heavier. It did not sound like fingers tapping. It was more like whoever stood outside had pressed an entire hand against the rotten wooden door and slammed it hard.
A powerful sense of unease surged through him. An leaned toward the small round peephole in the wooden door.
The hallway outside was pitch-black. When the light from his phone’s flashlight shone through the peephole, it seemed to be swallowed by a dense wall of darkness, unable to pass through. Yet in the narrow space directly outside the door, An could still see an unnaturally tall, thin figure. It wore a white raincoat gone the dingy color of watered-down porridge, covered in clinging black mud and dark reddish-brown stains. The shadow stood motionless as a stone pillar, its head bowed so low that its chin seemed pressed against its chest.
“Hey... Who are you? I’m calling neighborhood security right now!” An shouted threateningly, forcing his voice to sound firm to conceal the trembling rising in his chest.
The figure outside shifted. Slowly, ever so slowly, it raised its head.
An’s heart seemed to skip a beat, and his entire body went rigid. Beneath the dim light leaking through the peephole, the figure... had no face at all. Where its eyes, nose, and mouth should have been was only a flat expanse of pallid skin, crisscrossed with rough black stitches that writhed like centipedes crawling across its face.
Crack!
A sharp pain, like thousands of needles stabbing both his eyeballs at once, shot through An’s eyes, and he let out a scream of agony. He fell backward onto the floor, his back slamming into the corner of the wooden desk. His phone flew away, spun several times across the floor, and went completely dark.
The room was plunged into absolute darkness once more. An clutched both eyes, the agony tearing through him as though it would rip his eyeballs apart, and roared in anguish. The freezing air from moments earlier flooded the entire room, growing so dense that he could no longer breathe. An clearly felt countless icy, slimy hands reaching out from the darkness, tightening around his throat and dragging him down onto the freezing floor.
In a hazy state between life and death, An heard a voice whispering right beside his ear. It was flat and devoid of emotion, sounding at once like an old man’s voice and a woman’s whisper:
“It’s time to pay your debt...”
When An opened his eyes, the harsh sunlight of a summer morning was streaming through the window and spilling across the dirty tile floor. The room had returned to its usual state, while the roar of motorbikes from the main road outside filled the air with lively noise. The excruciating eye pain from the night before had vanished completely, as though it had all been nothing more than a terrible nightmare caused by staying up too late and overworking.
An wearily pushed himself upright, his head spinning. He dragged himself into the cramped bathroom to wash his face and wake up.
But when he splashed water onto his face and lifted his head to look into the mirror hanging on the wall, An froze in shock.
His haggard face was reflected in the mirror. But there was one difference—the eyes. The pupil of An’s left eye was no longer its familiar black. It had turned a strange ash-gray, dark and unfathomably deep, like a bottomless pit.
And before An could even begin to understand what was happening to his body, a figure was clearly reflected in the corner of the mirror behind him: a woman in white, her long, disheveled hair spilling over her shoulders, leaning close with her chin resting on his shoulder and smiling... A smile that sent a chill of terror through him.