The afternoon sky hung gray when Arga set down his battered suitcase in front of an old boarding house on the edge of town. The two-story building stood between rows of rain trees that seemed deliberately placed to block out the sun. Paint peeled from the walls, the iron fence had gone to rust, and nearly every window was sealed tight behind dingy curtains.
"Any rooms available?" Arga asked an old woman who was sweeping the yard.
She lifted her head slowly. Her face was a map of wrinkles, but her eyes were far too sharp for someone her age.
"Room 17."
"That's it?"
She nodded.
"Cheap?"
"Cheap."
Arga gave a thin smile. He needed cheap. He'd lost his job a few weeks back, and his savings were nearly gone while the search for new work had proven harder than he'd imagined.
Without asking much else, he accepted the black key she offered. It was cold to the touch.
"Any house rules?"
The old woman stopped sweeping.
"At night… don't open the door if someone knocks."
Arga let out a small laugh.
"Kids messing around?"
She didn't answer. She just went back to sweeping, as if the question had never been asked.
The hallway leading to Room 17 felt colder than the rest of the boarding house. The light was dim. The smell of old wood and damp filled the air.
The room itself was bare. An iron bed frame, a small desk, an old wardrobe, and a tall mirror standing in the corner.
Strange.
The mirror looked far newer than everything else in the room.
Arga shrugged.
"Probably left by the last tenant."
The first night passed without incident.
But at exactly 2:17 in the dead of night—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Someone was at the door.
Arga opened his eyes slowly.
Probably another tenant.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The knocking was soft. Unhurried. Not loud. As if whoever was outside already knew the tenant inside would wake up.
Arga remembered what the old woman had said that afternoon.
"Don't open the door."
He laughed quietly to himself.
Right.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Hey…"
A woman's voice. Soft. Low.
"Please…"
Arga sat up on the edge of the bed.
Maybe a tenant in trouble.
He walked to the door. His hand was almost on the handle when his eyes caught a shadow beneath the gap at the bottom.
A pair of feet. Motionless. Just standing there.
Arga drew a breath.
"Who's there?"
No answer.
Five seconds. Ten seconds.
Then the voice came again.
"Hey…" "What is it?" "Please open up…"
For no reason he could name, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. The woman's voice sounded wrong. Not the tone of it—but the way each word seemed to come from a different distance. Close one moment, far the next, then suddenly a whisper right behind his ear.
Arga peered through the peephole.
Empty. No one there.
But the shadow of those feet was still clearly visible beneath the door.
He stepped back two paces.
Impossible. If no one was there, whose shadow was it?
Slowly, the shadow moved. Not away. But closer.
As if something was crawling toward the gap under the door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Now the knocking was coming from inside the room.
Arga went still.
The sound was no longer at the door. It was coming from behind the old wardrobe.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
With trembling hands, he pulled the wardrobe open.
Empty. Nothing there.
He let out a breath of relief—and the knocking moved again.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
This time from behind the mirror.
Arga turned.
His reflection was still standing there.
But something was wrong.
It wasn't following his movements.
Arga swallowed.
He raised his right hand.
The reflection stayed still.
A few seconds passed.
Then the reflection smiled.
Arga's face did not.
Slowly, the figure inside the mirror raised one finger and pressed it to its own lips.
"Quiet."
Arga screamed and slammed his fist into the mirror as hard as he could.
Crack!
Fractures spread in every direction.
But the reflection inside the mirror remained whole.
What shattered was Arga's own face.
The cracks appeared not in the glass— but on the skin of his face inside the reflection.
From behind those cracks, something began to open its eyes.
And those eyes were not Arga's.