I held my breath.
My hand was still hovering a few inches from the doorknob. For some reason, after hearing that voice, my entire body seemed to lose the courage I’d been forcing myself to hold on to.
A woman’s voice.
The same voice.
The voice I’d heard last night.
“Open it.”
Just one word.
Yet somehow, those two syllables felt like an order I wasn’t supposed to refuse.
I swallowed.
“Who is it?”
There was no answer.
I waited.
One second.
Two seconds.
Five seconds.
Then came a knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Soft.
Steady.
As if someone on the other side of the door was making sure I was still standing there.
I took a step back.
“Who is it?” I asked again, this time in a quieter voice.
“Open it.”
The voice came again.
I recognized it.
I was sure of it.
It was exactly the same as the voice I’d heard last night when I saw that woman standing at the end of the hallway.
But something about it made me even more afraid.
The voice wasn’t coming from behind the door.
It sounded like it was coming from inside my head.
I closed my eyes.
No.
I had to be nothing more than exhausted.
Maybe I’d thought about what happened too much since last night, until my brain had started playing tricks on me.
I tried to convince myself of that.
But when I opened my eyes, I saw something that made my entire body tense up again.
The doorknob was moving.
Slowly.
Up.
Down.
Up again.
As if someone on the other side was trying to open it.
I quickly backed away.
“Don’t…”
The word slipped from my mouth.
The doorknob stopped moving.
Silence.
I waited.
Nothing happened.
Then I heard the woman’s voice again.
“Why won’t you open it?”
I froze.
I didn’t answer.
“Don’t you want to know who I am?”
My chest felt tight.
Those words sent my thoughts spinning.
It was true.
I wanted to know.
Since last night, one question had kept haunting me.
Who was that woman?
Why had she appeared at the school?
Why had she stared at me?
And why did her voice sound so familiar?
I stepped toward the door.
One step.
Then another.
I didn’t know why my feet were moving on their own.
Maybe it was curiosity.
Maybe I wanted everything to end.
Or maybe I’d been trapped in something I didn’t understand from the very beginning.
I stood right in front of the door.
My hand rose again.
But before I could touch the doorknob, the voice whispered,
“Don’t be afraid.”
I fell silent.
That sentence should have calmed me down.
But instead, it had the opposite effect.
Because after the whisper, I heard another voice.
Much quieter.
A voice that sounded like someone crying.
“Don’t open it…”
I flinched.
I immediately pulled my hand back.
The voice was different.
It wasn’t the woman’s voice—the one that had been telling me to open the door.
The second voice sounded like someone trying to warn me.
“Don’t open it…”
I backed away.
“Who are you?”
There was no answer.
I waited several seconds.
Then the first voice spoke again.
“Don’t listen to her.”
I stared at the door.
“She’s lying.”
I grew even more confused.
“Who’s lying?”
Silence.
Then came a small laugh.
A woman’s laugh.
It wasn’t a happy laugh.
It sounded empty.
Cold.
And for some reason, very close.
I turned around.
There was no one there.
But when I looked back at the door, something had changed.
A shadow was visible beneath the door.
The shadow of someone standing right in front of it.
I held my breath.
Two feet.
Someone really was there.
I wanted to scream.
But my body wouldn’t move.
The shadow didn’t move either.
We simply stood still on opposite sides of the door.
Then, slowly, the shadow crouched down.
I saw something emerge from beneath the door.
A hand.
Its fingers were long.
Far too pale.
The hand moved slowly across the floor, as if searching for something.
I immediately backed away until my back slammed into the wall.
“No…”
The hand stopped.
Then came a whisper.
“I know you’re in there.”
I covered my own mouth to keep from screaming.
I wanted to run.
But where could I go?
I was in a room I didn’t even recognize.
The door was the only way out.
And now, something was standing right behind it.
I looked around.
There were no windows.
No other doors.
Only an old wardrobe in the corner, a small table, and several chairs covered with white cloth.
Wait.
The wardrobe.
I suddenly remembered something.
Last night, before I saw the woman, I’d heard knocking from inside a wardrobe.
I stared at the old wardrobe.
Its door was slightly open.
Even though I was sure it had been closed before.
I swallowed.
“That’s impossible…”
A sound came from inside the wardrobe.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I froze.
The same knocking.
Exactly like the sound from behind the door.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I looked at the door.
Then at the wardrobe.
Two sounds.
Two places.
But the knocking was the same.
I didn’t know which one I should approach.
Then suddenly—
Crash!
The door in front of me swung open by itself.
I screamed and stumbled backward.
The hallway outside was empty.
There was no one there.
No woman.
No shadow.
I stared down the hallway, breathing hard.
Then something fell right in front of my feet.
A small object.
I looked down.
A photograph.
I picked it up with trembling hands.
The photograph looked old, its colors already faded.
There were several female students in it.
They were standing in front of a school building.
I studied their faces one by one.
Until finally, my eyes stopped on someone in the very back row.
A woman.
Her hair covered part of her face.
But I recognized her gaze.
I’d seen those eyes before.
Last night.
I turned the photograph over.
There was handwriting on the back.
The writing was almost faded away.
But I could still read it.
“Don’t let her come back.”
I frowned.
Who was “her”?
And why had this photograph been given to me?
Suddenly, I heard footsteps coming from inside the room.
I turned around.
The old wardrobe was now wide open.
It was dark inside.
Completely dark.
Then the woman’s voice came from within it.
“Now you know.”
I didn’t move.
“Know what?”
Silence.
Then the voice answered,
“Why you’re here.”
I slowly shook my head.
“I don’t understand.”
A small laugh rang out.
“Not yet.”
I backed toward the hallway.
“What do you mean?”
There was no answer.
I started running.
I didn’t care which way I was going.
I just wanted to get away from that room.
But after only a few steps, I stopped.
The hallway, which had been empty moments ago, was now filled with sounds.
Footsteps.
Many of them.
From ahead.
From behind.
From the sides.
As if countless people were walking together, yet not one of them was visible.
I clutched the photograph tightly.
Then I heard a very familiar voice.
The voice of someone I knew.
Someone who shouldn’t have been in this place.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t keep walking.”
I froze.
Slowly, I turned around.
And for the first time since all of this began, I hoped that what I was seeing was nothing more than a dream.
Because someone I knew was standing at the end of the hallway.
Someone I’d always thought knew nothing about any of this.
They stared at me.
Their face was pale.
Their eyes were filled with fear.
And in their hand was a photograph exactly like the one I was holding.
“So…” they said quietly.
“You finally found it too.”
I couldn’t answer.
They walked closer.
One step.
Two steps.
Then stopped a few yards in front of me.
“Now we have the same problem.”
I looked at the photograph in their hand.
“What do you mean?”
They took a long breath.
Then said in a trembling voice,
“The woman you saw last night…”
They paused for a moment.
“She isn’t the one looking for you.”
I stared at them without blinking.
“Then who is she?”
Their face turned even paler.
“She’s the one trying to warn you.”
I fell silent.
And before I could ask anything else, all the lights in the hallway went out.
Darkness.
Total darkness.
Then a whisper came from right behind my ear.
“Now… don’t trust anyone.”
I closed my eyes.
Because in that moment, I realized something.
From the very beginning, maybe the woman behind the door wasn’t the one I should have feared.
Maybe the person standing in front of me was far more dangerous.