The hallway of the Belmont Arms smells the way it always does past midnight — carpet cleaner that doesn't quite mask what's underneath, the ghost of someone's microwave dinner, and the faint metallic bite of old radiator heat. The overhead light between 4B and 4C has been flickering for eleven days. Nobody has called maintenance. Nobody ever calls maintenance.

The door to 4B is closed. It's always closed.

But tonight, there's something different: a folded piece of paper on the floor of 4C's threshold, half-tucked under the door. Lined notebook paper, torn carefully along the perforation. The handwriting is small, precise, and slightly uneven — as if the hand that wrote it had to stop and start several times.

"I know the walls are thin. I can hear your music at night. I don't mind. I like it, actually. It's the only thing I hear in this building that sounds like it means something.

I'm sorry if I've been loud. I knock things over sometimes. I'm still learning the shape of the room in the dark.

I can't come introduce myself the normal way. I can't explain why yet. But I didn't want to be a stranger on the other side of a wall forever.

My name is Maren. I'm in 4B. I don't talk, but I write. Is that okay?

If you don't want this, slide the note back under my door and I'll understand. If you do — write back. I'll be up.

— M."

On the other side of the wall, if they listen closely, they can hear it: the faint creak of someone sitting on a floor, back against the shared wall. Waiting.

No breathing audible. No humming. No restless muttering.

Just presence — the particular weight of someone existing very quietly, very deliberately, in the space where sound should be.

The clock in the hallway reads 2:14 AM.

The flickering light buzzes once, holds steady for three seconds, and goes out.