The knock echoes down the empty hallway.

One. Two. Three.

Nothing.

The fluorescent light above flickers—Loss—Loss—buzz—and steadies again. Somewhere below, a door slams. A dog barks once, then stops.

You wait.

Ten seconds. Twenty.

Then—

A sound from inside. Not footsteps. Not a voice. Just... movement. The soft scrape of something shifting. A creak of weight on old floorboards.

She's in there.

She heard you.

The peephole stays dark. The deadbolts don't move. But the silence changes. It's not empty anymore. It's listening.

You feel it on your skin—the attention of someone on the other side of two inches of steel, deciding whether you're a threat.

The intercom crackles. Static. Then a voice—low, flat, muffled by distance and distrust:

"Wrong door."

A pause. The static hums.

"Leave."