The sound of keys turning in the lock for the first time echoed down the narrow hallway. It was late afternoon, and the dying sunlight squeezed between the surrounding buildings, casting long shadows through the dusty window in the living room.

  The new tenant of apartment 302 took a deep breath. The place smelled of cheap paint mixed with old mold — the kind of clean that’s more for show than substance. Still, there was something oddly comforting about the modest furniture, the economical layout of the rooms, as if the space had been shaped for someone exactly like him.

  The building manager — a bald man, far too polite — didn’t stay long. After handing over the keys and making a dull joke about the building’s "vintage charm," he vanished into the groaning elevator. No mention of the neighboring unit. Or the mirror.

  The tenant walked through the apartment in silence. The living room barely fit a couch, a low shelf, and a small square table.

  The bedroom was a narrow strip with a single bed, a wardrobe pushed up against the far wall, and thick curtains that shut out any view of the street. A mirror hung on the wall beside the bed — one of those old ones, with a plain frame and spots on the surface like tarnished silver. Nothing flashy.

  The bathroom was tiny. The kitchen, a tiled corridor with cracked walls and a small fridge that wheezed as it breathed.

  He sat on the edge of the bed. It felt like the apartment was smaller on the inside than it looked from the outside. As if the walls leaned in slightly. As if they breathed with him.

  Night fell slowly. There wasn’t much to unpack. A few clothes, an old notebook, a portable radio, and a box of things he hadn’t opened in months. He shoved it all under the bed and curled up on the stiff sheets.

  The silence weighed more than the ceiling. And the whole building seemed to be holding its breath.

  In the half-light, he glanced one last time at the mirror. And even though he was alone, he felt he wasn’t.

  He woke in the middle of the night with the distinct feeling someone was breathing far too close. The room was dark, barely holding its shape, and for a moment he assumed it was just a dream — the kind that slips away before you even grasp what it was.

  But then he heard it again.

  A muffled sound, rhythmic. Almost organic. Like the wet creaking of something moving. He frowned. It was coming from the wall beside him. Apartment 303.

  He sat on the bed for several minutes, listening in silence, as if identifying the sound would somehow make it worse. The noises continued — an uneven cadence, whispers, and something that, no matter how hard he tried to deny it, sounded like pleasure.

  His face grew hot.

  He tried to ignore it. Laid back down, pulled the sheets up to his neck.

  But the sound remained, murmuring at the edge of the silence, like a secret being told far too close.

  He turned to face the opposite wall, curled up. Still, he could hear it.

  Frustrated, he sat up again. The room felt smaller. The sound, larger. He took a deep breath and looked at the wall. Then, at the mirror. It had been there since he arrived, mounted beside the bed, almost directly across from the wall where the sound came from. It didn’t seem out of place… but that was where the noise felt loudest.

  A wave of shame passed through him at the thought of getting closer. Why would he do that? It felt invasive. Wrong.

  But he got up anyway.

  He walked in silence, bare feet on the cold floor. Gently leaned against the wall, still trying to keep a safe distance from the mirror. But the sound — the moaning — was there. This wasn’t his imagination.

  For a moment, he felt like a criminal. A voyeur by accident. He looked into the mirror, but saw only his own reflection, pale under the dim light.

  He returned to bed without a word, face slightly flushed and a tightness in his chest, as if he’d witnessed something he shouldn’t have. He turned over and forced his eyes shut. He needed to sleep. To forget.

  The sound stopped shortly after.

  But he stayed awake a long while, staring at the ceiling.

  ◆◆◆

  The second day began without an alarm.

  He woke to light cutting through the slats of the blinds, slicing the bedroom into dusty yellow stripes. The mattress still felt unfamiliar, the sheets scratchy, and the room’s scent… too neutral, as if someone had tried to erase any trace of whoever had lived there before.

  In the kitchen, he opened cupboards that looked like they’d never been touched. Everything was perfectly in place — silverware arranged in neat lines, plain white plates, identical glass cups. There was even a mug with a tiny chip on the rim. A deliberate flaw? A human touch left behind to calm him?

  He made coffee, ate stale bread, and spent some time staring at the living room wall. The mirror reflected the kitchen in the background, and for a moment he thought he saw something move. But when he turned, there was nothing there.

  He spent the day drifting from room to room. Moved the paintings around, tried different positions for the couch — searching for some angle that would make the space feel… his.

  But no matter what he did, everything still looked like a stage set.

  In the afternoon, he went for a walk and wandered the streets for a few hours. He avoided talking to neighbors, kept his head down and his steps short. On the way back, he climbed the three flights of stairs without thinking, the steps groaning beneath his feet.

  At the third floor hallway, he hesitated for a moment.

  His eyes stopped at the door of 303.

  The wood was the same as the others, but it looked somehow… older. The numbers were slightly crooked, as if someone had nailed them on in a rush. He stared at it for too long, without really knowing why. No sounds. No sign of life.

  And then, as if waking from a daydream, he turned the key to 302 and went inside.

  Inside, the smell hit him again. A scent he didn’t remember noticing before — something almost sweet, but metallic.

  Maybe he was just tired.

  He took a shower, fixed something light to eat, turned on the TV. The muffled noise of the broadcast kept him company. Even without paying attention, he kept the volume low — just enough not to hear the silence.

  And when night fell, he hesitated before turning off the lights.

  There was something in the dark he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Something that...

  Waited.

  He woke up again.

  This time, it wasn’t because of a strange dream or the stress of moving. He woke up because he’d been expecting it. Even if he didn’t admit it, his body seemed to know before he did.

  The room was dark. The only light came through the slats of the blinds, slicing the gloom into pale strips of neon from the street. He lay there for a few minutes, eyes fixed on the ceiling, trying to convince himself that nothing would happen. That the night before had just been a fluke.

  But then he heard it.

  Faint, muffled. A moan. Too familiar now to be mistaken for anything else. It came from the thin wall beside the bed — the one that faced 303.

  He swallowed hard. His heart picked up speed, but he didn’t move. He wanted to ignore it. Pretend he wasn’t hearing it. But the more he tried to deny it, the more the sound seemed to slip into his mind — wet, intimate, pulsing.

  Another moan. Longer. More… surrendered.

  He sat up slowly. The shame was still there, as was the unease — but something inside him had begun to shift. A strange kind of anticipation. Tension.

  He got out of bed and walked to the corner where the wall divided the apartment. The mirror was still there, discreet, about the size of a human body, mounted on the thin wall. There was nothing special about it. Just a wall mirror. One of the many details that had come with the apartment.

  But the sounds… always came from that side.

  He looked around, as if someone might be watching, and pressed his ear against the wall, right beside the mirror’s frame.

  This time, he didn’t have to wait long.

  First, creaks — from a bed, maybe? Then, the muffled sound of rhythmic, quickened breathing, and finally, another moan. Long, drawn-out, as if the person were on the verge of ecstasy.

  His eyes widened. He took a step back.

  It was wrong. To invade someone’s privacy like that, even by accident... even just by listening. And yet… there was something in that sound that pulled him in. As if the wall whispered his name between the moans.

  He returned to bed in silence. Stared at the mirror for a while, then covered it with the hand towel that had been left draped over the chair.

  He didn’t want to see his own reflection right then.

  He pulled the blanket up to his neck and shut his eyes tightly, as if he could erase the night.

  But even in his dreams, the sounds followed him.

  ◆◆◆

  Morning came gray, stifling. Not even the sun dared to fully enter through the windows.

  He woke up late, his body sluggish, as if he’d spent the entire night on alert — and in a way, he had.

  He sat at the kitchen table with a cup of cold coffee and tried to focus on the laptop screen, on anything that might distract him. Rent, the new address to update on his accounts, unread emails... But the words slipped past his eyes like water. Nothing stuck.

  The sounds from the night before still echoed in his mind — as if his head were an empty room where echoes never died.

  He grabbed his phone and browsed through ambient sound apps, white noise, rain sounds. Put on his headphones and tried to sink into the artificial bubble he’d created.

  It worked for a while.

  But soon he found himself glancing at the mirror.

  The towel he’d used to cover it was on the floor. He was sure he’d left it there... hadn’t he? Maybe it had slipped down during the night. Maybe he, in a moment of guilt or impulse, had removed it without realizing.

  He sighed.

  The mirror stared back, silent, still, innocent. Just a reflection.

  In the afternoon, he tried going out. Walked to a corner market, bought bread, canned food, and a deodorant he didn’t need. The world outside was alive, bustling. But it felt distant. Unreal.

  On the elevator ride back up, his eyes landed on the number “303.”

  The apartment door was closed as always. No sounds. No signs of life.

  He thought about knocking. Just to... check. Confirm if someone was really there. But he gave up.

  Back in 302, he dropped the grocery bags on the kitchen counter and walked over to the mirror. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t do anything. He just stood there, still, watching.

  Night fell early, swallowing the windows in a thick, syrupy darkness.

  He lay down earlier than usual, but didn’t sleep. He kept turning from side to side, waiting.

  Nothing.

  For a while, he thought it was over. That maybe it had just been a neighbor receiving a final visit before a trip, or a move, or death. The idea unsettled him. A discomfort that gnawed from the inside.

  And just when he was about to drift off...

  He heard it.

  Faint. Almost imperceptible. But it was there.

  The moan.

  Softer this time, maybe... slower.

  He sat up in bed, chest tight.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  He knew he shouldn’t. He knew this was becoming something... wrong. But he didn’t move.

  Not yet.

  He just listened.

  His mind conjured images, built scenes he was ashamed to imagine. But he couldn’t stop.

  It was as if something in that wall was calling him.

  As if he were needed to complete the scene.

  This time, he didn’t resist.

  The sound was stronger. More intimate. More... real.

  It was dark, and the only light in the apartment came from a streetlamp outside, filtered through the blinds in thin strips. The clock blinked 2:13 a.m.

  He got out of bed without thinking.

  Bare feet on the cold floor, cold sweat sliding down his back.

  He walked to the wall. Not the one with the mirror — the side wall.

  The one that separated 302 from 303.

  He leaned in carefully.

  The sound was coming from there. Low, muffled, but clear — the same moans. Undulating, enveloping.

  His forehead touched the concrete.

  The wall felt warm.

  It breathed.

  He closed his eyes.

  A shiver ran up the back of his neck.

  The sound was almost a whisper now, as if someone were right beside him, murmuring things without words.

  A dry crack echoed from the other side.

  He stepped back suddenly.

  Silence returned.

  For a moment, he stood frozen in the middle of the room, staring at the wall like one might face a sleeping wild animal.

  He returned to the bedroom. Sat on the edge of the bed, still with his back to the mirror.

  His thoughts collided in a tangled mess — it wasn’t just desire. It was curiosity. It was anguish.

  It was a hunger he couldn’t understand.

  He stood again, walked to the kitchen, and filled a glass of water.

  His hands trembled.

  On the way back, he stopped in front of the mirror in the living room.

  Stood there, staring at his own reflection.

  He looked pale. Sweaty. Lost.

  And behind him, only the dark room.

  A sound.

  Almost like a muffled sob.

  Not his.

  From the other side.

  He turned, slowly.

  Nothing.

  The same silent wall.

  But now... now he to hear it again.

  Louder.

  Clearer.

  Closer.

  ◆◆◆

  The next morning, there was no sound.

  None.

  The silence mocked his anxiety, as if the wall were waiting for to make the first move.

  And he did.

  He spent the morning pacing back and forth, restless.

  Started to make a phone call — to whom? — and gave up.

  Opened the internet, searched for “noisy neighbors,” then “sounds during the night,” then... “moaning that comes from nowhere.”

  Closed the browser.

  He felt pathetic.

  But in the afternoon, he left the house.

  Came back with something simple: a glass cup.

  Old trick, straight out of the movies — pressing the glass against the wall to listen.

  He did it.

  Nothing.

  Tried again that night.

  Waited until after midnight, motionless in his chair, eyes fixed on the wall.

  Nothing.

  Almost asleep, he was startled by a single sound — muffled, fleeting.

  The glass slipped from his hand.

  He froze.

  Went to the bedroom, trembling.

  Pressed his forehead against the wall.

  Tried to listen with his own ear.

  Silence.

  But there, on the floor beside the bed, he looked at the wall mirror.

  The one he had never bought, never installed — it had been there from the beginning.

  It had been there.

  He didn’t move closer.

  But his eyes scanned it.

  In the polished surface, his reflection looked… more alert than usual.

  More focused.

  As if it were hearing something he hadn’t yet heard.

  He returned to the living room, agitated.

  Laid down on the couch.

  The night swallowed him slowly.

  And for the first time, the sound returned.

  Softer now, more rhythmic.

  Not sensual.

  Not human.

  Almost… animal.

  ◆◆◆

  During the day, nothing seemed out of place.

  Sunlight filtered through the curtains as usual, slicing beams that died on the yellow walls.

  He spent the morning trying to stay busy — washed dishes already clean, organized drawers, even scrubbed the kitchen floor as if the answer lived there.

  But the question was elsewhere.

  It always was.

  At lunch, he barely ate.

  And whenever he looked away, his gaze inevitably drifted back to the mirror.

  Since when had that object dominated the space like that?

  It was just a mirror.

  Fixed to the wall from the very beginning.

  Simple, thin frame, medium height.

  Nothing special.

  And yet, it seemed to… suggest.

  When night fell, he tried not to think.

  Tried not to wait.

  But his body had already learned the tension of that hour.

  He laid down.

  Facing the mirror.

  First came the silence.

  Then, something crawling inside him.

  The sound.

  Low.

  Intermittent.

  But present.

  A shy moan, maybe two walls away.

  Maybe not.

  Hard to tell.

  He sat at the edge of the bed, hesitant.

  Stood slowly, as if breaking a private vow.

  Took three steps.

  Stopped in front of the mirror.

  It wasn’t like before.

  This time, he didn’t want to just look.

  He wanted to better.

  He pressed his palm, then his shoulder, then his face to the surface.

  The glass was cold.

  Then, he placed his ear against it.

  Stayed there.

  Still.

  And then he heard it.

  The sounds — still faint — grew clearer.

  They weren’t coming from inside the building, or the hallway, or beneath the door.

  They came from .

  From within the mirror.

  Or it.

  He didn’t pull away.

  Didn’t react.

  Just… remained.

  He felt warm.

  Aroused.

  But also ashamed.

  And yet, he couldn’t step back.

  His eyes were closed.

  Breathing, uneven.

  Deep down, he knew: he had crossed a line.

  And there was no going back.

  At first, he’d light only a dim lamp in the living room.

  Too much light embarrassed him.

  Too much light made it feel .

  But now... shame didn’t matter as much.

  Every night, the same ritual: he’d turn everything off — everything but the lamp near the wall.

  The mirror looked more vivid like that.

  Deeper.

  More .

  He’d lie on the mattress — sometimes naked, sometimes half-dressed — and wait for the first sound.

  It wasn’t always immediate.

  Some nights were silent. Frustrating.

  But even in silence, he went back to the mirror.

  He went back.

  Pressed his ear to the glass, let his breath warm the surface.

  Stayed there until the sound came.

  And when it came, he gave in.

  It was different now.

  Deeper.

  More animalistic.

  He no longer tried to understand whether it was real.

  Whether it was a neighbor.

  Whether it was just a trick of the mind.

  It didn’t matter.

  The sound was real enough to provoke.

  Real enough to .

  With every passing night, he surrendered more.

  Trembling hands, parted lips, half-lidded eyes searching for something not quite there — or maybe there, and he simply didn’t know how to see it.

  On some nights, he talked to himself.

  —

  And when the pleasure peaked, it felt like something on the other side — and answered.

  Like the moans grew louder.

  More… intimate.

  More with his own.

  He always finished the same way:

  Face pressed to the glass, panting.

  Feeling dirty, lost — but satisfied.

  For seconds. Maybe minutes.

  Then came the .

  The sense that the sound had vanished.

  That he was alone.

  Alone, naked, pressed against a cold wall, with his own reflection watching him in silence.

  But every night, he came back.

  Because every night, something on the other side seemed to be waiting too.

  He no longer knew what day it was.

  Sunlight still crept through the slats, but it brought no clarity.

  The wall clock — a small, pretty detail he’d admired the first day — had stopped at some point.

  Its hands forever frozen at half past three.

  Inside the fridge, food had expired.

  A few dirty glasses lingered in the sink.

  The towel in the bathroom was still on the floor, damp from who-knows-when.

  He didn’t leave.

  Didn’t to leave.

  Everything he needed was here.

  The sound. The mirror. The touch.

  The .

  Only now… something was changing.

  It wasn’t just at night anymore.

  He’d started hearing it during the day.

  Faint whispers, barely perceptible.

  Fragments of the pleasure from the night before — or the one to come?

  He felt shivers whenever he walked past the mirror.

  At one point, he covered it with a towel, trying to pretend it was just an ordinary object — but that made it worse.

  The silence behind it was deafening.

  The abyss that formed behind the towel seemed to call to him with even greater force.

  He tore the towel down two hours later, breathless, sweating, as if he'd survived a drowning.

  He lay back down near the wall.

  Pressed his ear to it again.

  Even without sound, he stayed there. Waiting.

  He began to forget his name.

  Faces slipped away.

  He no longer knew if anyone was waiting for him outside — if anyone ever had.

  He read old messages on his phone but couldn’t remember writing any of them.

  There was a missed call from a number saved as “Mom,” but he didn’t have the courage to call back.

  He turned off the phone. Threw it into a drawer.

  The only thing he wanted to hear…

  was from the other side of that wall.

  At first, the sounds were enough.

  The pleasure was whole, almost sacred.

  But now, it was torture.

  Like someone drinking saltwater — the more he consumed, the thirstier he became.

  He needed to see her.

  The muffled sound through the wall was no longer enough.

  Nor was the faded reflection in the mirror, or the mental image built in his nightly deliriums.

  The woman was real. She existed. She was there, just inches away.

  He could hear her, almost feel her — so why couldn’t he see her?

  He spent hours in front of the mirror.

  Tried to line up his gaze with the wall.

  He pictured the rooms, the layout, the position of the bed.

  He knew — with an absolute, desperate certainty — that she lay down exactly on the other side.

  Once, he knocked on the wall with his knuckles.

  Three dry taps.

  Silence.

  Then, after a few seconds, a barely perceptible creak — or had he imagined it?

  The answer came as a drawn-out moan, deep and wet.

  More real than anything he had ever heard.

  That was enough to bring him to the floor, his forehead pressed against the cold wall.

  He masturbated right there, on his knees, whispering the name he imagined was hers.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  He needed to see.

  He started investigating discreetly.

  Went up and down the stairs to check the door of 303.

  No one ever entered.

  No one ever left.

  One afternoon, he pressed his ear to the wood.

  Nothing. Not a sound. Not a whisper.

  He wanted to turn the knob.

  Stopped at the last second.

  That night, he dreamed of the door opening.

  The apartment was dark, but he could see everything clearly.

  There was something on the floor. Bodies? Cushions? It was impossible to tell.

  At the center, she was waiting for him, naked, lying on her back — just as he had always imagined.

  He woke up with a sweaty face and soaked underwear.

  Went straight to the mirror.

  Stared deeply, hoping something would happen.

  Only his reflection — thin, tired, but smiling faintly.

  The next day, he bought tools.

  It was late. The kind of night where the world feels smaller, tighter, as if the darkness shrinks the hallways and swallows the air.

  And she moaned.

  Today, different.

  Louder.

  Closer.

  Wetter.

  He was already naked when he pressed himself against the wall.

  His fingers trembled. His skin burned.

  He leaned his forehead against the plaster, panting.

  She was calling for him. He was sure of it.

  He drew strength from somewhere unknown.

  Got up in a single motion. Went to the door.

  Forgot his shirt, his slippers, his common sense.

  The hallway stretched endlessly — a spiral of dim lights and moldy walls.

  He stopped in front of door 303. It was plain.

  Old lock. Wood worn at the edges.

  She was there. On the other side. Waiting.

  He pounded with his fist.

  Nothing.

  Turned the knob. Locked.

  Knocked again. And again. Harder.

  “Open up,” he whispered, voice almost childlike. “Please… open.”

  Nothing.

  His hand slid back to the doorknob, but he didn’t turn it. Just stood there, breathing deep. He wanted to hear. Needed to. A moan, a whisper. Anything. But 303 was silent now.

  His eyes slowly dropped to the plastic bag on the floor beside him. Inside, the tools he had bought without much thought.

  He picked up the screwdriver. The smallest one. His hands trembled, sweaty, but steady. He slid the tip between the door and the frame with sharp movements.

  The metallic scrape rang through the silence like a muffled scream.

  He pushed harder.

  The lock groaned.

  “Please…” he said again, now with a hoarse, nearly pleading voice.

  Another crack.

  More force.

  With a sharper snap, the door gave in. Ajar. A breath of stale air slipped through. He pushed with his shoulder.

  The entrance to 303 was dark. The smell was strange.

  Without thinking, he stepped inside.

  The doorknob was cold.

  Cold like metal forgotten under the weight of time.

  He whispered against the wood:

  “Let me in…”

  The door gave way as if it had been waiting for him. Apartment 303 swallowed him whole.

  The air inside was sickly — stifling, viscous. No windows open, no natural light. Everything was a womb of rot and silence. But the moans... they still echoed. Faint, like an old memory.

  He walked slowly. He recognized the space — and yet, he didn’t. The proportions were wrong, the shadows wrong, the walls seemed to press in around him.

  He passed through a hallway that was too long, entered a room where the bed was nothing but a rotten, torn mattress, and the floor was decorated with flesh that had once been human. Dried eyes. Twisted jaws. Hands still clinging to the sheets.

  Other rooms revealed more horrors. Overlapping bodies. Limbs without owners. Torn clothes fused to flesh by decay. Every corner felt like a confession made too late.

  He tried to turn back.

  Tried to run.

  But the apartment stretched. Repeated itself. The doors tangled. Everything led him back to the center.

  Until he stumbled and fell. On his knees, he felt the floor pulse.

  His body numbed, his mind was in ecstasy. He couldn’t take it. He was drunk on being there. On being inside 303.

  He took off his clothes.

  ◆◆◆

  He woke up.

  Hours? He didn’t know.

  Days? Didn’t matter.

  Naked.

  He stood, weak.

  He looked at the bodies, all sprawled across the corners. The smell was unbearable. It was silent.

  How long had it been since the last time it was silent?

  But... the silence was broken.

  Footsteps outside. Voices.

  Someone was opening the door to 302.

  He ran, guided by the sound, by desperation.

  And then he saw it.

  On the opposite wall, where a mirror should have been, there was glass.

  A two-way mirror.

  On the other side — his apartment. 302.

  Empty.

  No furniture. No trace of his existence.

  How long had he been there?

  A couple entered. Young, smiling, carrying boxes.

  “It’s smaller than I thought,” she said.

  “But it’s just for now,” the man replied.

  He screamed.

  Pounded the glass with his hands. Hard.

  Again.

  And again.

  “Hey! HEY! I’M RIGHT HERE!”

  On the other side, the man hesitated. Turned toward the mirror.

  Approached, curious.

  Pressed his ear to the glass.

  He screamed even louder, slapping with open hands, desperate.

  The man stepped back slightly. His eyes widened. But... something changed in them.

  A spark.

  Desire.

  Lust.

  He smiled. A faint, almost shy smile.

  And pressed his ear back against the mirror.

  As if he were hearing... moans.