2:17 am
I used to think the worst part of my apartment was the noise.
Every night, right around 2:17 a.m., I’d hear something shift above me. Not loud—just a faint dragging sound, like fabric being pulled slowly across wood. At first, I blamed the upstairs neighbor. Old building, thin floors, whatever.
But then I met her.
She laughed when I asked.
“I live below you,” she said. “There’s no one upstairs. That unit’s been empty for months.”
I wish I had left it there.
Instead, I started listening more carefully.
The sound wasn’t random. It followed a pattern. Three slow drags… pause… then a soft thump. Every single night. Same time. Same rhythm. Like something was pacing. Or practicing.
One night, I stayed up to record it.
At exactly 2:17, the dragging started. I held my phone to the ceiling, barely breathing. The sound came through clearly—closer than I expected, like it wasn’t above me, but inside the ceiling itself.
Then, in the recording, there was something I didn’t hear in real time.
A whisper.
I replayed it over and over, turning the volume all the way up. It was faint, stretched thin, like it had to crawl through wood and dust to reach me.
“…almost… done…”
I didn’t sleep after that.
The next morning, I called maintenance and insisted they check the unit upstairs. The guy looked annoyed, but he let me follow him up.
The door creaked open. Dust everywhere. No furniture. No signs of anyone living there.
But the floor…
There were marks.
Long, thin scratches dragged across the wood, looping from one end of the room to the other. Overlapping. Repeating. Like something had been tracing the same path again and again.
“Probably old damage,” the guy shrugged.
Then I saw the hatch.
A small, square panel in the corner of the ceiling—leading to the attic.
It was slightly open.
“Hey,” I said, pointing. “Was that open before?”
He frowned. “No… shouldn’t be.”
He dragged over a chair and pushed it open the rest of the way. A ladder unfolded with a sharp snap, echoing through the empty apartment.
“Stay here,” he said, climbing up.
I didn’t listen.
I followed him.
The attic was low and suffocating, thick with insulation and the smell of something damp and stale. He swept his flashlight around.
At first, nothing.
Then the beam caught something in the far corner.
A shape.
Too long to be a person. Too thin. Folded in on itself like it had too many joints and not enough space to use them.
It didn’t move.
“Probably just—” he started.
Then it unfolded.
Not quickly. Not suddenly. Just… wrong. Like watching something remember how to stand.
The dragging sound filled the attic.
Three slow pulls.
Pause.
Thump.
It turned toward us.
I didn’t see a face. Not really. Just an impression of one, pressed into skin that looked stretched too tight, like it didn’t belong to whatever was underneath.
Then it spoke.
Not from its mouth.
From everywhere.
“…almost… done…”
The maintenance guy fell backward off the ladder.
I don’t remember climbing down. I don’t remember getting back into my apartment. I just remember the sound following me.
That night, I didn’t stay.
I packed what I could and left before midnight.
I’m staying at a motel now. I haven’t heard the dragging since.
But last night, I listened to that recording again.
I thought I knew what it said.
“…almost… done…”
But I was wrong.
There’s more.
It was just too quiet to hear before.
Right after that whisper, there’s another voice.
Clearer. Closer.
And it sounds exactly like me.
“…almost… down.”