Mark had just moved into his new apartment — an old brick building with creaky stairs, flickering hallway lights, and radiators that hissed louder than they should. Still, it was cheap, and he liked the charm.
But the first night, he heard it. A faint tapping in the walls. At first, he brushed it off. “Old pipes,” he muttered, rolling over in bed. But the sound didn’t stop.
Tap… tap… tap.
Every night, around the same time, the noise returned. Sometimes soft, sometimes louder, sometimes moving from one side of the room to the other. Mark tried everything — earplugs, blasting music, even sleeping on the couch. But still, the tapping followed.
One night, frustrated, he banged on the wall. “Cut it out!” he shouted. To his shock, the tapping stopped immediately.
The silence should have been comforting — but it wasn’t.
The next night, he tested it. As the tapping began, he tapped back. Slowly. Three times.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The noise on the other side repeated the same pattern.
Mark’s blood ran cold.
He called the landlord the next day. The old man sighed, “It’s an old building. Pipes make all sorts of noises. Don’t worry.” But Mark couldn’t shake it.
Finally, he borrowed a flashlight and crawled into the narrow maintenance crawl space behind the walls. Dust filled his throat, cobwebs brushed his skin. The tapping grew louder as he moved closer.
And then he saw it.
Not pipes. Not rodents.
A small, hidden space between the walls — with a mattress, old food wrappers, and scraps of paper scattered across the floor. Someone had been living there.
On one of the papers, scrawled in shaky handwriting, were the words: “I hear you too.”
