The key clicked in the lock at 2:47 AM—exactly when it shouldn't have.
Sarah froze, her breath catching in her throat. The apartment had been empty for six years. The landlord swore no one else had keys. Yet there it was again: that distinct metallic click, followed by the whisper of hinges that needed oil.
She should have called the police. She knew that. But something about the careful, almost reverent way the door opened made her reach for her phone's camera instead.
Through the crack in her bedroom door, she watched a shadow move across her living room wall. Not hurried. Not furtive. Just... present. Like whoever it was had every right to be there.
The shadow paused at her bookshelf.
Sarah's heart hammered. That bookshelf had been there when she moved in—built into the wall, immovable, filled with the previous tenant's forgotten paperbacks. She'd never bothered to clear it out. Now she watched as invisible hands began removing books, one by one, setting them carefully on the floor.
What are they looking for?
The thought barely formed before she heard it: a soft snick of wood against wood. A hidden compartment. One she'd never known existed.
The shadow's hands—she could see them now in the moonlight filtering through her curtains—pulled something small from the cavity. A box? An envelope? She couldn't tell. But she could see the way those hands trembled as they held it.
And then the shadow spoke.
"I'm sorry," it whispered. A woman's voice, raw with emotion. "I'm so sorry I left you here."
Sarah's phone slipped from her fingers.
The woman's head snapped toward the bedroom. Their eyes met through the crack in the door.
And Sarah recognized her.
Impossible.
The woman was older—much older—but the face was unmistakable. The same face Sarah saw every morning in the mirror.
"You're not supposed to be here yet," the woman said, backing toward the window. "Not for another twenty years."
"Who are you?"
But Sarah already knew the answer. Already understood why the apartment had felt like coming home the moment she saw it. Why she'd signed the lease without hesitation despite the expired flowers on the dining table. Why she'd never questioned the books on that shelf.
The woman climbed onto the fire escape, clutching whatever she'd retrieved from the wall.
"Don't try to find it before it's time," she said. "Please. I made that mistake once already."
"What mistake? What are you—"
But the window was already closing. The fire escape was already empty.
And Sarah was alone with a shelf full of books she'd never read, hiding a compartment she'd never opened.
Yet.
She looked at her phone on the floor. 2:49 AM. She had twenty years to decide whether to trust herself.
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