The knocking was soft at first.
Then louder.
More insistent.
"Lynn…" a voice murmured through the door. "Let me in…"
It didn't sound like Cyrus.
It didn't sound like anyone she knew.
Her lungs refused to fill. She backed away step by shaky step, clutching her phone like a lifeline.
The knocking abruptly stopped.
Dead silence.
Then something whispered from the floor, as though pressing lips against the crack beneath the door:
"Remember me."
Lynn covered her ears, heart thrashing. When the room finally went still, she forced herself to inch back toward the door.
The peephole showed nothing but dim light and emptiness.
Until she noticed something on the floor.
She opened the door a crack—just enough to look down.
Dust had gathered in a line across the threshold.
But someone had written in it, with a fingertip dragged shakily across the wood:
"Eli."
The name looked smudged, old—as though it had been written there long before she arrived.
Her fingers trembled.
Who was Eli?
And why did he want her to remember him?