Everyone in Marrow Lane knew the house at the end of the road was empty. It had been empty for years—windows boarded, paint peeling like dead skin, the front door always slightly open, as if breathing. No one remembered who built it, and no one remembered anyone leaving it.
Except Aarav.
Aarav moved into Marrow Lane on a rainy evening, the kind where the sky feels too close to the ground. His landlord warned him casually, "Just don't go into the last house. It's… unstable." Aarav laughed it off. Old neighborhoods always came with old stories.
That night, at exactly 2:17 a.m., he heard knocking.
Slow. Deliberate. Three knocks.
He opened his door to find no one there—only muddy footprints leading away toward the abandoned house. Bare footprints. Human.
The next morning, the footprints were gone. The road was clean, dry, untouched. Aarav told himself it was stress. Moving always did strange things to the mind.
The knocking returned the next night.
And the next.
Always 2:17 a.m.
On the fourth night, curiosity defeated fear. Aarav followed the sound.
The abandoned house was colder than the air outside. Inside, the walls were covered with photographs—hundreds of them. Families. Children. Couples. All smiling. All standing inside the same house.
And all of them had the same thing scratched over their eyes.
The knocking came from upstairs.
Heart pounding, Aarav climbed the stairs. Each step creaked like a scream trying to escape. At the end of the hallway was a single door, slightly open. Light flickered inside.
He pushed it open.
The room was empty—except for a mirror.
In the reflection, Aarav saw himself standing behind him, smiling.
The reflection raised its hand and knocked—three times—on the inside of the glass.
Aarav tried to run, but the door slammed shut. The mirror began to crack, spreading like a spiderweb. From inside it, hands pressed outward, stretching the glass, mouths screaming without sound.
Then everything went dark.
The next morning, neighbors noticed something new in the abandoned house.
One more photograph on the wall.
A young man, smiling nervously, standing in a hallway.
His eyes scratched out.
And at 2:17 a.m. that night, a new resident on Marrow Lane heard knocking on their door.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Three knocks. 😈