Every night at exactly 2:13 a.m., the elevator in Noah\u2019s apartment building opened on its own.<\/p>\n
No one got in. No one got out.<\/p>\n
At first, he ignored it. Old buildings make strange noises, people said. But one night, unable to sleep, he stepped into the hallway just as the elevator dinged.<\/p>\n
The doors slid open.<\/p>\n
Inside, the lights flickered softly. Empty.<\/p>\n
Except\u2026 the button for the 13th floor was glowing.<\/p>\n
There was no 13th floor.<\/p>\n
The panel skipped from 12 to 14.<\/p>\n
Heart pounding, Noah stepped inside. \u201cJust a wiring issue,\u201d he muttered, pressing the lobby button.<\/p>\n
The doors closed.<\/p>\n
The elevator didn\u2019t go down.<\/p>\n
It went up.<\/p>\n
12\u2026 then a pause.<\/p>\n
Then a soft chime.<\/p>\n
The doors opened to a dim hallway that shouldn\u2019t exist. The air smelled faintly like dust and something older\u2014like forgotten time.<\/p>\n
At the end of the corridor stood a girl, maybe ten years old, holding a small suitcase.<\/p>\n
She looked at Noah and smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re late,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Noah swallowed. \u201cLate for what?\u201d<\/p>\n
She tilted her head. \u201cFor leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n
A cold shiver ran through him. \u201cI don\u2019t live here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The girl\u2019s smile faded just a little. \u201cEveryone here said that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lights flickered again.<\/p>\n
Behind him, the elevator doors began to close.<\/p>\n
Noah lunged forward\u2014but the hallway stretched, growing longer with every step.<\/p>\n
The last thing he heard was the soft ding of the elevator returning to the lobby.<\/p>\n
Empty.<\/p>\n
And every night since, at exactly 2:13 a.m., the elevator still opens.<\/p>\n
Waiting for someone else who doesn\u2019t belong there either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every night at exactly 2:13 a.m., the elevator in Noah\u2019s apartment building opened on its own. No one got in. No one got out. At first, he ignored it. Old buildings make strange noises, people said. But one night, unable to sleep, he stepped into the hallway just as the elevator dinged. The doors slid …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9780,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9778\/revisions\/9780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}