MY NEW APARTMENT CAME FULLY FURNISHED—INCLUDING A LOCKED ROOM IN THE BASEMENT.
The landlord said not to worry about it. “Just storage,” he’d shrugged, pocketing my deposit. “No key, though.”
Naturally, I tried the handle every day. Jiggled it. Bumped it. Nothing.
One night, fueled by cheap wine and morbid curiosity, I finally broke the lock. The air inside was thick, musty.
Moonlight filtered through a grimy window, illuminating… a single, antique rocking chair.
And sitting in it? A perfectly preserved wax figure of myself. ⬇️
My blood ran cold. The wax figure wasn’t just a likeness; it was unnervingly precise, capturing the faintest lines around my eyes, the slight asymmetry of my lips. It even wore a miniature replica of the worn cardigan I’d been wearing that day. A wave of nausea washed over me. This wasn’t creepy; it was terrifyingly personal.
I stumbled back, knocking over a dusty toolbox. Inside, nestled amongst rusty wrenches and chipped paint cans, was a worn leather-bound journal. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs as I flipped through its brittle pages. The spidery handwriting was unmistakably mine, though the words were foreign, chillingly prophetic. Entries detailed a life I didn’t recognize—a life of quiet desperation culminating in a slow, agonizing decline. The final entry, scrawled in a shaky hand, read: “The chair awaits. The cycle continues.”
Panic clawed at my throat. The wine-induced bravado had evaporated, leaving only a bone-deep chill. I fumbled for my phone, the screen illuminating my trembling hands. No signal. The basement felt as though it were slowly closing in on me, the air growing heavier, thicker.
Suddenly, the rocking chair creaked. A faint whisper, barely audible, seemed to emanate from the wax figure: “You’re next.” I screamed, scrambling back, my mind racing. This wasn’t just a creepy apartment; it was a trap. A time loop? A curse? The journal entries alluded to a similar discovery made by previous tenants, each ending with the same horrifying sentence, the same fate.
Driven by a desperate need to escape this nightmarish reality, I started searching for a way out, a solution. I examined the journal again, noticing a faded, almost imperceptible inscription on the back cover: “Break the stillness.” The words sparked a frantic realization. The stillness… the unchanging nature of the wax figure, the unchanging nature of the basement…
I grabbed the toolbox, heaving the heavy items onto the floor, making as much noise as I could muster. The sound reverberated in the small space. I then began to vigorously rock the antique chair, a frantic, chaotic motion that clashed sharply with the previous stillness.
The effect was immediate. The wax figure began to crack, the paint peeling away like sunburnt skin, revealing the wood beneath. The whisper ceased. A low hum filled the air, growing in intensity. The very foundation of the basement seemed to shudder.
Then, everything went white. A blinding flash of light enveloped me. When my vision cleared, I was standing in my apartment. The basement door was gone, replaced by a solid wall. The apartment felt… different. Newer. Cleaner. The cheap wine bottle was absent. My cardigan was on the couch, pristine.
I was free. Or was I? A lingering unease remained, a subtle sense of displacement. The memory of the journal, the wax figure, the chilling prophecy—it all felt too real to dismiss as a drunken nightmare. I checked my phone; the signal was strong. But then, a shiver ran down my spine as I received a text message: “New apartment. Fully furnished. Including a locked room in the basement. Landlord says not to worry…”
The message was unsigned. The cycle, it seemed, was far from over.