Shadows in Room 307

The next night, Zayan didn’t switch off the light. He sat at the desk, flipping through the diary. Most pages were blank, but here and there, words appeared — shaky handwriting, sometimes smudged like the writer was in a hurry… or terrified. “Don’t open the wardrobe at night.” That sentence appeared three times on three different pages. His eyes drifted to the corner. The wardrobe was tall, wooden, its mirror cracked across the middle like a spider’s web. The keyhole gleamed faintly. He hadn’t touched it since moving in. Tap… tap… tap. It came again from the vent. But this time, it didn’t stop there. The sound shifted — slow, deliberate creaks of wood, like something moving inside the wardrobe. Zayan’s breath caught. He grabbed his phone, but as usual, no signal. The floor under his feet felt colder, almost vibrating. “Hello?” he called out, instantly regretting it. Silence. Then… a soft scrape. Like fingernails on the inside of the door. The bulb above flickered. In the half-dark, the wardrobe’s reflection in the cracked mirror looked wrong — the door in the reflection was slightly open, though in reality it was closed. His heart pounded. He turned back to the diary. One line, in fresh ink, now stood at the bottom of the page: “If you see it open, do not close it. It’s already too late.” The wardrobe door rattled violently. The mirror trembled, distorting his reflection into something hollow-eyed. Zayan stumbled back, knocking over the chair. His bag fell to the floor, scattering books. The rattling stopped. He stood frozen, every instinct telling him to leave the room. But his gaze was pulled toward the wardrobe like a magnet. The handle turned. The door opened two inches. A cold draft swept across the room, carrying a faint smell of wet soil. Something shifted inside — not stepping out, but leaning forward, just enough for the shadow to spill across the floor. Zayan backed toward the door, fumbling for the key. From inside the wardrobe came a whisper, so close it might as well have been in his ear: “You shouldn’t have read it.” The bulb went out.