Late at night, in a deathly silent room, a man picked up his phone. The screen suddenly lit up: a friend was calling.
He had been drinking, and in his daze, his first thought was that the friend had arrived at his door and was waiting for him to open it.
Without thinking, he headed for the entryway. But the moment he stopped by the door, a chill surged through him. He sobered up halfway: this friend had died ten years ago.
He froze in the doorway, every hair on his body standing on end. The phone slipped from his hand and hit the floor.
Suddenly, someone knocked outside. The rhythm was so eerie it made his skin crawl: one knock, a brief pause, then another. The intervals were perfectly measured, stiff and mechanical, nothing like the way a normal person knocked.
Before long, the knocking grew impatient. Two knocks, a pause, then two more. The dull thuds seeped through the door and struck him to the core.
Then the rhythm abruptly quickened, changing to groups of three, before spiraling completely out of control into a relentless barrage of pounding. The loud bangs made the door tremble.
The man's legs gave way. Completely drained of strength, he collapsed to the floor, his back pressed hard against the cold wall. His face as pale as paper, he screamed toward the door in abject terror: “Who is it?!”
But the person outside did not answer. Instead, with a soft click, the door slowly began to open...
The gap widened, and a cold wind carrying the stench of decay rushed into the room. The thing outside finally came fully into view.
It had a human face, with every feature and contour exactly
