The Last Visitor

In the autumn of 2014, I was living alone in a rented flat on the third floor of an old building that smelled of dust and decayed wood. My neighbor, Mrs. Kessler, a reclusive woman in her eighties, had passed away two weeks earlier. She had no family, and the landlord had already begun clearing out her belongings. I had only exchanged polite nods with her, but after her death, I felt a strange pull toward her door, which was left ajar by the movers.

One night, unable to sleep, I decided to investigate. The door creaked open to reveal a dim room cluttered with old furniture and cardboard boxes. In the corner, an antique mirror reflected the moonlight, and I noticed a small, worn diary on the nightstand. I shouldn’t have touched it, but I did. As I flipped through the pages, I found entries scribbled in shaky handwriting, describing a recurring nightmare: a knocking at the door, and a voice whispering, ‘I’m still here.’ The last entry was dated the day she died.

That night, I dreamed of the knocking. It was rhythmic, three taps, then a pause, then three more. It sounded like it came from inside my flat, not the door. I woke with a start, my heart pounding. The room was silent, but I felt a presence. I dismissed it as stress and tried to sleep again, but the knocking resumed, now coming from the walls, as if something was trapped inside.

I got up and checked every room, but nothing was there. As I passed the mirror in the hallway, I saw my own reflection, but for a split second, it wasn’t my face. It was Mrs. Kessler’s, contorted in a silent plea. I blinked, and it was gone. I told myself it was a trick of the light, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched.

Over the next few days, small things changed. My keys went missing, only to reappear in the bathroom sink. The radio turned on by itself, tuned to static. And every night, the knocking returned, growing more insistent. I started to lose sleep, my nerves frayed. I called a friend, but he laughed it off, suggesting I was imagining things. Desperate, I visited a local historian, who told me the building was built on the site of an old asylum, and that a patient named Elsa had disappeared under mysterious circumstances in the 1930s.

That night, I decided to burn the diary. I lit a match, but the flames seemed to die before touching the paper. The diary fell open to a page I hadn’t seen before. It contained a sketch of the building, with a cross marking the basement. Underneath was written: ‘She is below. She wants out.’

The knocking grew louder, and I felt a cold draft from under the door. I grabbed a flashlight and headed to the basement, my heart in my throat. The stairwell was steep, and the air was thick with the smell of damp earth. At the bottom, I found a forgotten cell, its door rusted shut. As I pushed it open, I saw a small, desiccated body lying on a cot, clutching a lock of gray hair.

I stumbled backward, but my foot caught on something. Looking down, I saw a name tag: ‘Mrs. Kessler.’ I realized she had been the one who locked Elsa in here, decades ago, and now her ghost was bound to this place, trying to warn me or free herself. The knocking now came from everywhere, and I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I ran up the stairs, grabbed my coat, and fled the building. I never returned, but sometimes, late at night, I still hear that knocking. And in my dreams, I see Mrs. Kessler standing at the foot of my bed, her mouth moving silently, ‘I’m still here.’ I know now that death doesn’t end everything. Some doors, once opened, can never be closed.