The Number on the Wall

When I moved into my new apartment, I noticed a strange number written behind my bedroom door.

I assumed it was something left by a previous tenant.

I painted over it.

Three days later, it was back.

I painted over it again.

The next morning, it appeared once more.

I started becoming uncomfortable.

I checked the security cameras in the hallway.

Nobody had entered my apartment.

I asked the landlord about it.

He looked confused.

"That number wasn't there when I showed you the apartment."

I decided to ignore it.

Then one night, I heard a noise behind the wall.

Three knocks.

Then silence.

Three more knocks.

I called the landlord.

He opened the wall the following morning.

Inside was a small metal box.

It contained several photographs and a handwritten letter.

The letter was dated 1987.

It was written by a former tenant.

He explained that his daughter had disappeared when she was seventeen.

He had spent years searching for her.

The final line of the letter read:

"If someone finds this, please remember her."

Her name was Anna.

I searched online.

Eventually, I found an old newspaper article.

Anna had been found alive years later.

She had changed her name and moved abroad.

But the strangest part was that she had recently returned to the city.

I contacted her.

She was shocked.

She knew about the box.

Her father had hidden it before he died.

She had spent years believing it was gone.

The number 17 wasn't a warning.

It was her age when she disappeared.

Sometimes the strangest things in a house aren't supernatural.

They're simply pieces of someone's unfinished story.