The Window That Breathes

The window in apartment 10C has not been opened in three years.

At least, that’s what the landlord told me when I moved in.

He said it casually while handing me the keys, avoiding eye contact as if the sentence meant nothing. I remember laughing awkwardly, thinking maybe the old window was broken or painted shut from years of neglect.

I wish that had been the truth.

The apartment itself was cheap, unusually cheap for a place in the middle of the city. The hallway lights flickered constantly, and the old elevator groaned like it was in pain every time it moved. But I was desperate then. Desperate people ignore strange things.

During the daytime, apartment 10C felt normal enough. Quiet. Empty. Dust gathered along the corners of the walls, and the air smelled faintly old, like forgotten books left inside a locked room for too many years.

But nighttime changed everything.

Especially at 2:13 a.m.

Every single night, the curtains covering the window would move.

Not violently.

Not dramatically.

Just enough to make you uncomfortable.

A slow ripple across the fabric. A soft shifting motion, like someone standing behind the curtain and breathing against it.

The first time it happened, I blamed the wind.

The second night, I checked the window.

Locked.

Completely sealed shut.

No cracks. No open spaces. Nothing.

By the fourth night, I stopped sleeping properly.

There’s something terrifying about repeated silence. Your mind begins listening too carefully. Every small sound becomes meaningful. The ticking pipes inside the walls. The creaking floorboards. The distant hum of traffic ten floors below.

And every night at exactly 2:13…

The curtain moved.

One evening, unable to ignore it anymore, I asked the woman living across the hallway if she had ever noticed anything strange about apartment 10C.

Her expression changed immediately.

People don’t realize how much fear can appear in someone’s face without words.

She stared at me for a moment before quietly asking,

“You hear the breathing too?”

I felt my stomach drop.

Before I could answer, she closed her door.

That night, the apartment felt colder than ever.

Rain hammered against the building while fog swallowed the city outside. I turned off every light except the small lamp beside my chair and sat facing the window, determined to finally understand what was happening.

2:12 a.m.

Nothing.

The room remained still.

Then—

2:13.

The curtain moved.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Not like fabric touched by air.

More like fingers sliding across it from the other side.

The temperature in the room dropped instantly. My skin prickled with cold. A rotten smell spread through the apartment, damp and sour, like wet wood left underground for decades.

Then I heard it.

Breathing.

Wet.

Uneven.

Close.

I couldn’t move.

Fear rooted my body to the chair while the sound continued behind the curtain. My heart pounded so loudly I thought I might faint.

Then a voice whispered softly through the darkness.

“You finally stayed awake.”

Every muscle in my body locked.

The curtain slowly pulled aside by itself.

The window was still locked from the inside.

But someone was standing outside the glass.

Ten floors above the street.

Smiling at me.

At first, my brain refused to understand what I was seeing.

Then the horror settled in.

The face staring back at me was mine.

Same eyes.

Same scar above the eyebrow.

Same exhausted expression.

Except its smile stretched wider than mine ever could.

I tried to scream, but no sound came out.

The thing outside raised one pale hand and placed it gently against the glass.

And then I noticed something even worse.

My reflection in the window wasn’t copying me anymore.

It was standing behind my chair.

Smiling too.

The lamp beside me flickered once.

Twice.

Then darkness swallowed the room completely.

The next morning, the landlord unlocked apartment 10C using his spare key after neighbors complained about strange noises during the night.

The chair still faced the window.

The curtains moved softly in the cold air.

But the apartment was empty.

No sign of me remained inside.

Only one thing looked different.

The window.

For the first time in three years—

It was slightly open.