CHAPTER ONE
The smell was back. Sweet, rotting. Like meat left too long in a sealed room, wrapped in plastic, the odor sweating through. Ellie wasn’t one to be wasteful, though. She didn’t remember eating last night, either. She sat up from her bed. A sweat-soaked, disheveled mattress with no sheets, just her laptop and the three outfits she rotated through. She sniffed the air like a hunting dog that sensed something foul on the trail. It was worse today. Closer. Maybe it moved. Her tongue felt coated. Her teeth slick. The walls had that same breathless heat they always did. Humid. Sinking. Oppressive. The air fresheners along the baseboards weren’t doing shit anymore. Maybe they never did. She stood. Every joint cracked louder than the floorboards. Somewhere behind the closet door, something wet shifted. She froze. There it was again. Faint, but real. A dragging sound. Something somehow both soft and heavy. Something that didn’t belong inside her closet. It stopped just as suddenly. Ellie’s hand found the can of air freshener beside the mattress. She sprayed it toward the closet in a pointless burst. Lilac, lemon, mildew and decay. Her eyes burned. She needed to find it. That was the only thought her brain could cling to. Not breakfast. Not the internet. Not the unopened letters. Not the dozens of empty pill bottles waiting to be disposed of. Just that if she could find whatever was making that smell, maybe she could fix it. Maybe she could breathe again. She started with the closet. Of course she did. The closet was a disaster. Most things inside were damp and molded from an unfixed leak in the ceiling. Not that Ellie cared. She had nobody to impress. Clothes she didn’t wear. Boxes she hadn’t opened in months. A collapsed storage bin half-covered by a towel that used to be white. Dust clung to her hands like spiderwebs. The smell was stronger here. Fresher. As if whatever was rotting had been disturbed. Set free. She pulled sweaters off hangers and tossed them aside. Lifted old shoeboxes. Her fingers shook. Her throat ached. The scent wrapped itself around her. Sweet, disgusting, full. She pushed deeper. Her stomach turned. Her eyes watered. Something soft squelched beneath the bottom layer of clothes, sending a shiver of primal disgust down her spine. She leaned closer. Held her breath. One hand trembling toward it. Then; A knock at the door. Three quick raps. Sharp. Final. Ellie flinched so hard she hit her head on the closet frame. Silence. Then another knock. Firmer this time. She backed out of the closet in a panic. Her vision swam. Her pulse skyrocketed. “Pharmacy,” a voice called through the door. She froze again. “Leave it by the door. I’ll come get it,” Ellie called back. Her voice was hoarse, tight. She was terrified of anyone seeing the way she lived. Smelling the death she harbored. She stood like a statue and waited until she heard the delivery van pull away. Then she left, just as long as it took to grab the bag by the door. The bag was light. She didn’t check it. She already knew what was inside. Back in her apartment, the air felt different. Still hot, still sour, but the smell was gone. Totally gone. She paused again in the middle of the floor, the pharmacy bag clutched tight in one hand. The closet stood open. Nothing had moved. No trace of that suffocating rot. Just the mildew now. Dust, old clothes, quiet. She turned slowly. The silence felt loaded now. Like the apartment was holding its breath. Ellie set the bag down on the mattress and rubbed her temples with trembling fingers. Her skin felt too tight. Her jaw ached from clenching. This happened often. Her brain turned on her. Dream logic bleeding into the daytime. Sounds behind the wall. Smells that didn’t exist. She could never tell which part was worse, the moments where she was convinced it was all real, or the moments after, when she realized it probably wasn’t. She sat down again. Just to stop moving. The bag crinkled beside her. She didn’t open it. Didn’t need to. Just set it down beside the mattress and pressed her hand to the wall, steadying herself. The smell was gone, but the heat wasn’t. It clung to her like plastic wrap. She needed to get out. She glanced toward the door. Across the hall. She didn’t think about it. Just grabbed a clean paper plate from the stack she kept on the fridge shelf, dumped a bit of microwaved rice onto it, and topped it with the last canned green beans. Nothing warm. Nothing seasoned. But the gesture mattered. It always did. She stepped into the hallway as if she was doing something wrong. Keys. Door shut. One quick glance down the corridor, empty. Good. Then a few knocks and she opened the door to 3B. “Hey,” she said, as soft as always. The old woman inside didn’t look up. Didn’t even flinch. She was curled in the same chair she always sat in, one of those upholstered kinds that belonged to another decade, fraying at the arms. “I brought something. Not much, but I figured…” Ellie’s voice caught. The smell had followed her here, somehow. No, not exactly the same. This one was gentler. Mustier. Old house smell. Death on pause. She walked in fully anyway, careful not to breathe through her nose. “I woke up to it again,” she said as she set the plate down. “The smell. You know the one.” The woman didn’t move. “I know it sounds crazy, but it was worse today. It’s like it gets… heavier. Like it wants me to find it. And I almost did. I think. But then the knock,” Ellie stopped. Looked down at her hands. They were shaking again. “I know what you’d say,” she whispered, forcing a small smile. “You’d tell me it’s just in my head. Or that maybe I should get out more. But you wouldn’t mean it like that. You’d understand.” Still no response. Just the shallow rise and fall of the woman’s chest. “I don’t think it’s just in the walls, anymore,” she said, lower now. “I think it’s me. I think I brought it here. That smell. That… thing.” The woman’s eyes never moved. Not even a blink. Ellie reached into her pocket and pulled out a single clothespin. She clipped it to the curtain over the mirror near the entryway. Reinforcing the fold. Keeping it closed. “You told me it was okay to do that. Remember?” Silence. “I’m sorry,” she said. “For everything.” She didn’t specify what everything meant. She probably couldn't. Not with words. Ellie stayed a moment longer. Her eyes drifted to the crooked photo frame on the bookshelf, the kind with a stock image still inside. No one ever changed it. That felt right, somehow. “I had a brother,” she said after a moment. “You knew that. But I haven’t told you everything.” Her thumb traced a crease in her shirt. “He’s been on my mind a lot lately. More than I’d like.” She glanced toward the mirror, the clothespin holding the curtain in place. “He said I was tearing everything apart. That I was ruining our family. That I was the root of all our problems.” A pause. “Sometimes I think he might’ve been right.” The old woman didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe any differently. “I loved him,” Ellie added, quieter now. “I think I did.” Another pause. “But in the end I’m glad he’s gone.” The words sat heavy in the room. Like the smoke that lingers briefly after a fire is extinguished. She crossed to the sink and filled a cloudy glass with water, set it next to the plate. “There,” she murmured, her voice too small for the space. “In case you get thirsty.” She leaned in, slow and deliberate, and pressed a kiss to the old woman’s forehead. Her skin was cool, and still. “Goodnight, sweetheart,” she said. “I’ll come by again soon.” She closed the door behind her. The hallway was still empty. Warm, and quiet. Back in her apartment, the heat wrapped around her like a wet towel. The smell hadn’t returned, but the air still felt thick. Like the air in her lungs turned into soup. She didn’t turn on the light. Just crossed the floor to the mattress and sat down, slowly. Her legs ached. Her hand hovered over the pharmacy bag. For a long moment, she didn’t move. Then she closed her eyes and reached in. Plastic. Crinkle. A label brushed her fingertips, and she recoiled, then forced herself to try again. Not looking. Just feeling. One bottle. Then another. She pulled out the one she recognized by touch alone. The cap came off with a soft pop. The pills inside whispered against each other as she tilted one into her palm. She took it dry, head tilted back, eyes still closed. Afterward, she sat there in the dark a while, listening to the old pipes shift behind the walls. Listening for anything else. Nothing. Just her, now. Just her. She laid back on the mattress, her eyes remained shut. Her mind turned off without intention. *** She woke to her mouth tasting like rubber. The sun was out. She didn’t remember falling asleep again. Ellie hated how inconsistent her sleep was. Never the same two times in a week. She checked her inbox while chewing mouthfuls of stale cereal, each piece sharp with too much crunch and no flavor. A new email blinked at the top. Delivery confirmation - Package received Dated for June 13th. Four days from now. She stared. It was the right item, the right vendor. She hadn't slept well, maybe she didn’t read it right. Maybe they sent the email early. She clicked away from it. After she finished eating, she passed by the door. Reflex made her glance through the peephole. The hallway was still. Except there was, indeed, a box. Small. Too small. Not what she ordered. Still addressed to her. She hesitated. But it had her name. She brought it in. No return address. Handwritten label. Her name spelled perfectly… June 13th. Inside: A Polaroid. A photo of him. At least a decade old. His face stared back from the photo, smiling like she couldn’t remember ever doing when they were kids. She’d forgotten about his chipped front tooth, and those crooked bangs. Her cereal turned in her stomach. She flipped it over. His name, scrawled in sharpie. ”Mark” Her whole body clenched. Ellie didn’t want to hold onto this memory. Without looking again, she set the photo face down on the counter. Tried to push it out of her mind. But even as she walked away, a strange heaviness hung in the air, as if the image was waiting. She paced without purpose. Hands brushed the counter. A cup. The sink. The counter again. She turned in small circles. Someone sent that. Someone sent him to her. She rubbed her arms, a sudden sharp cold blooming under her skin. How would they even have that photo? A trick of the mind? Maybe she took it with her when she moved. Maybe she forgot it. But then… Why was it mailed? What about the date? Why now? Her breath shortened. Shallow. Silent. Not fear exactly. Something colder. Did someone know? Had she told someone, once, in a moment of weakness? Was someone listening yesterday in 3B? Are they fucking with her? She sat down on the one chair in her kitchen and looked at her hands like they might explain it. They didn’t. She stood again. She thought about tearing the photo. Burning it. But she didn’t. She didn’t know why. She needed to think of something. Anything. A way to get answers. Her eyes drifted to the package still sitting open on the counter. Not the photo, she didn’t look at that, but the box. The label. There had to be a record of it. Somewhere. Some paper trail that made sense. That proved this was a mistake. A prank. A mix-up. She found her phone and opened her contacts, hands unsteady. Scrolled. Searched. Eventually found the building’s mailroom. She stared at the call button for a while. Then hit it. She held the phone to her ear. It rang. Then clicked. “Mailroom.” From a voice neither hurried, nor kind. She hesitated. “Hi. I got a package this morning. I was just wondering if you could tell me who dropped it off?” Pause. “What’s the name?” “Ellie. Apartment 3F.” The sound of a keyboard, faint. Someone breathing through their nose. “You don’t have anything marked as delivered today.” Her throat felt tight. “No, it’s here. It was right outside my door. Small box. Handwritten label.” Another pause. “Sometimes people drop things off directly.” “I didn’t give anyone my address.” No answer. Ellie swallowed. “It said June thirteenth.” More silence. Then, “We can look into it.” Click. The line went dead. She tried not to look at the photo again. Just the edge of it was visible now, the white border peeking out from beneath the corner of a napkin she’d dropped over it. Like covering a wound. Like that might be enough. She opened the fridge. The light buzzed on. Her hands moved without much thought. She pulled out bread, a soft tomato on the verge of collapsing on itself. Her kitchen was too quiet. Knife. Cutting board. A too-dry heel of bread. She didn’t bother to toast it. Somewhere behind her, the air felt heavier again, like it was pressing against her back. She didn’t turn around. Just keep going. Just make the meal. Something simple, soft. The old woman liked a tomato sandwich. She’d bring it over. She had to tell someone. Not everything. Not yet. Maybe the woman would understand. Maybe she already knew something. She grabbed another paper plate like before and set the sandwich down, then headed for 3B.