The Drawer Beneath the Printer

It started with the drawer.

Not the big one with fresh paper. Not the skinny one full of dried pens and weird paperclips. The one under the printer stand. Crooked, dust-lined, swollen from years of neglect. Paige hadn’t opened it since the pandemic. Maybe longer.

She only pulled it open because she needed a blank envelope. Nothing scented. No glitter. Just plain paper. Something quiet she could slide under a door. An apology maybe. Or goodbye. Or something in between.

The drawer resisted. One corner stuck. She gave it a yank. It came free with a sound like peeling vinyl. Inside: tangled cords, faded ink cartridges, a post-it with half a phone number, and-

A stone.

No. A box.

Or both.

Stone shaped into a box. Smooth. Gray. Strangely perfect. Like granite that had been told to behave. Cold and heavier than it should have been.

She picked it up before she even realized. Her thumb grazed the seam. She stared at it for ten seconds. Maybe longer.

Then she set it on the desk and forgot the envelope.

Paige wasn’t mystical.

She believed in therapy. Not tarot. She lit candles to block the scent of her neighbor’s soup, not to summon spirits. But the box stayed on the desk. Three days passed. She found herself glancing at it. Not often. Not long. Just enough to notice that it hadn’t moved.

On the third night, the power failed.

Only her apartment.

The hallway light stayed on. Mrs. Green’s television rumbled downstairs. But Paige’s screen flickered, died, and every outlet went silent.

She lit a candle.

The box clicked.

Not loud. Just enough. Like breath against marble.

She leaned in. The seam had shifted. A thin black gap now circled the lid.

She should have left it.

Instead, she touched it.

The lid slid free without resistance.

Inside: a folded slip of paper.

The handwriting was hers. Except it wasn’t. Not her style. But somehow still hers.

Four words.

I am not alone.

She laughed. Sharp, uncomfortable. Probably something she’d written during a low day and forgotten. Or an old therapy exercise. But the paper was crisp. Too clean. The script didn’t match her casual hand or her anxious one. It looked like the version of her who smiled too big for photos.

She put the box back in the drawer. Then put the drawer in the closet.

She lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Kept hearing the click.

It didn’t come again.

Still, the next day, she called in sick. Just in case.

That night, she dreamed of fire and fog. A hallway lined with breathing doors. Each one pulsing like a heartbeat. One opened. She felt herself reaching-

She woke with her hands clenched.

The box was back on the desk.

She didn’t scream.

Something about it felt apologetic. Not a threat. Not even a message. More like an old friend showing up without warning. The kind who doesn’t knock.

She opened the lid.

A second note waited inside.

I will wait.

The candle on her windowsill wavered. There was no breeze.

“What are you?” she whispered.

No answer. Just the faint echo of heat in the air.

She placed the new note beside the first. Left the box open.

After her shower, a third message had appeared.

You remember.

She dropped her towel. Stared. Water dripped down her spine.

She hadn’t told anyone about the dream. She hadn’t even admitted it to herself.

She wasn’t ready for magic. Not really.

But the box was.

She stopped leaving the apartment.

Not out of fear. Not exactly. She just didn’t want to miss what came next.

The messages never appeared while she watched. Only when she looked away. Only when she blinked.

Each one brought a strange stillness. As if the room were holding its breath.

A few notes came as questions.

Do you feel it?

It’s closer now.

The line is thin tonight.

One note had a drawing. A spiral made of small, crooked doors.

Another had a scent. Like honeysuckle. The exact smell from a summer Paige could almost remember, though no summer had ever smelled that vivid.

One morning, she found a message written in soap on her bathroom mirror.

You’re the last one left.

She wiped it with a trembling hand. The glass cleared. Her reflection didn’t look different. It just looked realer than it ever had.

Her brother called. She didn’t pick up.

Her manager emailed. She didn’t read it.

Instead, she began writing back.

One word to start. Who?

The next morning, the reply came.

We are what was left behind.

She asked again. Why me?

The answer unfolded slowly.

You are not the first. You are the first who stayed.

She hesitated before the next question.

What do you want from me?

No reply.

The next morning, the box was gone.

She tore the apartment apart. Checked under the bed. Behind the couch. Inside the freezer.

Nothing.

Later that evening, she found a scrap of paper on the desk.

Come.

She walked.

No destination. Just her keys and a half-dead phone.

The city didn’t look different. Not quite. But it felt thinner. Like a drawing redrawn too many times. Windows blinked at the wrong rhythm. A lamppost leaned, slightly bowed, toward her.

She found the door between a boarded laundromat and a vacant office space.

It wasn’t in a wall.

It stood alone.

Stone. Like the box.

Gray. Smooth. Wrong in the same familiar way.

She touched it.

A click. The exact same sound.

The door opened inward.

She stepped through.

Not darkness.

She stood in her childhood bedroom.

Not exactly. It wasn’t what it had been. It was what she remembered.

Peeling wallpaper. A chipped dresser. The stuffed fox she lost in second grade rested against the pillow.

Outside the window, nothing but wild green. Endless trees. Somewhere, a stream laughed to itself.

On the bed, the box.

Open.

Inside: a photograph.

Her, age six, holding hands with a girl she didn’t recognize. They were smiling like they had invented joy.

A note beneath it.

This is where you left her.

The memories broke like waves.

A summer her parents never mentioned.

A friend no one else remembered.

A tree with roots that hummed when touched.

A door at the edge of a field, painted in moving light.

A game without rules.

A promise: Don’t forget. Or it’ll close.

Paige had forgotten.

It had closed.

Now it was open again.

She stayed in the room. Could have been an hour. Could have been years.

Time sat politely in the corner and waited.

Eventually, she opened the only other door.

A hallway stretched beyond. Every door breathed in unison.

She opened three.

One led to a beach where the ocean rose in perfect cubes.

One to a train filled with clocks.

One to a library where the books whispered when she blinked.

She opened a fourth.

A hospital room.

Her own body lay in the bed.

Monitors steady. A nurse at the chart.

On a nearby chair: the box.

Open.

Inside: One path closes when another is found.

She ran.

Not out of fear.

Out of knowing.

She returned through a final door and found herself back in her apartment.

The lights buzzed overhead. The printer stirred, as if trying to remember what it was for.

The box sat on the desk.

Empty.

Beside it, a mirror.

Her eyes held light now. Not bright. Just present.

She returned to work.

Nothing had changed. Everything had.

She answered her brother’s call.

She mailed the letter she had written weeks ago and never sent.

Every night, she lit a candle.

Every night, the box clicked open.

No messages.

Just the quiet, humming wait.

Until one evening, she came home and found the drawer beneath the printer wide open.

Empty.

A final note taped inside:

It’s your turn to leave something behind.

She smiled.

She placed a drawing inside. The spiral of doors, exactly as she remembered it. Or maybe dreamed it.

She closed the drawer.

Left the apartment without her keys.

Somewhere, beneath a sky she had once whispered to in sleep, a girl was still waiting.

And Paige remembered, at last, how the story was supposed to go.