13B

My suitcase bumped along the path behind me –my entire life folded up, tightly packed in the tiny, green-shelled four-wheeled case I dragged along. It had a scratched exterior even though I could count on one hand how many times I had used it –it must have belonged to someone else before me. But still, I had left a life’s worth of memories left behind, the fragments I was bringing a jarring reminder of what I had lost.

‘Hi, my name’s Adeline Stewart. I’m moving into apartment 13A today.’ I watched as the receptionist’s brow furrowed, lines carving on her Botoxed forehead beneath layers of cakey makeup. Her eyelashes fluttered at the screen –large, and looked to be hastily glued on; the sides were breaking free.

‘Of course, yep, right this way, Adeline.’ She smiled up at me over the desk, leading me to the elevator in the corner of the lobby. ‘Here’s your key. Your room is on the second floor, second-last door on the left. In case you weren’t aware, we’ve only got one rule here –don’t go in apartment 13B. The one room opposite you is off-limits to everyone, including the staff. Got it?’ Her voice was sweet with a stern undertone –a warning.

‘Got it,’ I repeated dutifully.

‘Great! Let me know if you need help with anything.’ She flashed me again with blindingly white teeth and left me as the elevator’s doors groaned open, briskly shepherding me into the small capsule.

My apartment was a one-bedroom, one-bathroom quaint space with a small kitchen tucked behind the living room, the tiled floors stained with the dark mildew that was creeping up the sides. There was no dining table, no sofas, only a small coffee table sitting in the centre of the living room with a dark ring where someone must have left a glass. Dust was suspended in the air, a cold, somehow damp atmosphere. I had been warned that the heater didn’t work properly.

I parked my suitcase in the bedroom and slid my backpack off over my shoulders, letting them slump by my sides. My eyelids fluttered, battling against the dust tickling my eyes. I would have to do some cleaning –charred food burnt beyond recognition encrusted the sides of the stove. Maybe I had made a mistake. Maybe I should have just stayed home. No one forced me to live on my own. I could have stayed in my own bed, without the worry of paying for rent, groceries or public transport. But at the same time, I knew I couldn’t. The rooms at home were warm but I was numb. I was frozen. No matter how many arms wrapped around me or tears smeared on other people’s shoulders the feeling never left me. The emptiness. The hopelessness. And the empty bed that would never be warmed by my sister’s body ever again.

The apartment block’s hallway was lined with a cheery yellow wallpaper dotted with faded pink flowers. Across from me, as promised –room 13B. I remembered what the receptionist had said –only one rule in the building, and it was not to enter room 13B. Faint light seeped from beneath the door, as if someone was home. If someone lived there, why was it a rule not to enter? If someone lived there, wouldn’t the door be locked?

As if someone had sensed my forbidden snooping, the door to 12A opened and a woman exited –barely looking older than a teenager and clearly heavily pregnant –wiping her brow clean of sweat as she hoisted a bag full of rubbish onto her shoulder, grunting as a mystery liquid trickled down her arm and stained the mottled burgundy carpet. The girl had dark pits under her eyes and a t-shirt speckled with colourful yet washed-out stains, her hair frazzled with blindingly yellow smiley face socks that clearly didn’t match her mood. I felt a pang of sympathy for the girl, if this was where she had ended up, so close to giving birth yet with every responsibility weighing on her shoulders.

The girl vanished and I felt the urge return –the insatiable itch of inquisition lying a few metres in front of me. Maybe I’d just knock. See if anyone was home. No, I told myself. I had a lot to do. I had to get the unidentified substance off the stove, I had to dust so I wasn’t up all night sneezing. I had to set up the bed with as many pillows has humanly possible to fill the aching void that seemed to follow me, despite me leaving home.

But I crossed the hallway, my steps powered by curiosity. I couldn’t help myself –it was like I was on autopilot. It had barely been half an hour and I was already about to break the one rule that had been set. Was I? I hesitated.

‘I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.’ I flinched, my heart leaping into my mouth. But the voice hadn’t come from behind the door. I spun around, my cheeks flushing a rosy pink, like a kid caught stealing from the cookie jar.

‘Sorry?’ I squeaked.

‘Room 13B. Didn’t they tell you? You’re not allowed to go in there.’ A man was standing outside room 14A. My neighbour. His arms were folded tightly across his chest, his lips drawn into a thin line over his mouth.

‘No,’ I lied. ‘You must be my neighbour. I was trying to meet everyone –I just moved in. Why can’t I enter this room?’

The man shook his head. ‘You just can’t. It’s not allowed.’ He continued at my obvious scepticism. ‘There’s an old folks tale –it’s been around a while. I don’t know if I believe it, but it’s the only reason I can think of for why we’re not allowed in there. A man went in there, drunk, stumbled into the wrong room by mistake. Came out hours later, looking like he had seen a ghost. Never the same after that. Wouldn’t tell anyone what happened. Moved out soon after. Ended up in an institute –parents said he acted like a psycho. No one’s been in since,’ he finished, guffawing meekly. ‘Of course, no one really believes that. It’s just a story to scare new renters. Not allowed in there, though.’

A metallic tang filled my mouth, and I suddenly realised how hard I had been biting the inside of my cheek.

‘Does anyone live in there?’ I asked.

‘Nope. Haven’t for as long as I’ve been here. Anyway, I’d best be getting on. Nice to meet you, by the way. Quite the introduction. I’m Clive.’

‘Adeline,’ I responded, backing away from the door. ‘Thanks for the heads-up.’

‘No problem. Bye, Adeline.’ Clive stepped outside his room and clicked the door shut, shopping bags clasped in both hands.

‘Bye, Clive,’ I responded, waiting until the faint thumping of his footsteps faded into the distance. My gaze flitted back to 13B. My hand was still poised over the handle, as if a tugging force was luring me inside. It was probably just an empty apartment, wasn’t it? Why was it so alluring? I should have left. I should have gone back to my tiny room across the hall and cracked open my suitcase, beginning to pack away the overflowing piles of clothes into neat stacks to tuck away in the small chest of drawers in the corner of the room.

The door groaned as I opened it.

My footfall instantly stirred up a cloud of dust, drifting lazily in the dim light. The room had an earthy mustiness to it, like it was waiting to take a breath. On one side, a tiny, packed kitchen, almost identical to mine, a recipe book still open with a large, silver bowl still waiting for whatever mixture was going to be poured into it. In front of me, a foggy window hung behind faded curtains, filtered sunlight spilling weakly through the cracks. A tall, full-length mirror stood in the middle of the living room, its surface coated with a thin layer of dust, a single handprint in the middle perfectly clear and reflective. Not even a spot of dust dared to venture onto the print. It was fresh.

My reflection warped in the mirror, like I was staring into the surface of a pond, disturbed by the ripples of the invisible creatures beneath. I saw the reflection smile. Her face morphed from mine into something I recognised far too well until I was no longer staring at me at all. Like it was a glass barrier, separating the two of us.

Millie. My sister was staring back at me. Her eyes soft and creased at the corners, like what she did when she was worried. My breath caught in my throat, my blood turning to ice. She reached out to me, her hand on the dustless print on the other side of the mirror. She beckoned me to come. Tears clouded my eyes and I shook my head, trying to free myself from the mirage. She was dead. That wasn’t her.

But somehow, I could hear her voice. Loud and jarring inside my mind. She wanted me. She needed me. She was smiling gently, her face smattered with freckles that only darkened in the summer. So young, so innocent. A perfect mirror of Millie before the crash, a perfect reflection of my memory of her before she died.

I knew it wasn’t her. But I reached out, pressing my hand against hers, nothing but a glassy shield separating us. Divided by the barrier of glass, the fence between life and death.

In that moment, I forgot about the crash. In that moment, I forgot about the funeral. The casket that was slowly lowered into the ground. In that moment, I forgot about the nights I had spent staining my pillow with tears that knew no end. In that moment, everything else evaporated. The world stood still around me.

Suddenly, my arm was yanked forward, nearly wrenching it from its socket. Numbing hands clasped around my wrist, pulling me forward. I braced for the impact of the mirror but it never came and I was left staggering through the glass. Millie’s soft expression had shifted in an instant –darkening with an evil glee as she hauled me towards her with the strength of a bodybuilder and the speed of a snake. I tried to scream but my lungs were devoid of air and the scream died before it ever left my mouth. A shattering –like I was being pulled through water, my soul stripped of its heart, its pain. Its humanity. I passed through Millie’s body and she became me as I was stripped from my physical self and thrown on the other side of the mirror. An agonizing ache of loss, icy fingers clamping around my heart, a gaping void within me. A pain of defeat.

Suddenly, I was on the other side. Pulled through the glass like it was water, suspended where I had just gaped at Millie like a caged animal in the zoo. My body was a milky blue, and I was staring at myself on the other side of the mirror. I was smiling. I was grinning manically, staring at my hands, my body.

Staring back at me.

I watched from the other side as I breathed, my chest expanding, my body nourished by air. I wasn’t breathing, I realised. I was just there.

I clawed at the glass but my hands fell through it, like I was never there at all. There was nothing within me to feel pain –I was weightless, an echo of my own existence.

There was a muffled voice on the other side of the glass. I was speaking.

‘Take someone else,’ she said. I said. ‘Take someone else’s body. Then you’ll return.’ She looked sympathetic but unable to contain her glee. A spark in her eyes of something I didn’t recognise. A second chance.

Then she turned and left apartment 13B.

I wanted to scream, to reach out, but I had no mouth to yell with, no arms to grab with. No way to make the world notice me. The agony was replaced by an overwhelming sense of nothingness –suffocation. I was suspended in a timeless limbo –a liminal place consumed by my own grief. Who had taken my life? Was it the one I had been warned of? The old folk’s tale, whispered through the halls of the apartment, passed down through the years.

I had lost my sister, but worse than that; I had lost myself. I had been lured into the trap of apartment 13B –like a helpless insect falling victim to the sweet scent of a carnivorous plant. Saccharine and sugary from the outside, but a hellish acidic interior that slowly churned it to its death lay within.

I was lost until the next unsuspecting victim fell prey to apartment 13B.