Shadows of the Second Floor
When Nina steps into the courtyard with her suitcase, everything feels unfamiliar—even the peeling bench by the entrance where she’s sat for years. Sat while waving her daughter off to school, embroidering napkins for the neighbours, watching snow swirl under the streetlamp. The building is the same, the pavement still cracked near the drain cover, and pigeons still pick at the bins as if the world hasn’t budged. But inside her, everything has turned upside down. The familiar has become distant, cold, as if it belongs to someone else.
Her husband left three years ago. One day, he simply said, “I’m tired,” and walked out without another word. No shouting, no slamming door—just gone, like he’d stepped out for cigarettes and vanished into the night. Her daughter moved to Manchester, married, then divorced, and now calls once a month with the same clipped reassurance: “Mum, I’m fine, don’t worry.” Nina worked in the archives until they shut the department—”digitalisation,” “streamlining,” words that sounded like a death sentence. Her memory for old records, her neat handwriting, suddenly meant nothing in this new, hollow world.
Alone, she tried to keep going. She bought plants—first a fern, then geraniums, until the windowsill overflowed with green. She joined a yoga class, though she hated stretching—just stood in the poses, feeling her body still alive. She bought trainers for walks, strolled through the park once or twice, but mostly remembered the old woman who dropped a water bottle, the liquid spreading across the path like a tear. She tried online dating, but after one message—”show me your legs closer”—she deleted the app and swore off even messaging.
Everything changed when the flat on the second floor emptied. The elderly neighbour passed, the family sold it within a week, and soon new tenants moved in. A young couple. But odd. Their windows glowed in the evenings, yet no sound escaped—no footsteps, no chatter, no creak of furniture. Nina caught herself pausing by her door, straining to hear. Always silence. Thick, unnatural, like someone had muted the world before the curtain rose.
One night, she saw her. The woman from upstairs. Barefoot on the balcony in a thin slip, staring into the dark of the courtyard. Not smoking, not moving—just watching. Her face was chalk-white, hair hanging like shadows. Three in the morning. A chill ran down Nina’s spine—not fear, but something deeper, like a call from the dark. By morning, the flat’s door stood ajar. A heavy smell seeped out—burnt dust and something indescribable, as if the walls were exhaling secrets.
Nina climbed the stairs. Knocked. Silence. Her heart pounded, but she didn’t back down. No answer. She called the constable, then the police. They arrived quietly, as if they knew there was no hurry. The woman was inside, in an armchair, facing the window. Blank-eyed. No tears, no words. The doctors called it a breakdown, years of stress. The husband? Gone. No note, no trace. The neighbours didn’t even remember him living there.
After that, Nina lost her peace. The house turned foreign, its rhythms shifting. As if something had awoken, reshaping the shadows, blurring the line between hers and theirs. Things began vanishing—first from the landing, then her flat. Keys, an old brooch, letters from her daughter, a postcard from a friend. Like the house was taking them, quietly, without malice, a collector claiming what it needed more.
Now she stands with her suitcase, ready to leave for her brother’s. Just for a while. Every part of her resists, but her mind insists: “You must.” She steps out, gently closes the door, walks into the courtyard. But at the gate, she remembers—the keys are still on the table.
She turns back. Climbs the stairs. Her door is slightly open. She knows she locked it. Her hand hovers over the handle. Her heart hammers as if trying to escape. A thought flashes: “What if someone was waiting for you to leave?”
Nina steps inside. In the hallway sits a suitcase. Not hers. Similar, but new, gleaming, with a tag. Beside it—a note.
“I thought I could run too. But I stayed. Don’t make my mistake.”
No signature. Just the smell—the same one from upstairs. Dry, like a forgotten well.
Nina walks out. Leaves the suitcase untouched. Sits on the bench. Watches the sun sink behind the grey tower blocks. Slowly, as if giving her time.
Then she stands. And for the first time in years, she truly leaves. Not temporarily. Not “for now.” Not just the flat, but the trap the house had woven around her.