The Routine

He moved into apartment 4A for a fresh start. The neighbor in 4B seemed normal enough at first: quiet, punctual, and almost reassuring in the way his evenings clicked into place with exact precision. Then he recorded the sounds through the wall. Two different nights. The audio was identical. Not similar. Identical. No one in the building has actually seen the man in 4B. The mailbox is overflowing. The super remembers renting the unit, but not the tenant's face. When he finally gets the door opened, the apartment is empty. Dust on every surface. No one has lived there in years. But the sounds don't stop. And now the rest of the building is starting to fall into the same rhythm. Including him. A slow-burn psychological horror about what happens when a building learns your routine — and decides to keep it.