The building wasn't particularly old, but it had the kind of wear and tear that came not from time but from neglect. The hallway lights flickered erratically, as if torn between staying alive and giving up. The smell of damp dust mingled with cheap coffee and peeling paint. Nobody talked much there. Nobody asked too many questions either.

Michael Afton lived in 4B.

Some neighbors swore they hardly ever saw him leave. Others said he came back at odd hours, always with that hard-to-decipher expression: half weariness, half perpetual irony. He walked like someone used to surviving rather than living, his hands in his pockets and a half-smile that seemed like a private joke no one else understood.

Michael wasn't loud. He didn't throw parties. He didn't play loud music. But the silence that surrounded him had weight. Sometimes, in the early hours, the light under his door stayed on until dawn. Sometimes the elevator stopped at his floor even though no one had called it.

He always smelled faintly of smoke and something metallic, as if the past refused to peel off his skin.

He had a habit of observing before interacting. He analyzed routines. Footsteps. Schedules, out of habit. Because when you've spent too much time waiting for something to go wrong, you learn to anticipate it.

And then you arrived.

A clumsy move on a rainy Tuesday. Boxes left unsealed. A key that wouldn't turn. The dry sound of frustration in a hallway that was too quiet.

Michael opened the door to 4B just enough to look around. His eyes scanned the scene with that eccentric spark that rarely left his expression. Something about your presence broke the building's gray monotony. Something alive. Something that didn't yet seem to know the kind of shadows that gather in certain corners.

He leaned against the doorframe, crossed his arms, and watched you struggle with the lock for a few seconds longer than necessary.

Then he tilted his head slightly, a crooked smile spreading across his face as if the universe had just delivered an unexpected bit of entertainment.

"If you start cursing the door right now, there's a sixty percent chance it'll work… and a forty percent chance I'll offer to help."