Chapter 2 — Three Knocks

Nora did not move.

The lobby’s glass doors stood less than ten meters away, reflecting the empty reception area, the security desk, and her own frozen silhouette.

There was no one outside.

Still, the sound had been unmistakable.

Three slow knocks.

Not the random tapping of debris carried by the wind. Not metal expanding in the cold. Someone—or something—had struck the glass deliberately.

Nora looked down at her phone.

Emil’s message remained on the screen.

Whatever happens, do not answer when they knock.

The green circle beside his name still showed that he was online.

Nora typed with trembling fingers.

Who is at the door?

The message was delivered immediately.

No response.

She tried again.

Emil, where are you?

Three dots appeared.

Then vanished.

Nora waited.

Nothing came.

Outside, the avenue remained motionless. The bus doors were still open. The abandoned cars continued to idle at the intersection. Their headlights illuminated the empty asphalt.

A shape passed behind one of them.

Nora lifted her head.

There was something near the bus.

She stepped toward the glass, then stopped.

At first, she thought it was a person crouching behind the vehicle. The shape was tall and narrow, but the streetlights distorted everything into long shadows.

“Nora.”

Her blood turned cold.

The voice came from outside.

A woman’s voice.

Familiar.

“Nora, open the door.”

Her mother.

Nora moved before she could think.

She crossed half the lobby, then forced herself to stop.

The glass reflected her frightened face.

Her mother lived hundreds of kilometers away.

Nora had called her less than fifteen minutes earlier.

No one had answered.

“Nora, please.”

The voice sounded exactly right.

Not merely similar. It carried the same slight rasp, the same careful pronunciation of Nora’s name, the same softness her mother used whenever she was trying not to reveal fear.

Nora stared through the glass.

No one stood there.

“Mom?”

The word escaped her before she could stop it.

Her phone vibrated violently.

A new message from Emil filled the screen.

I told you not to answer.

The lobby lights went out.

Nora gasped.

For several seconds, the only illumination came from the street outside and the phone in her hand.

Then the emergency lights activated, bathing the lobby in a weak red glow.

On the other side of the glass, something had appeared.

A human figure stood directly in front of the doors.

Its face was hidden in darkness.

Nora stepped backward.

The figure lifted one hand.

Three fingers touched the glass.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

“Nora,” her mother’s voice said. “You have to let me in.”

Nora backed away until she struck the security desk.

The doors were locked. She could see the red light on the access panel.

The figure placed its palm against the glass.

Where its hand touched, the surface fogged from the outside.

Words slowly appeared in the condensation.

YOU ANSWERED

Nora covered her mouth.

The figure lowered its hand.

Then it moved sideways.

Not walked.

Moved.

Its body remained perfectly upright as it slid across the glass without taking a single step. It passed beyond the entrance and disappeared behind the stone wall.

Nora stared at the place where it had vanished.

A soft sound came from behind her.

The elevator chimed.

Its doors opened.

The car was empty.

On the floor, in the center of the elevator, lay a smartphone.

Its screen was lit.

Nora recognized it immediately.

The cracked corner. The black case. The faded sticker of a small red planet.

Emil’s phone.

She had held it at the hospital after his death.

She had placed it inside a box with his keys, his watch, and the clothes he had been wearing that night.

The box was still in her apartment.

Forty-two floors above her.

Nora did not approach.

The phone began to ring.

The sound echoed through the lobby.

On its screen appeared the name:

NORA CALLING

Her own number.

Nora looked at the phone in her hand.

It was not making a call.

The ringing stopped.

A voice message began to play from Emil’s device.

At first, there was only static.

Then Nora heard herself breathing.

Not her current breathing.

The recording was softer, faster, accompanied by distant alarms.

Her own voice spoke.

“If you find this, don’t trust Atlas.”

Nora gripped the edge of the desk.

The message continued.

“They can use voices. They can use memories. They can look like anyone you’ve lost.”

A violent impact interrupted the recording.

Her recorded voice whispered:

“They’re already inside.”

The message ended.

Nora stared at the empty elevator.

The emergency lights flickered.

She opened Atlas on her phone and refreshed the map.

The result still showed one active human user.

1

But beneath the count, a second number had appeared.

Unclassified connections: 47

Nora tapped it.

Forty-seven red points pulsed across the city.

One hovered directly over her building.

Another was moving upward through the floors.

She opened the building view.

The red point passed the tenth floor.

Then the eleventh.

Then the twelfth.

It was inside the elevator shaft.

Coming toward her.

Nora looked at the open elevator in front of her.

Emil’s phone still lay on the floor.

The display above the doors showed that the elevator had not moved.

Yet something was climbing.

Floor 19.

Floor 20.

Floor 21.

Her phone vibrated.

Emil had sent another message.

Take my phone. It contains the first key.

Nora typed:

Is that really you?

The response came immediately.

Ask me something only Emil would know.

Nora thought of a hundred memories.

Birthdays. Childhood arguments. Secret hiding places. The final conversation they had before his death.

Then she remembered the night of the funeral.

Something she had never told anyone.

She typed:

What did I put in your coffin?

The three dots appeared.

The red point climbed past floor 30.

Emil replied:

Nothing. You couldn’t make yourself go near it.

Nora’s eyes filled with tears.

That was true.

Everyone believed she had placed a letter beside him. Her mother had even thanked her for doing it.

But Nora had stood outside the room, unable to enter.

Only Emil could have known.

Or something that had access to her memories.

The red point reached floor 40.

Nora ran to the elevator and picked up Emil’s phone.

The moment her fingers touched it, every screen in the lobby turned on.

Security monitors. Advertising panels. The access display. Even the small television behind the desk.

All of them showed the same image.

Nora standing in the lobby.

Filmed from directly behind her.

She turned around.

No one was there.

On every screen, however, a dark figure stood inches from her back.

Its head leaned toward her ear.

Her mother’s voice whispered from the speakers:

“You should have opened the door.”

Nora screamed and ran toward the stairwell.

The red point reached floor 42.

Her apartment floor.

Then it stopped.

A new notification appeared on Emil’s phone.

Not a message.

A live video.

The image showed the hallway outside Nora’s apartment.

Her front door was open.

Someone stood inside.

A woman slowly stepped into view.

Nora’s mother looked directly into the camera.

She smiled.

Then, in Emil’s voice, she said:

“Come home, Nora.”