Every night at exactly 3:00 a.m., Marla heard footsteps in the hallway outside her apartment door. They always started at the far end of the corridor and moved slowly - deliberately - until they stopped just short of her unit.

She'd peeked once, weeks ago, and saw only the darkened hallway. Nothing. No sound. No person.

But tonight felt different. The air had a pressure to it, thick and watching.

As the clock blinked 2:59, Marla's breath caught in her throat. She stood, barefoot, in the center of her living room, wrapped in her thin bathrobe. The footsteps started right on time.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Closer and closer. She didn't dare move.

The light in her hallway flickered.

Then, silence.

A slow creak rasped from the other side of her door. Not a knock. Not a bang. Just the sound of someone pressing lightly? testing.

And then - laughing. Soft, almost childlike giggling, rising to a broken, garbled chuckle.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A message from an unknown number: "You looked last time. Why didn't you say hello?"

Her stomach twisted.

The doorknob jiggled.

And then a voice whispered through the cracks in the wood, a voice too cheerful for the hour:

"Don't worry, I brought my own key tonight."

The lock clicked.

And the smiling man stepped inside.

Marla bolted for the kitchen. Her bare feet slipped on the tile as she reached for the biggest knife in the drawer. Behind her, the door creaked open with a drawn-out groan, slow and intentional - like whoever was entering wanted her to hear every second of it.

She gripped the knife so hard her knuckles whitened.

"Marla?" the voice sang, closer now, "You shouldn't be rude to guests."

She didn't know how he knew her name. She didn't want to know.

Peeking around the corner, she saw him at last - tall, too tall, his head brushing the ceiling. He wore a tattered, oversized coat that hung like rotting curtains around his body. But it was his face that turned her veins to ice: wide eyes too round and too still, lips pulled into a fixed, unblinking grin that split his face like a scar. The smile never moved, not even when he spoke.

"Look how nice I look for you."

His voice came from his chest, not his mouth.

Marla stepped back, shaking. "Get out. I'm calling the police."

He tilted his head, slowly, like a broken puppet.

"They don't answer after three. You know that."

And she did. She had tried - countless times, after the footsteps began. Her calls always rang, then went silent. No voicemail. No answer.

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered.

The man in the doorway didn't move, but suddenly the lights buzzed overhead. A faint flicker. Shadows shifted on the walls - and some of them moved against the light.

"Because," he said, voice gurgling now, as if underwater, "you opened the door once. That's all it takes."

Something behind him stepped forward from the shadows. Then another. All grinning.

Marla screamed and swung the knife as the lights went out.

In the dark, a chorus of voices whispered:

"You're part of the hallway now."

And the door slowly closed behind them.

When Marla opened her eyes, the apartment was still dark. Silent. The knife was gone from her hand. Her mouth was open in a scream she no longer had the breath to finish.

The hallway beyond the door stretched endlessly now - longer than it ever had, far beyond the building's limits. And it moved, subtly, like it was breathing. Like it was alive.

She stumbled backward into her living room, but the walls had changed. Her furniture was gone, the windows bricked up. Everything had the same pale, flickering tone as the hallway outside. The air smelled like damp earth and something sweet - like rotting fruit.

She wasn't home anymore.

Footsteps echoed again. But now they came from all directions.

"Welcome," the Smiling Man said. He stepped forward from the darkness, his hands open, welcoming. Around him, the others followed - dozens of them. Each one with a frozen grin and hollow eyes. Some were crawling. Some limped. Some moved in sharp, unnatural jerks like broken film.

They circled her. Not touching. Just watching.

"You'll get used to it," he said with a voice like rust scraping glass.

Marla backed up until her spine hit the wall - only it wasn't a wall anymore. It was soft. Breathing. The wallpaper pulsed beneath her hands, and the lights overhead clicked off, one by one.

3:00 a.m.

Somewhere far away, in the building Marla used to live in, a woman stepped into the hallway. She heard soft, measured footsteps far at the other end. She glanced around nervously, then back at her door.

Her phone buzzed.

A message from an unknown number:

"Don't worry, he just wants to say hello."

And the hallway smiled.