Part 1: The Quiet Void

I lived completely isolated for almost a year and never knew the life I once had before the accident would be erased. I never had the know-how to get into engineering school like my parents wanted for me, but I always preferred working with my hands. Construction jobs came and went, contracts ended, but I always had a site to work on or a building to put up.

When the Whitam Hawthorne Group offered me a formal position for the construction project of their new headquarters, I accepted it in a heartbeat. Job security from a company like WHG, with a salary I’d only dreamed of, and benefits to match—it seemed foolish to refuse. The foundation had barely been poured when the collapse happened. Nobody knew who was exactly to blame—whether it was the surveyors, the engineers, or some freak accident—but the result was clear. Three men were dead, and thirteen others were injured. Those of us caught in the rubble could only point our fingers at the parent company.

The legal threat was significant enough that William Hawthorne decided to offer each of us a generous settlement outside of court. You can judge all you want, but six zeros on a check would silence anyone. In addition, they offered me a systems job, which I could do from home, along with a reduced rent at one of their apartment complexes—any unit that would accommodate the wheelchair I’d be confined to for the rest of my life. Until then, I hadn’t even known they owned residential properties, but the complex looked decent enough on the pamphlet they sent me. After all, I certainly couldn’t live alone in my fourth-floor apartment anymore.

I moved in at the beginning of February the following year. I won’t lie—the adjustment to everything hit me harder than it should have. Overnight, I had gone from working outside every day to being restricted to a wheelchair I had no intuition for using, stuck inside all day long. My hard hat and boots swapped for a work laptop and a filing cabinet. The depression from this change worsened when I got settled in. It was embarrassing how little I owned that would be practical given my new lifestyle. The movers had brought my things over so quickly, and within a day of getting out of the hospital, I was living in my new apartment.

The apartment was a first-floor unit, for obvious reasons. The second and third floors each had units with patio balconies that extended over a small fenced-in yard, leaving my already tiny living room windows barely getting any sunlight. My kitchen had lowered countertops and extended storage on the lower shelves to accommodate the wheelchair. My bedroom was spacious, with a wheelchair-accessible closet and a roomy attached bathroom.

I wish I could say I was thankful, but the accommodations only reminded me that I would never live the same life again. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those guys who sees disability as something that makes someone lesser. My aunt was a wheelchair user when I was growing up, and I had an older brother with special needs. Both of them had my respect for as long as they lived. But both had also died because, in one way or another, they depended on something that couldn’t be provided for them. My aunt fell out of her chair in her old age one day and didn’t have the arm strength to crawl back up or reach the phone. The medic said her pets had started to eat her before she even died.

Now, almost 30 years of independence and ability had been ripped from me. I was entirely dependent on a company that had caused it. I was bitter, very bitter.

By June of that year, it was as hot as it had ever been in my state. By then, I had settled into a dull routine. Wake up, do a few arm exercises before I shower, eat breakfast, and then try to get some work done before lunch. What I did barely qualified as work, but the company thought it better to keep me on payroll under an NDA than risk me suing. After lunch, I would check my fridge for groceries and add what I was running low on to my weekly mobile delivery order. It was much easier to have someone else leave groceries at my front door than to find a way to get to a supermarket.

I found a routine where I honestly never had to leave the apartment. I avoided human interaction, and it was easy to stay inside. The only voices I heard for months were my neighbors. From what I could tell, I lived underneath a married couple that never stopped fighting. In the unit next to me, there was an older woman with at least a couple more cats than the lease allowed.

One morning in mid-June, as I got out of the shower and dried my head, I opened my eyes to find that the power in my apartment had suddenly gone out. It was inevitable. Everyone on the block must have had their AC units on blast. I finished drying off and, for the first time since moving in, rolled over to the sliding door in my living room and went out into the small yard where I knew I’d find the breaker box.

The outside air was hot and heavy, and as I watched my toes brush against grass they couldn’t feel, I noticed that, without the hum of the AC units running outside, it was incredibly quiet. Not even insects or birds filled the air. For a moment, I let the morning sun rest on my face before it rose behind the patio and overshadowed my yard. It was a fleeting peace, but blissful for the short time it lasted.

The silence was interrupted by the sound of the sliding door above creaking open. Then came the familiar arguing voices I’d grown painfully accustomed to. The woman above me shouted, “If you don’t want to fix it, then I will!”

I couldn’t help but zone out as their argument continued, even though I heard every word. I thought it was ironic that even the briefest joy was fleeting in my life. As I opened the fuse box and flipped the breakers, I heard my AC unit kick back on, restoring the mechanical hum and drowning out the arguments above me.

I managed to get back inside and hoped I wouldn’t have to go out again anytime soon. I’m ashamed to admit that was the last time I went outside for months. I had no contact with my family, and the few friends I had lived out of state. I had no reason to leave anymore. The summer’s heat and my depression pushed me deeper into isolation. I woke up, showered, ate breakfast, worked all day, and then went to sleep.

Even the arguments upstairs and the occasional meow from the unit next to me became monotonous. I drowned as much of it out as I could. The same voices, the same fights, the same misbehaving cats, day in and day out. Sometimes, I couldn’t help but listen in. The woman upstairs, whose name I gathered to be Clare, was seemingly unemployed. She rarely spoke unless it was to accost her husband, Jackson—or maybe Jason?—for some wrongdoing. He seemed to have anger issues, but was more defensive than aggressive. Cold and distant, paired with irritable and sensitive. It was the perfect storm.

I never gathered the name of the woman next to me. Instead, I became very familiar with Greta, Priscilla, and Tom—the cats. Every day, the woman would try to quiet Tom for crying too loudly for food. Sometime in the afternoon, she would accost Greta and Priscilla for fighting over a nap spot in the sunbeam. It sounded like heaven. The voices were my only human connection.

By mid-September, I had developed allergies. And that was when I realized I hadn’t heard my own voice in months. I cried myself to sleep that night, feeling more alone than I’d ever been. By October, the isolation became unbearable. I found myself listening to the voices more than I ever wanted. I started quieting my apartment as much as possible just to catch snippets of their conversations. The same fights, complaints, meowing—their lives had become my comfort.

One night, out of desperation or maybe just as a form of entertainment for myself, I started responding. It wasn’t much at first—just a quiet whisper in response to Clare’s complaints. “You never listen to me,” I whispered. “I’m listening.” When Jackson muttered, “I can’t do this,” I chuckled and stuttered out, “Me neither.”

I don’t know why I kept it up. Maybe it was just to hear my own voice. Maybe because, in a pathetic way, it made me feel like I was connecting with someone. I knew it was stupid and illogical, but it made things feel just a little less empty. It became a game. Each night, I sat in the dim light of my apartment, sipping one drink too many, listening. Letting their words become ours. The arguments, the meows, the mild chitchat.

And then, about a week later, I noticed it for the first time.

Clare had just shouted, “For once in your life, admit that I might be right.” I responded instinctively, “Why should I when you’re wrong?”

Before I could finish my words, from above, her husband’s voice echoed: “But why should I when you’re wrong?”

I paused for a moment. It felt familiar, but why? Had I heard this argument before?

It didn’t take long before I realized—I had. Their conversations, their arguments, their fights—they were all repeating themselves. Word for word. The same exact exchanges, in the exact same order. The same fights, over and over again.

I couldn’t ignore it any longer. Something wasn’t right.

And then, one morning, I decided to do something about it.

Part 2: The Loop

I couldn’t let it go. The realization that the same arguments, complaints, and even the same meows were repeating with uncanny precision sent a cold shiver down my spine. It was like something had reset, and everything around me was on a loop—a routine I couldn’t break. I had to find out what was really going on.

The next morning, I decided I was going to do something about it. I sat down at my desk with my work laptop open, but I wasn’t working. I had no intention of doing so. Instead, I was compiling everything I had learned from months of silence and the few exchanges I had dared to participate in. My notes on the conversations, the timing of the fights, and even the trivial chatter from the old woman next door. I had been keeping track of everything for weeks, perhaps months, but today, I would be more meticulous than ever.

I checked my wristwatch. The same routine. 8:15 a.m. The old woman would be calling for Tom. I sat there, eager and prepared, staring at the clock. It was 8:14, and I could already hear the faint sounds of her voice through the walls.

At exactly 8:15, she began: “Tommy, Tom, be quiet. I fed you already.”

I made a note in my file. No surprise. I had heard this a hundred times before. But now, I was prepared for the next step.

Just a few minutes later, at 8:17, I heard the same exact words that had been uttered days before: “Yes, he left for work. No, it’ll just be me here until he comes home for lunch.”

I was starting to feel like I was losing my grip. Was I truly hearing things that had already happened? Was I trapped in some sort of temporal loop? The lines between reality and repetition began to blur. But there was one thing I knew for sure—I had to test this.

That evening, I sat by the door, waiting. My hands trembled as I grasped the door handle. The plan was simple, though nerve-wracking: Interrupt the cycle. Force whatever was orchestrating this strange reality to break. To see if I could make any difference.

It was almost 9:13 p.m., when Clare, the woman upstairs, would chastise her cats for fighting. I had everything ready. My wristwatch ticking in my ears, the notes in my lap, and the feeling of anticipation building in my chest.

At exactly 9:13, I knocked on her door.

The sound echoed in the hallway, piercing through the silence. I stood there, holding my breath, waiting. The seconds stretched, becoming an eternity. But there was no response. I knocked again, harder this time. Nothing. I could hear her voice inside, but it wasn’t the same. The usual conversation had stopped.

And then, the door cracked open.

My heart raced as the door inched forward, revealing nothing but darkness on the other side. The hallway light barely reached into the apartment, and there was no sign of Clare, or anyone else. I peered inside cautiously, but all I could see was a wheelchair tipped over on the floor in the middle of the living room. A strange, unnerving sense of emptiness washed over me.

A slow, methodical chewing sound reached my ears, followed by the occasional meow of a cat. It was as though the place had been abandoned but was still inhabited by… something. I backed away slowly, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. I didn’t belong here.

As I turned away from the doorway, the door slammed shut behind me, and I heard the echo of footsteps retreating into the dark corners of the apartment. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched, that something was lurking just beyond my understanding. I quickly returned to my own unit, and the world around me seemed to shift ever so slightly.

Over the following days, the pattern continued, but now it was worse. The repetition grew more erratic, and the voices in the building became distorted. Sometimes the arguments upstairs didn’t sound like Clare and her husband anymore—they sounded like someone mimicking their voices. The cats’ meows were distorted, too, as if they were being played on a loop, manipulated by an unseen force.

The loop itself, however, seemed to be stretching, shifting. The voices changed. The arguments evolved, but only slightly. It was as though the script had been rewritten just enough to make it seem like nothing had truly changed.

And then, something even stranger happened. A week after I knocked on Clare’s door, the voices started again. But this time, they were different. New complaints, new arguments. New complaints about things that hadn’t been discussed before.

For the first time in months, I felt a flicker of hope. Maybe they were real people. Maybe I wasn’t alone in this. But that hope was short-lived. A deeper, darker realization dawned on me. The voices were still being manipulated, carefully constructed. I could feel the pattern repeating itself, but the timing was no longer predictable. Each day, a new sequence of words appeared, as if it was all controlled by something behind the scenes.

And then the cars returned. But they weren’t like any cars I’d seen before. They were driverless, slowly creeping past my window, as though they, too, were part of the loop. I could see the shadows of the vehicles casting over my walls, but the emptiness that surrounded them was unbearable.

I realized then that the complex, the whole place, was nothing but a simulation—some kind of twisted experiment. But I didn’t know who or what was behind it. I had to escape, but where would I go? There was nowhere to run, no one to help me.

Days turned into weeks, and the strange events escalated. The voices were no longer recognizable. The arguments became nonsensical, and the cats seemed to multiply. I started documenting everything, tracking every detail, trying to make sense of what was happening.

And then, one day, there was a knock at the door. It was soft at first, but then it grew louder, more persistent. Three solid knocks echoed through my apartment, sending a chill down my spine. I grabbed the nearest knife and wheeled myself towards the door, my hands shaking. I asked, my voice trembling, “Who’s there?”

No answer. But then, the voice came. My voice. Broken, distorted, as if it had been stitched together from previous conversations.

“I’m… I’m your neighbor from next door.”

I didn’t know what to do. My pulse quickened, and I felt a surge of adrenaline rush through me. I flung open the door, brandishing the knife in front of me. The hallway was empty, but something was there—something I couldn’t see. The voice came again, calling my name, but it didn’t sound like me. It was almost too perfect, like an imitation.

In that moment, I knew I had to escape. I wasn’t just fighting for survival anymore—I was fighting for my mind. With one final, desperate effort, I pushed myself through the empty space, charging out of my apartment and into the courtyard.

I didn’t look back.

As I rolled through the complex, the air seemed to shift. I could feel the presence of the shadows reaching out toward me, but I didn’t stop. I kept going until I reached the edge of the complex. And then, as I crossed into the street, the world fell silent.

The shimmering shapes around me faded, and the oppressive feeling of isolation lifted. In the distance, I saw a Dollar General, a small but tangible sign of life. I rolled towards it, the weight of the past year lifting from my shoulders.

As I sat at the bus stop, I finally let my body rest. Tears streamed down my face as I looked around at the world, at people who existed, at life that wasn’t scripted.

I was free. But as I looked back toward the complex, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it would never really be over.

That was the end of my escape. The rest of the world seemed normal again, but deep inside, I knew I would never fully leave what I had experienced behind. The truth had slipped through the cracks, and it would haunt me forever.

End!