Three Knocks
The flashlight on his phone, left propped up on the corner of the desk, illuminated the cheap plastic lighter.
Only two black handprints remained upon its surface.
"What the hell is this?"
No one answered.
Under normal circumstances, a stream chat would have been scrolling furiously down his screen, offering snark, memes, and wild theories. But the broadcast was already over. Inside the bedroom, Lee Do was entirely alone.
"...Fuck."
The weight of that isolation hit him harder than he expected.
In the convenience store, and again in the laundromat, the terror had been just as suffocating. Yet through both of those nightmares, hundreds—thousands—of people had been watching alongside him from the other side of the display. With the broadcast cut, however, there was no crowd to anchor him. He was on his own.
Lee Do glanced at his phone screen.
4:27 AM.
Should I turn the stream back on?
His thumb hovered over the streaming app, then halted.
"No."
This was his home. He couldn't fire up an anomaly investigation stream at four-thirty in the morning while his family slept soundly in the next rooms. More than that, he didn't even know what the hell he had just witnessed.
He turned his gaze back to the lighter.
He didn't want to touch it. Nor did he want to leave it sitting in plain sight. He had hurled it away, and it had somehow returned to his desk. If he threw it out again, what then?
"Will it just come back again?"
His muttered words dissipated into the stale air of the empty bedroom.
Without taking his eyes off the desk, Lee Do stepped backward toward the door. Reaching behind him, he gripped the knob.
Creak.
He pulled the door open a crack. The living room stretched out in pitch-black silence, quiet and still. He slipped out into the hall, leaving the bedroom door slightly ajar.
"Whew."
Collapsing onto the living room sofa, he unlocked his phone. He had no idea what his next move should be.
The police?
What would he even report? A lighter I threw away reappeared on my desk. It sparked to life on its own, and its shadow started moving like a living person?
"...They'd lock me up in a psych ward."
Yet the thought of stepping back into that bedroom turned his stomach. Left with no other outlet, Lee Do opened the streaming community forum. He navigated to his channel's board.
It was already in utter pandemonium.
Fresh threads flooded the page every few seconds. Lee Do stared at the scrolling titles in a daze.
"...Is this really my board?"
Before the convenience store broadcast, a single post on his board would sit with two or three comments from his regulars for hours before dying out. Now, nearly every handle was someone he had never seen before in his life.
He tapped on one of the top threads.
The post contained three images arranged side by side.
The first photograph showed the lighter right after he left the convenience store. Clean and unmarked.
The second was taken immediately after he escaped the laundromat. A faint, smudged black stain.
The third captured it after he arrived home. A sharp, distinct handprint.
The thread already had hundreds of replies.
"At least the last guy has some sense," Lee Do muttered. He closed the browser tab without reading further.
A soft groan echoed from down the hall.
The bedroom door he had left ajar was creeping inward. Slowly, deliberately, the wood pivoted on its hinges.
Creeeak.
With a faint click, the door latched completely shut.
Lee Do stood up from the sofa. The air conditioning was turned off. Every window in the apartment was sealed tight against the dawn humidity.
"What the hell..."
Muffling his steps, he crept back down the hallway until he stood directly before his door. He laid his palm against the cool metal knob. For a heartbeat, he hesitated. Then, taking a steady breath, he pushed it open.
Creak.
He clicked on his phone's flashlight and swept the beam across the room. Nothing had moved. The lighter still rested in the exact center of his desk, entirely undisturbed.
"Hah." Lee Do let out a ragged breath. "Trying to give me a heart attack..."
Click.
A small flame hissed to life on the lighter.
Lee Do froze, his fingers clamped rigid around the doorknob. The flame burned in eerie, soundless calm. Across the pale wallpaper, a shadow flared into existence—massive, towering, easily the size of a grown human being.
Yet this time, something was different.
"...What is it doing?"
The shadow wasn't facing Lee Do. Its silhouette was oriented toward the side wall next to the doorframe—specifically, the narrow gap of wall bordering the built-in wardrobe.
The shadow raised its arm. Very slowly, a single extended finger pointed directly at the wall.
Lee Do's eyes followed the trajectory of that pitch-black fingertip.
Click.
The lighter snapped shut, and the shadow vanished into the darkness as if it had never existed.
"What the hell were you pointing at?"
Lee Do directed his phone's beam at the spot, but found nothing unusual. The wallpaper surrounding the power outlet looked mundane, and the laminated wood of the wardrobe's side panel showed no abnormalities. Stepping closer, he pressed his palms flat against the wall, running his fingers across the seam. Nothing caught against his skin.
"What's the—"
Tap.
The sound broke the dead silence. Lee Do froze, his hand still pinned against the wallpaper.
Tap.
The knocking came unmistakably from inside the wall.
Tap.
Tap.
Someone on the other side was rapping their knuckles against the partition.
Lee Do recoiled, ripping his hand away from the plaster. "Hey!" he barked before he could stop himself.
Tap.
A single knock answered, as if acknowledging his voice.
Lee Do took a staggered step back. "...No way."
Beyond this wall wasn't the neighbor's unit, nor was it the public corridor outside. It was the internal cavity of the built-in wardrobe.
"Ah." Lee Do slowly turned his head toward the closet doors. "In there?"
Tap.
Once.
Lee Do stood rooted to the floor. After several seconds of agonizing stillness, he shook his head violently to shake off the encroaching madness.
"No way in hell."
He wasn't opening that door. This wasn't some cliché horror movie. Why would anyone in their right mind pry open a wardrobe that was knocking back at them?
"I don't care. I'm not even curious."
He pivoted to walk out of the room.
Tap, tap, tap.
Three rapid knocks.
"I said I don't care!"
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.
The knocking accelerated into a frenzied rhythm.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap!
The sound hammered from within the wardrobe, growing louder and more violent with every strike.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
"Hey, fuck!" Lee Do lunged forward, closing the distance to the closet. "You're going to wake my family!"
He seized the wardrobe handle, but stopped himself just before pulling. What am I doing? Someone was hammering on the inside of a sealed wardrobe, and his instinct was to fling it open to tell them to keep it down? Have I lost my goddamn mind?
He snatched his hand back.
SLAM!
The closet door shuddered violently on its tracks from a single massive impact from the inside. Lee Do stumbled back two paces.
Then, the noise abruptly ceased. Absolute, suffocating silence reclaimed the room.
Lee Do stared at the wardrobe panels. Ten seconds passed. Twenty seconds. Nothing stirred.
"...Is it over?"
The wardrobe door slid open a fraction of an inch.
Creak.
Lee Do backed away another two paces from the widening crack. Darkness pooled inside. Beneath several hanging shirts and jackets, something seemed to rest on the bottom shelf.
"What is that?"
He didn't step inside. Instead, he opened the camera on his phone, extended his arm forward, and angled the screen toward the interior. The display mirrored the closet's contents: familiar clothing, cardboard storage boxes, an old gym duffel. Everything looked perfectly ordinary.
He angled the lens deeper into the corners. Empty. With the toe of his slipper, he hooked the storage box near the entrance and dragged it out into the room. The space behind it was bare.
"There's nothing here..."
Click.
The sharp snap sounded directly behind his back.
Lee Do froze, his foot still resting against the displaced box. The lighter on the desk had sparked to life again. This time, he didn't turn around. The amber glow spilled across his shoulders and splashed against the back wall of the open wardrobe.
Two shadows stretched across the inner panel.
The first was his own.
And standing directly behind it, looming over his shoulder, was the dark silhouette of another human form.
"Fuck!"
Lee Do spun around, swinging his fists up. No one was standing by the desk. No one was lingering by the wardrobe. Just the desk, the lighter, and its solitary, upright flame. That was all.
He whipped his head back toward the closet. The second shadow was gone.
Click.
The flame extinguished.
Lee Do clenched his jaw until his teeth ached. "Are you fucking messing with me?"
The room offered no reply.
A scuffle of footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. Lee Do's head snapped toward the open doorframe. Standing in the doorway was his sister, Lee Ha-eun.
"Oppa, what are you doing?"
Her footsteps padded closer. "Wait," Lee Do said, rushing to the door and stepping into the hallway before she could glance past him.
"What?" Ha-eun blinked up at him with sleepy, puffy eyes. "What are you doing up?"
"Nothing."
"If you're doing nothing, why were you making all that noise?"
"...Sorry."
"Did you drop something?"
"Yeah."
Ha-eun craned her neck, trying to peer past his shoulder into the dark bedroom. "Drop what?"
"A dumbbell."
"A dumbbell at four in the morning?"
"Kicked it by accident."
Ha-eun tilted her head, her gaze narrowing with deep suspicion. "Oppa."
"What?"
"Are you hiding something in there?"
"No."
"Really?"
"Go back to sleep."
She maintained her skeptical glare for a few seconds longer before letting out an enormous yawn. "Hey," Lee Do called as she turned away.
"What now?"
"I'm gonna fire up a game, so lock your door and go to sleep. Don't come out, no matter what kind of sound you hear."
Ha-eun paused mid-yawn, staring at him as if he had grown a second head. "Can't you just put on earphones?"
"...Just lock your door and sleep."
"You're being seriously weird."
"Don't worry about it. Just go to bed."
"Fine, fine."
She shuffled back into her bedroom. The moment her door clicked shut, Lee Do exhaled a long, shuddering breath.
"Hah..."
He stared back into his own room. He genuinely, profoundly did not want to step back inside. He seriously weighed the option of curling up on the living room sofa for the night.
His phone vibrated in his palm.
Bzzzt.
Jumping at the sudden jolt, he glanced down at the illuminated screen.
"How the hell does she even know?" he muttered, tapping out a reply.
Lee Do let out an involuntary, humorless chuckle. He tapped the keyboard.
His fingers froze over the screen.
What could he even tell her? The lighter came back. It ignites on its own. Its shadow moves independently. And someone is knocking violently from inside my wardrobe.
He started typing the words, hesitated, and hit backspace until the box was clear.
He shut the screen off.
In the end, this was something he had to handle alone.
Steeling himself, Lee Do walked back into his bedroom. The lighter lay on the desk, precisely where it had been. Two black handprints. At least the count hadn't increased.
"First things first."
He slipped into the kitchen and returned moments later carrying a small stainless-steel cooking pot. Using a wad of tissue paper, he pinched the lighter by its edges, dropped it inside the pot, and firmly fitted the heavy glass lid over top.
"Stay right there."
If throwing it out only caused it to reappear somewhere unpredictable, he was far better off keeping it trapped where he could see it. He slid the pot to the far edge of the desk, dragged his desk chair over to the doorway, and sat down facing the room.
"...This is my own goddamn room."
He couldn't fathom why he was pulling sentry duty inside his own bedroom. Even during his military service, standing guard duty in the freezing dead of winter hadn't felt this miserable.
He checked his phone.
4:51 AM.
"I'm losing my mind."
Every shred of fatigue had vanished from his body. Giving up on sleep, Lee Do reached over and powered on his desktop computer. He figured playing a game might keep him sane until the morning sun came up. He logged into his account and reached for his headset, then paused and set it back down. He needed to keep his ears sharp.
He focused his attention on the game display.
For ten minutes, the pot remained utterly still.
Twenty minutes passed without the slightest disturbance. By the thirtieth minute, the routine of gameplay began to draw his focus, slowly leeching the coiled tension from his shoulders.
"Looks like it settled down."
5:24 AM.
Clink.
A tiny, sharp sound rattled from the desk. Lee Do snapped his eyes toward the pot. The metal vessel hadn't budged.
Clink.
This time, the noise came unmistakably from inside.
Lee Do lifted his hands from his keyboard and mouse.
Clink. Clink.
The glass lid began to tremble, vibrating against the stainless rim. Lee Do stood up from his chair. "What is it this time?"
He stepped closer, craning his neck to look through the clear lid. The lighter lay flat on the bottom, perfectly still.
Clatter!
The lighter violently jerked on its own accord. It threw itself against the pot's inner wall, ricocheted across to the opposite side, and bounced back into the center—thrashing like a frantic, trapped insect desperate to claw its way out.
"Hey," Lee Do growled, pressing his palm firmly down against the glass lid. "Knock it off."
Clink. Clink.
"As if you'd listen to me—"
The lighter stopped.
It went entirely, abruptly motionless.
Suspicious that it was a mere coincidence, Lee Do eased his palm off the lid, then pressed it down again. "You actually freeze when I tell you to?"
He pulled his hand back completely.
Click.
A flame erupted beneath the glass.
"Holy shit!"
The flame raged violently inside the sealed chamber, licking the underside of the lid. The instant Lee Do instinctively threw himself backward, the fire vanished.
A third handprint had appeared on the casing.
Lee Do reached toward the lid, then pulled his fingers back. "It grew another one..."
First. Second. Third. Three small, blackened handprints sat stamped in a neat, orderly row across the plastic body. Lee Do glared down at the cursed object.
"Why does it keep adding more?"
There was no rhyme or reason to it. One appeared after the laundromat. A second appeared after he tossed it into the gutter and it returned. And now, a third. He couldn't discern a single common trigger.
Pulling out his phone, he snapped a quick photograph. Click. Three handprints. He pulled up the gallery to compare it against the earlier snapshots. Side by side, there was no mistaking reality. It was ticking upward, one mark at a time.
Lee Do counted the silhouettes. "This isn't going to just keep multiplying, is it?"
His phone screen went dead.
The battery had been at seventy-eight percent. He jabbed the power button, clicking it repeatedly, but the black glass remained utterly unresponsive.
"What?"
The computer monitor abruptly clicked off with a hollow pop. A second later, the cooling fans ground to a halt, and the RGB lighting inside the desktop case cut out entirely.
Snap.
Every single electronic device in the room died at once.
"...A blackout?"
The room plunged into absolute, impenetrable darkness. The subtle, ever-present hum of electrical current that permeated the house vanished completely, leaving behind an unnatural, suffocating void of silence.
Staring blindly at the dead monitor, Lee Do took a slow step back from the desk.
Click.
The only light in the apartment sparked to life.
The lighter.
From deep inside the pot, a flame flared tall and steady, casting its yellow radiance through the domed glass lid. But this time, the flame did not project a single shadow.
Shadows erupted across every surface in the room.
The walls. The ceiling. The floorboards.
Long, distorted silhouettes stretched outward from the desk, twisting across the corners of the bedroom.
One. Two. Three.
Lee Do slowly turned his head, his eyes widening in the dim amber glow.
Three human shadows loomed over him from three completely separate directions. And without eyes, without faces, the attention of all three was fixed squarely upon him.
From deep within the open wardrobe:
Tap.
A single knock.
From the dark corridor just outside his bedroom door:
Tap.
A single knock.
And finally, from less than an inch behind Lee Do's ear:
Tap.
A single knock.
Lee Do couldn't move a single muscle.
Click.
The flame went out, and the world was swallowed whole by the dark.