He always told me he worked remotely. I think that’s what he said. It’s hard to keep track of details these days. But I see the light from his room, a pale line crawling under the door slit upstairs, whenever I wake in the dead of night.

My wife, Helen, was the one who spoke to him. "Such a polite man," she told me weeks ago, looking up from her crossword. "And his eyes, dear. A lovely hazel. They remind me of my grandfather's."

I suppose I’ve seen him. I have a vague image of a man in his thirties with a beard. He gets takeaway food. Or at least, the containers appear outside his door, always stacked, always unnaturally clean. It’s the little details that feel wrong, the ones that snag in your memory.

Like the sound that started last week. A single, sharp _tick_ from the ceiling, like a marble being dropped. Every ten seconds. Sometimes for hours. When I mentioned it to Helen, she just patted my hand. "It's the house settling, dear," she said, but her smile seemed... thin.

Then the ravens started appearing in her rose garden. One each morning for three days. Perfect, black, and still. I’m sure I threw the first one away. But the next day, there was another, and I can't be certain I remembered to dispose of that one. Helen, who once lived for that garden, hasn't mentioned them at all.

Last night, the ticking was gone. In its place was a heavy, violent _stomp_. The floorboards vibrated. It felt like something was trying to break through. Helen didn't stir—her earpiece lay on the lamp table. The silence from her side of the bed felt louder than the noise from above. I had to see.

The stomping continued as I climbed the stairs, a brutal pulse shaking the old house. A bright red light bled from under his door, pulsating with a sickening, silent beat. My heart hammered against my ribs. I knocked.

The sound stopped instantly.

The silence that followed was heavy, pressing in on me. I leaned my ear against the wood. Nothing. I knocked again, my knuckles rapping sharply.

A scream—not of pain, but of some terrible, ecstatic release—tore through the door.

I stumbled back. It wasn't just fear that hit me; it was a wave of filth that crashed directly into my mind. My vision fractured. I saw a flash of wilting roses, their petals curling into black ash. I saw a raven’s eye, cold and glassy. I saw my own hands, wrinkled and liver-spotted, digging into wet soil. The thoughts weren't mine, but they were in my head, a greasy whisper: _All things decay. Why wait?_

Just as I forced my legs to turn, I heard a new sound, soft and final.

_Click._

The lock.

Panic, pure and absolute, finally broke my paralysis. I scrambled away, pressing myself into a dark alcove at the top of the stairs, trying to will myself invisible. The air grew thick and dry, smelling of ozone and rot. The door handle turned with agonizing slowness.

It creaked open. The red light spilled out, casting a long, distorted shadow that seemed to writhe. A figure emerged, tall and slender. It was a woman. As she glided past my hiding spot, her head turned ever so slightly in my direction. I was certain she saw me. I saw her eyes, a flash of hazel in the crimson glow.

I waited, my breath trapped in my lungs, until she disappeared down the far end of the hall. I fled back to my room, locking the door behind me before collapsing onto the bed, the world dissolving into a vortex of black shapes.

The alarm on my watch was vibrating. 10:30 AM. The display said it had been snoozed five times.

The memory of the night felt slippery, like a half-forgotten dream. _Did I go upstairs at all?_ Helen wasn't in the bed.

I opened our bedroom door. The house was silent. Too silent. I always woke up first, but I usually heard her by now, the clatter of plates, the hiss of the kettle. I walked towards the kitchen, a cold dread solidifying in my chest.

She was standing there, her back to me, looking out at her rose garden. She was humming. A low, monotonous tune. The same tune I heard from upstairs.

"Honey?" I said, my voice a dry rasp. "Are you alright?"

She turned around slowly, a soft, serene smile on her face. A smile I hadn’t seen in weeks. "Never better, dear," she said.

And I saw her eyes. They were hazel.